All Together for the NHS

The Government is imposing huge changes on the NHS. These plans – set out in the Health and Social Care Bill currently going through Parliament – will change our National Health Service beyond recognition.

The speed and scale of these changes is massive. Patients and staff will be the losers. They will mean big cuts in health spending.

Before the election David Cameron said: "I will cut the deficit, not the NHS" yet the cost of this reorganisation could be up to £3 billion. At the same time the government is demanding £20 billion in "efficiency savings" which only ministers believe can be achieved without affecting patients. This is being taken from patient care and leading to job losses (including clinical staff) across the NHS. Waiting times are already on the increase.

• Opening up the NHS to private profit. The Health Bill opens up the prospect of far more NHS services being organised and delivered by private companies. Taxpayers’ money destined for NHS patients will be diverted into shareholder profits.
• NHS patients will be pushed to the back of the queue. The Bill takes the cap off the amount hospitals can earn from private patients – so NHS patients risk being pushed to the back of the queue for care.
• It means competition, not co-operation. The Government wants to run the NHS through competition between different health providers and market forces. Bureaucracy, lawyers and contracts will replace co-operation and joint planning.
• It will create a huge postcode lottery. Under the proposals, the care patients can expect will vary from place to place, increasing costs and health inequalities and hurting vulnerable people the most.
• No-one voted for this: before the election we were told there would be no more top-down reorganisations of the NHS. Now the health service faces the biggest upheaval since its creation – so big that NHS Chief Executive David Nicholson said they could be “seen from space”.
• The NHS is working: Public satisfaction with the NHS is at an all-time high. Doctors, nurses, midwives, support staff, patients groups and more have all spoken out about the dangers of these changes.

All Together for the NHS is a joint campaign co-ordinated by the TUC, bringing together unions and campaigners from across the health sector.