Campaigners picketed outside Southport hospital this morning, and are pledging to continue their bi-weekly protests while the threat of NHS privatisation remains.
Protestors regularly organise alternating weekly pickets in Southport and Ormskirk, weather permitting, and say that the threat of NHS privatisation is very real, even within the services offered locally.
Billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Care took over control of a number of community and urgent care services in West Lancs in 2017, including the Urgent Care Centre at Ormskirk Hospital.
The group pointed out that 70 GP surgeries in the England are now owned by American Insurance giant Centene, whose motto is ‘Better health outcomes at lower costs’.
Judith Wright told OTS News: “Under cover of covid, the privatisation of the NHS has got much worse. It’s all about cutting the cost of healthcare. Austerity has completely undermined the NHS. We’re 44,000 nurses short. 10,000 doctors short. It’s because of the terrible pay and terrible conditions. It’s why we’ve had a Winter crisis.
“Then of course Test, Track & Trace is outsourced to Serco. Anyone who has any knowledge of public health and infection control will tell you, the only way to control infections, pandemics, epidemics, is to test people within their local communities. The local public health teams were completely sidelined.
The group also said that Southport geographical position towards the top of the Cheshire and Merseyside integrated care system, with no catchment area above, puts healthcare in Southport at long term risk of being moved towards South Sefton or out to West Lancashire. In addition, the two main hospitals of the Southport & Ormskirk NHS Trust had been placed in different integrated care systems.
NHS England says that: “Integrated care systems (ICSs) are new partnerships between the organisations that meet health and care needs across an area, to coordinate services and to plan in a way that improves population health and reduces inequalities between different groups.”
Linda Heap said: “A company’s sole purpose is to make profit, so increasing the role of private companies in the NHS takes taxpayers money away from the running of the service. What’s worse is we’re now seeing the contracted conditions of NHS workers being changed, so that companies profit from the workers, while being able to say that no money is being taken out of the NHS. It’s outrageous.
“The Government has been underfunding the NHS. To prepare for sale it’s underfunded, levels of service are reduced and then they can say ‘oh this doesn’t work, we’ll have to sell it off to the private sector’.
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