CAMPAIGNERS have warned that voting alone will not save the National Health Service from becoming increasingly privatised.

At a public meeting at Stroud’s Old Town Hall on Monday night members of Stroud Against The Cuts outlined their concerns about the future of the NHS.

Chairman of SATC James Beecher, NHS health worker Hannah Basson, Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts candidate Chris Moore and Green district Cllr Caroline Molloy addressed questions on the sustainability of the NHS.

Ms Basson said: “Don’t get too possessive of the NHS.

“You used to own most of the services provided by the NHS but every time a contract is handed to a social enterprise or a charity or a for profit company you lose a bit more.”


Cllr Molloy said that in her research she kept coming back to the critical point that: “The government no longer has a duty to provide us with a comprehensive health service.

“The main legal duty is gone.”

She was commenting on section one of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 which removed the duty of the secretary of state for health to secure and provide comprehensive health care for all.

Because of this marketisation of the NHS more health services are being put out to tender with private companies taking up the role providing services but this is problematic.

As Mr Beecher explained: “The private sector is not interested in delivering all of the NHS services.

“They are not interested in the A&E. They cherry pick the services they perform and they choose what they hope will be profitable which undermines our NHS.”

Cllr Molloy stressed: “Until we restore the duty to provide comprehensive health this is only going to get worse.”

Mr Moore called for people to save “our precious NHS” in “a battle for the NHS and a battle against austerity”.

The group made five demands: for staff to be paid a minimum wage of £10; to back the 1:4 Campaign for mandatory minimum staffing ratios; for private finance initiatives to be scrapped; to get rid of the internal market and to dispose of Trident to be able to pay for the NHS.