Alfred Williams Heritage Society

An Alfred Williams Heritage Society is being launched in Swindon on December 8^th at 7.00 p.m. In Swindon Central Library. The Society has been set up with the motivation of popularising his writing, putting it on a website, and finding a home for a permanent exhibition and collection of his work, manuscripts, letters etc. The Society has made an application to the Lottery for a grant to organise a two day festival in November of next year, which is the 80^th anniversary of Alfred’s death.

Its website can be visited at: www.alfredwilliams.org.uk

Foundation Trust AGM

I attended a session of the Swindon & Marlborough NHS Foundation Trust AGM last night. The FT was launched at the end of last year as part of the government “health market” in which “independent” Trusts compete with each other, and private companies, for patients. The Chair of the Trust and the Chief Executive spoke of “difficult times ahead”, expecting cutbacks in funding. They thought, however, that there were advantages in FT status, the most important of which, they said, is that they are accountable to us as members rather than to NHS bureaucrats. “Difficult decisions” would have to be made, but would be done “in consultation with our governors and our members”.

Social Care – a public service or a commodity

On Monday I attended an event organised by LINKS, the Local Involvement Network which the government says have been launched “to give communities a stronger voice in how their health and social care services are delivered”. The subject of the meeting was ‘The Big Care Debate’, a government consultation on the future of social care. The consultation is premised on the idea that given the rising age profile of the population ’something must be done’ or else ‘we’ won’t be able to afford to provide it.

California’s real death panels

The religious right and Republican opposition to health care reform in the USA has used propaganda which has little traction with reality. One of their assertions has been that health-care reform would mean ‘death panels’ deciding on whether old people can live. The irony is lost on them since the current system, dominated by the insurance companies does operate a sort of death panel, although one without any discussion.

Lobby of Swindon Council

These hardy souls above braved heavy downpours to lobby the Swindon Council in opposition to transfer of our Council houses to a Housing Association. There is another row at the back of shy and retiring types not visible owing to the angle of the shot and their flagrant refusal of the photographer’s instructions to move forward.

The good news was that the Council’s ruling Tory group agreed to withdraw their motion (to ballot tenants for transfer of the town’s Council Housing) until they can examine the details of the government’s consultation on a new Housing system. For analysis of this see Swindon TUC’s website at:

http://swindontuc.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/swindon-tuc-breifing-government-consultation-on-new-housing-finance-system/

With friends like these…

Iran is a country in which the USA and Britain have a history of interference. It’s history was shaped by the overthrow of the Mossadeq government which had the audacity to nationalise Iranian oil. He was removed in a coup in 1953 supported and funded by the US and British governments. The price of this coup was paid by the Iranian people with the brutal regime of the Shah. One of the consequences of this dictatorial regime, with a complete absence of any freedom to organise, was the use of the mosque as a focus and a cover for opposition in the absence of any democratic framework for the struggle for democratic rights. In that sense Britain and the US share responsibility for the fact that Khomeini and the clerical regime emerged from the revolution of 1979 as a ruling elite.

Keep Our NHS Public AGM

Saturday I attended the AGM of Keep Our NHS Public. One of the issues which was discussed was the possibility of KONP standing candidates in elections. This debate elicited the response from a representative of UNITE (which is an affiliate and financial supporter of KONP) that if it did take such a step then the union would have to withdraw its support from the campaign. The issue will be discussed by the Steering Committee this week.

Paying the private sector for NHS work it hasn’t done!

The Health Service Journal reports that the first independent treatment centre to complete a five year contract will have delivered about 20 per cent less work than it was paid for. South African company Netcare’s contract to provide mobile cataract surgery ends on 31 May and is not being renewed.

The £42m contract was for 44,735 procedures. By the end of May Netcare expects to have done just over 36,000 – or just 81 per cent. The NHS will be paying them around £8 million for work not done.

It’s difficult to know whether such a contract is the result of incompetence or the government’s desire to encourage private companies into the “health market”. In contrast NHS organisations have been penalised for carrying out “too much” work, being paid less money for each activity. This reflects the fact that the new “health market” is designed as if they were producing commodities. However, patients do not chose to become ill.

The national MRI scanning contract also comes to an end in July. The Department of Health says more than 431,000 scans have been performed under the contract. HSJ calculates this will mean around 100,000 scans will have been paid for and not used by the end of the contract, which is thought to have cost around £95m for 560,000 scans over five years.

For all the talk of the government abandoning neo-liberalism, it has not shown any sign of moving away from privatisation. Indeed, the DoH has recently produced a document which sets out “a new commercial operating model”. To drive this and increase competition “regional commercial support units” will be set up to “stimulate the market”. They “wish to maximise the contribution of third and private sector organisations”.

Under-employment as well as unemployment on the rise

Everybody is aware of the a steep rise in unemployment. The latest figure shows 2.2 million out of work; 7.1% of the workforce. However, the TUC has highlighted what might be described as under-employment: people who want full-time employment being forced to take part-time work because that is all they can get.

It appears that one in nine people in part-time work are in this situation (11.2%). There are 829,000 ‘involuntary part-timers’. One in five men working part-time are doing so because they cannot get a full-time job; double the level for women. Twenty seven percent of vacancies in job centers are for 16 hours or less.

The recession if hitting young people particularly hard. The unemployment rate for 18-24 year olds has now reached 15.1%. There are 438,000 young people claiming job seekers allowance.

In January 2008, vacancies were 43% of the number of unemployed (ILO unemployed). This has now fallen so that in January 2009, vacancies were 24% of the unemployed and in March.

Acute beds in hospitals cut by 10% in three years

The latest issue of ‘Pulse’ magazine reports that NHS hospitals have cut acute beds by 10% in just three years “as managers pile pressure on GPs to manage complex cases in the community”. The figures have been released in response to a Parliamentary question.