Case study - Nottingham

Nottingham Unites Against NHS Job Losses and Bed Closures

Senior physiotherapist, Nicole Glassey brought her daughter to her first protest March to help save jobs in the trust.Staff, Patients and Supporters of the NHS joined forces on Saturday 23 rd September attending and marching to the rally to protest at the proposed 1200 job cuts and the closure of 190 beds at Nottingham’s University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUHT). The March, organised by Unison and the RCN, received massive support from not only the other major healthcare unions including the CSP but also the National Union of Teachers and the National Union of Students.

Over 2000 people turned out to show their anger at the government’s demands for the Trust to balance its £60M deficit by next April resulting in job freezes, bed closures and redundancies.

Physiotherapists from both the acute hospital’s trust, neighbouring PCTs and University of Nottingham Physiotherapy lecturers joined the protest and added their voice to those of the nurses, doctors, medical secretaries and other allied health professionals facing job losses as a result of the NHS cuts.

Mary Banks, a physiotherapist from the Queens Medical Centre said, “Morale is at an all time low; staff are so stretched covering the vacancy freezes that patients are no longer getting the service they deserve”.

The Saturday morning traffic was temporarily grounded as the mile long procession wound its way through Nottingham city centre, the motorists showing their support as the March past them, blasting their horns and joining in the shouts of: “Beds not bombs”, “Save our services”, “Keep the NHS working” and “Patients need Physios”.

Speakers at the rally included Andy Belfield, Unison East Midlands Head of Health, whose emotive speech highlighted the issues around these cuts and questioned, “Why can we bomb Iraq but can’t fund our health service – what kind of world are we living in”?

Respiratory patients and staff on the March are disgusted at the proposal to close Southwell Ward, an acute respiratory ward at Nottingham City Hospital. This included 65 year old asthma sufferer, Bruce Lakin who attended the March and Rally to offer his support. The pensioner snuck into the tightly controlled question and answer session with Patricia Hewitt when she visited Nottingham City Hospital, confronting her as to why she was getting rid of dedicated nurses however he received no reassurance, in fact he was told that the remaining nurses will be able to provide the same level of care.

Staff were disheartened by Ms Hewitt’s comments claiming the financial circumstances were the fault of the hospital and that they must sort the situation out themselves. When asked by a demonstrating staff-side member outside if she would lengthen the time the trust had to pay back the debt, Ms Hewitt said she would seriously discuss the possibility with the hospital management but in an interview with TV news crews later the same day she categorically stated she would not give anymore time for the debt to be paid.

As part of the campaign, Unison is trying to get as many petition signatures as possible so they may be presented at the national lobby of parliament on the 1 st November.

Andy Belfield reminded us that this time last year no-one believed we could win the battle on pensions but with major campaigning we succeeded. “We need to push hard again and convince the Government that we need more time and resources to balance the books, the NHS is not adverse to change to improve services and make savings however these take time and planning”.

The campaign is still continuing with renewed vigour and the unions are working together to put pressure on the Government to save our NHS. More details can be found at www.nhstogether.org.uk.

Michael Pearson, Trent Regional Steward.

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