NHS Physios on Strike: 'F**ck praise, we need a raise'

Physiotherapists are the latest group of NHS workers taking strike action in the cost of living crisis. Their strike on 26 January 2023 was well supported at South London Hospitals. I visited the picket line at Guys Hospital:

'if you're happy to exploit NHS workers and you know it clap your hands'

 'F**ck praise, we need a raise'

Pickets were also out at St Thomas' and Lewisham Hospital

St Thomas' Hospital - photo by @EmilyAHickson on twitter
 

Lewisham picket (photo from @aminamangera1 on twitter)

 

The first all out nurses strike in London (?): Maudsley Hospital 1988

Striking nurses are in the news, a rare occasion but not unique. There was a wave of nurses strikes in Britain in 1988, starting with a one day walkout at North Manchester Hospital in January and spreading to hospitals in London and elsewhere. Nurses at the Maudsley Hospital in Denmark Hill were the first to strike in London, walking out for the day on 2 February 1988 a day ahead of a national day of action which saw strikes and protests in many places.

Above and below - pickets at the Maudsley on 2 February 1988

Militant, 5 February 1988

 

 The day of action on 3rd February included a march called by London hospital strike committees which was blocked by police in Whitehall with four arrests. I remember the demo moving to block the traffic on Westminster Bridge.  

Two weeks later on the 16th February there was a further day of action in London in which 12,000 hospital workers took part.  The day ended up with several hundred marching to the town hall in Brixton for a rally. Nurses at the Maudsley again went on strike.

Guardian, 17/2/1988

Another day of action on 14th March saw London bus crews, dockers, miners and others taking unofficial action in support of NHS workers. I was working at Lambeth Council at the time and some of us marched to join the protests outside the Maudsley Hospital and Kings Hospital on the other side of the road. I think it was on this day that I took these two rather poor pictures!

'we care, do you?- Kings Hospital, 1988

Pickets in the rain outside the Maudsley

Guardian, 15 March 1988

 It was very much a rank and file led movement with nurses at individual hospitals organising one day strikes and days of action with limited support from national unions. Nurses were divided between three unions- NUPE (National Union of Public Employees), COHSE (Confederation of Health Service Employees) and the Royal College of Nursing. The RCN was opposed to action, though many of its members argued at the time for it to change its no strike policy; the leaderships of the other unions were decidedly lukewarm. The TUC did call a big demonstration in support of the health service on 5th March, with a crowd of up to 100,000 in Hyde Park, though some angry nurses tried to storm the stage to speak as no health workers had been invited to address the crowd

The movement was largely successful. The Government had been planning to offer a 3% pay rise and was also intending to scrap national pay bargaining. In the event a new clinical grading structure resulted in average pay increases of 15%.

Concerns about whether the pay rises would actually be implemented led to another walk out at the Maudsley in September. This was one of the the first indefinite strikes by nurses in Britain, lasting for 12 days from 5 September 1988. 

Guardian, 6 September 1988

'Maudsley Hospital Nurses Strike... the strike is aimed at forcing the government to honour its promise made in May of this year to fully fund the new Clinical Grading system'

'COHSE Maudsley 898 Branch Strike Bulletin - A massive vote of congratulations to all those COHSE members who have contributed to making the first week of the (first ever) indefinite strike by Nurses such a huge success... The sunny weather and generous donations from passers by on Denmark Hill have confirmed that the public (and God!) are behind our struggle to get nurses the rewards they deserve to protect patient services from Tory policies'

As with all strikes in the NHS, workers did not simply abandon patients. As detailed above there was an agreement in place for strikers to provide cover in emergencies or if there was 'a dangerously high proportion of staff who do not know the ward'

 [update - as stated above, the Maudsley workers believed they were the first ever nurses to stage an indefinite strike, and this was how the strike was reported at the time. However Michael Walker at the COHSE history blog records an earlier indefinite strike at Tooting Bec Hospital in 1975. That lasted for two days, so the Maudsley strikers were certainly setting some kind of record with their 12 day walkout- at the very least the first nurses strike to last continuously for more than a week]

Lewisham health visiting threatened by Jeremy Hunt's cuts

Health visiting and school nursing services are facing cuts in Lewisham as a result of a £4.7 million reduction in the public health grant that the Council receives from central government. Lewisham Council is consulting on how it will make these cuts (consultation here - closes 14 August), and local NHS campaigners Save Lewisham Hospital have started a petition opposing the cuts. They say:

'What some of us might not know (or have forgotten) is just how essential children's community nurses and health visitors are. Children's services are not some non-essential, 'cuttable' part of the local health service. They are central to protecting our most vulnerable children from disease and neglect. They provide the bulk of our safeguarding and public health commitments, from cradle to adulthood. It is not the place of Lewisham Council to take these services away from the next generation, it is their duty to demand they are adequately funded. Please, for the skilled staff, vulnerable children and community, sign this petition, once again, demand to Save NHS Services in Lewisham, and keep your eyes peeled for any actions or demonstrations we may announce. At a time when the government and NHS England are stressing the importance of preventative and community services: WE THE UNDERSIGNED OPPOSE THESE CUTS AND URGE THE COUNCIL NOT TO ACCEPT THEM AND TO DEMAND THE RESTORATION OF AN ADEQUATE PUBLIC HEALTH GRANT FROM CENTRAL GOVERNMENT'.

Right as they are to oppose these reductions, I can't help feel they are falling into a Government trap by addressing this solely to the Mayor of Lewisham, Steve Bullock. Until last year the responsibility for commissioning (i.e. funding) of health visiting was managed within the NHS - which meant that the  buck stopped ultimately with the Minister for Health. The transfer of this responsibility to local Councils from 1 October 2015 was promoted as offering 'service sustainability' and 'maximum benefit for local people'. But no sooner did this transfer happen than local authorities were told that the funding for these services was being reduced, with Department of Health announcing cuts in November 2015.

In effect in many areas, Councils have been given responsibility for a service that currently costs x million and then given x million minus a big cut to fund it - all at a time when Councils are struggling to maintain services they were already responsible for. Cleverly, the blame for this can now be laid at the door of local authorities so that Jeremy Hunt can now say, 'well if you don't like it, blame the Council'. So yes, lobby Lewisham but also lets look beyond the local at the bigger picture of Department of Health cuts of £200m to the public health grant that are threatening health visiting and other community health services across the country.


 

NHS 'Bursary or Bust' Protest

Student nurses, midwives and associated health professionals marched in London today against Government plans to scrap bursaries for NHS students and replace them with loans. Protestors sat down and blocked Waterloo Bridge during the demonstration

Outside St Thomas Hospital
(photo from @LondonNurse2015)

Sit down on Waterloo Bridge (photo @NHAparty)

Waterloo Bridge (@LondonNurse2015)

Bexley, Bromley and Greenwich National Health Action Party banner
(photo from @cambsmeridian)

Speakers include Vivienne Westwood:

photo from :@TheUniPaper

Unison says that 'the net result will be

- Student nurses, midwives and other vital NHS staff graduating with nearly £50,000 worth of debt.

- Fewer potential health workers entering training due to the burden of debt (especially when the starting salary for many of them is relatively low).

- That in turn will lead to universities being worse off (as fewer students take their nursing courses) and potentially even the end of some nursing courses altogether.

- And rather than this cut saving money (as the government claims), few health workers will repay the entirety of their student debt over the course of their working lives – and the burden of additional agency staff (and overseas recruitment costs), thanks to a continued and worsening nursing shortage, means this ham-fisted attempt to save money will end up costing the taxpayer more money'.

Junior Doctors Strike - it's not all about the money

photo from Dr Tony O'Sullivan on twitter

Pickets were out at hospitals across the country yesterday - and will be again today - in the 4th strike in the ongoing Junior Doctors dispute.  In South East London that included Lewisham Hospital (pictured above) and Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich. Simon Pirani, who was at Woolwich, has sent us this report:

'Junior doctors picketed Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich this morning in protest at the Tory government’s attempt to impose a new contract. Together with local supporters (including me) they formed a group of about 20 at the main gate. Patients on their way in to appointments wished them well; drivers honked and waved.

 

Women doctors on the picket line were especially incensed at the results of an equality impact assessment, released by the government last week, which show that the new contracts will disproportionately disadvantage women. They were also angry about the way that the contract terms discriminate against junior doctors working part-time – many of whom are women with children.

 

The pickets hope that the threat of all-out strike action, on 26-27 April, will persuade the government to back down from imposing the contract ... or at least to put it out for consultative review.

 

My impression was that the junior doctors’ dispute has almost nothing to do with the level of pay. These are people who spend up to 15 years training for a demanding (and ultimately well paid) profession. They already work all the shifts that god sends, and have to move hospitals regularly. It is the way that the contract is being rammed through – and the way that it takes unsocial hours working for granted – that infuriates them.

 

Anger is also generated by the government’s dictatorial handling of negotiations with the BMA, its insulting propaganda (“extra deaths at the weekends” and all those lies) and its bullying demeanour. On top of that, the new contract is obviously part of a long continuum of changes aimed at trashing the NHS as a publicly-provided service and making it a privatised business.

 

The pickets will be at QEH again on Tuesday 26 April, at 8.0 am, when they will be on all-out strike. Please join them'.

 

Striking junior doctors in Woolwich

 

Mental Health Services: cuts to CAMHS and meeting in New Cross

Interesting article in the Guardian this week on the difficulty children have getting help from NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. The focus is on Childeric Primary School in SE14: 

'In every classroom in Childeric primary school in New Cross, south-east London, there is a world map stuck to the wall. Ranged around the continents are pictures of every child in the class, with a coloured string leading to their country of origin.

Some have recently arrived in the country, others are new to the area, and during the course of a year a significant number will leave and more will arrive. Many live in temporary accommodation, sometimes entire families in a single room in a hostel, and there is a high rate of mobility at the school. The atmosphere is calm, happy and orderly, but there’s an undertow of profound need – not obvious during a brief visit – that affects a significant number of the children and their ability to learn. Their distress plays out in class, lessons are disrupted and learning stops. Ideally Childeric would be able to refer the most distressed pupils to child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs).

“We work very well with Lewisham Camhs,” says Ann Butcher, the headteacher at Childeric. “The challenge for us is there’s a very high threshold for children and families to access these services. If we are concerned about a child’s mental health we would make a referral straight to Camhs but we very often are told ‘this does not reach the threshold’. We know there are some mental health issues, and we are not always equipped to deal with it.

“At the moment we have two children attending Camhs. But there’s probably three or four children in each class [making about 60 in the school] who I think need some kind of support because of their mental health issues.”

It is a familiar story as overstretched NHS mental health services for children struggle to meet demand in the face of well-documented cutbacks that have seen thresholds for being seen by Camhs go up, waiting lists lengthen, and children turned away' (Sally Weale, Schools trying to help children shut out by mental health services, Guardian, 27 January 2016)

Mental Health Resistance Network

Children who don't get help with emerging mental health issues can grown up to have life long difficulties. At the adult service end, the Mental Health Resistance Network is a survivors group fighting against cuts in benefits and services.  They are holding an event tonight in Queens Road:

'As part of a rolling programme of MHRN events every last Friday of the month at the Field,  a homely independent community space between Peckham and New Cross, we present the screening of the film "SELL OFF" and a talk by campaigning doctor BOB GILL followed by discussion. Refreshments and convivial company provided!'

Dr Gill, a GP based in Welling, was active in the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign and has stood an election candidate for the NHS Action Party.

6 pm - 10 pm,  The  Field, 385 Queens Road, New Cross, SE14 (admission free)

Junior Doctors Strike in South London

There was good support across South London for today's strike by Junior Doctors against proposed new contract conditions.

Pickets at Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell photo from Unite the Resistance on twitter

Guys Hospital

St Thomas Hospital - photo by @laurafleur on twitter

Croydon University Hospital - photo from @ger_ogara on twitter

Lewisham Hospital - photo from @Allan_Katie on twitter

If you want to know more about the reasons for the strike and why doctors believe that they are not just fighting for their terms and conditions but for patient safety and for the NHS itself, check out the video from The Guardian filmed at Lewisham earlier today.

Save Lewisham Hospital Conference

Well we might have saved Lewisham Hospital from closure of key services and downgrading in 2013, but NHS services everywhere are under threat from funding cuts and more. Next month Save Lewisham Hospital campaign is holding a conference at Goldsmiths in New Cross. They say:

'Why is our NHS under threat and what can we do to defend it?

Our NHS is under threat as never before: hospitals, GPs, mental health services are all struggling due to underfunding and lack of staff. Devastating social care cuts add to the pressures. Privatisation is causing worse care and wasting resources.

The NHS faces £billions of cuts annuallly. 60% of hospitals are in deficit, made worse by extortionate PFI debts. Many hospitals around the country are under threat of closure. NHS staff morale is low, with pay cuts and longer anti-social hours. The NHS, one of the best health care systems in the world, is being underfunded and broken up, and Tory politicians are claiming it’s unsustainable and calling for charges and more privatisation.

But we can fight back. From junior doctors to the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign and other campaigns around the country, it’s clear that we don’t just have to accept what is happening to the NHS.

Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign is organising a day of talks and discussions aimed at helping us understand better the threats facing the NHS.

Speakers:

Heidi Alexander, Shadow Health Minister and East Lewisham MP (will open the conference)

John Lister,London Health Emergency

Dr Gurjinder Sandhu, Ealing Hospital

Dr John O’Donohue, Lewisham Hospital

A Junior Doctor (person TBC)

Anne Drinkell, Community matron, West London

Dr Brian Fisher, Lewisham GP

Jane Mandlik, Lewisham Pensioners' Forum and Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign

Peter Roderick, Lawyer, Drafter of NHS Reinstatement Bill

Saturday, 5 December 2015 from 10:30 to 16:00, Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre, Goldsmiths University, Lewisham Way. New Cross SE14 6NW'

Register here