News shared by Christine Lightbody on behalf of IoW Save Our NHS. Ed
The Isle of Wight Conservative MP, Bob Seely, has refused constituents’ calls to vote against the contentious Health and Care Bill when it comes back to the House of Commons for its third reading on Tuesday November 23rd.
On 29th October, Isle of Wight residents Christine Lightbody and Lorna Trollope met the MP after sending him a hand embroidered handkerchief with the message “Don’t Blow it! Kill the Health and Care Bill before it kills us,” together with a letter signed by almost 600 constituents explaining that the Bill is not fit for the 21st century NHS.
This is because the Health and Care Bill would:
- restrict patients’ access to NHS care,
- create unsafe working conditions for NHS staff, and
- only benefit big business.
Lightbody: He said he will vote for the Bill
Christine Lightbody, an admin of IoW Save Our NHS, which campaigns to keep local NHS services on the Island, said,
“We were dismayed to find that Bob Seely was completely unreceptive to the reasons why constituents are asking him to vote against the Health and Care Bill at its third reading.
“He didn’t seem to know or care about the damage that the Bill would do to the NHS and to his constituents who rely on it – both for health care, and for employment.
“He said he will vote for the Bill when it comes back to the House of Commons, even though that means he’ll be voting to make it harder for his constituents to get NHS care.
“Because it’s a Bill to cut NHS costs and capacity.
“It will force those who can afford it, to go private. While those who can’t, will have to make do with a bare-bones NHS. That means in many cases they will go without access to vital health care.
“Among many other damaging measures, it will normalise the ‘discharge to assess’ process introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic. A decade of cuts means there are no longer enough hospital beds or staff, so hospital patients are being sent home before a care package has been sorted out for them.
“In the USA, this is known as ‘patient dumping’ and we believe it’s already happening on the Isle of Wight!
“We don’t want to compromise patient confidentiality by giving examples, but some Isle of Wight patients have recently been discharged from hospital to inadequate care and their families are still trying to get a proper care assessment.
“Our MP didn’t want to listen and just seemed to want to defend the government’s record on the NHS. That was all he seemed to care about – not the existential threat to the NHS from this new Bill.
“Our belief is that he was in denial about the NHS funding cuts, privatisation and the related ‘new care models’ that successive governments have imposed since the bankers’ crash in 2008, that this Bill aims to set in stone.”
Open letter from constituents
Members of IoW Save our NHS collected constituents’ signatures to the open letter to Bob Seely at a handful of street stalls held over two weeks, and online.
Across the country, over 400 MPs from all the mainstream political parties have also received the same open letter from constituents.
National campaign fronted by Stephen Fry
As public concern is mounting over the damage to the NHS that the Health and Care Bill would create, a new national campaign fronted by Stephen Fry has launched.
‘Your NHS needs you’ is a movement to stop the Health Bill and renationalise the NHS. There are five simple actions that the public can take to support the campaign.
Public health experts are sounding the alarm
As IoW Save our NHS has told Bob Seely, Your NHS Needs You warns that:
“Public health experts are sounding the alarm that the current Health and Care Bill is likely to be the final nail in the coffin for our public health service.
“They are warning that the Bill will pave the way for the English NHS to be replaced by the profit-driven American system, in which private health providers are incentivised to cut and deny care to increase profits.”
Image: © Jan Welsh
