NHS: Victory for Opponents of STPs

TUSC recognises that organisations campaigning against attacks on the NHS can celebrate an important success in preventing almost £1billion of cuts to the NHS on Merseyside under the grotesque Tory misnomer of the Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs).

Several hundred NHS supporters lobbied the Health and Wellbeing Board on Thursday 1 December at which Chairman Joe Anderson declared the Liverpool City Council’s total opposition to this plan of the Tories to dismantle the NHS in the region and to hand out more contracts to their friends in the private sector.

Mayor Anderson was also asked to give a commitment to oppose the closure of the Women’s Hospital which he did. There was also a call for the Mayor to organise a national assembly of councils to collectively oppose the latest Tory plans to wreck the NHS. This decision represents a step forward by the campaigns to Keep Our NHS Public and to oppose the closure of the Women’s Hospital.

But everybody campaigning against the Tories are fully aware that this fat cats’ government will press on with their attacks on the NHS and on the poor and needy. That’s why TUSC supports the Liverpool TUC in calling on all organisations defending the NHS and opposing Austerity to come together to discuss the next stage of the struggle.

Tony Mulhearn

ARMS NW