tional Health Service?
The IMG calls for an immediate cash injection of £1,000 million; for a sliding scale of social expenditure; for the opening of the books; for the immediate banning of all private practice, inside and outside the NHS; for a workers' enquiry; for abortion on demand, freely available on the NHS; and the nationalisation of the drugs industry under workers control These demands were adopted at the conference held in London last October organised by the Medical Committee Against Private Practice. A number of these demands were also contained in the resolution carried at the 1975 Labour Party Conference — a resolution moved by NUPE. Unions like ASTMS and NALGO have also gone on record for many of these proposals.
The IMG says that we should organise all those forces in the labour movement who want to fight the cuts inside the health service. The support that the MCAPP conference got (there were 395 elected delegates present) and the wide sponsorship for this weekend's demonstration shows that there is potentially a big movement that can be brought into action against the Labour Government's cuts. Over three million votes were cast at the Labour Party Conference against the Government's policies, and those delegates supported most of the demands outlined above.
2Why do you think these demands are so important? AN IMMEDIATE CASH INJECTION OF £1,000 MILLION is urgently needed to stop the appalling decline that is taking place inside the NHS, which now stands on the brink of complete collapse. It is vital that new hospitals are built, new equipment is bought, that far more staff are recruited and that all staff's wages and conditions are drastically improved.
If money is not put into the NHS now then the health service will continue to deteriorate and the necessary improvements will be ruled out.
A SLIDING SCALE OF SOCIAL EXPENDITURE is needed on top of this to compensate for the effects of inflation. Next year total NHS spending is budgeted to increase by 10 per cent. But with inflation running at around 15—20 per cent this will in tact mean another big cut in the real income of the health service.
In real terms capital spending on new hospitals and facilities for the NHS was cut by 28 percent between 1972 and 1977. Only by guaranteeing the NHS against inflation - by putting extra money into the NHS to compensate for every penny rise in the cost of running the service — will it be possible to maintain the necessary standards.
To defend the standard of treatment given now would furthermore require not just protection against rising prices but increases in expenditure to keep pace with the rising demands for treatment. A more genuinely comprehensive health service would further increase demands for treatment, and money has to be D32EA SERL GGLE FOR HEALT PAMPHLET No. 4 IMG PUBLICATIONS 15p New IMG pamphlet, price 15p plus 8p p&p from Red Books, 97 Caledonian Road, London N.1. available to meet that demand if health standards and health care are really to be improved.
OPENING OF THE BOOKS is also vital. Whilst it is true that the books of the NHS are allegedly open and available for inspection, what we mean by this demand is the ending of all secret plans and negotiations behind the backs of the working class between the Government and the hospital administrations, etc.
The National Coordinating Committee Against Cuts in the NHS (NCC) have uncovered a number of documents revealing secret Government plans for massive hospital closures. All this information should be made available by right to health workers and the rest of the working class, because they are the people affected by these plans.
This means that the state and the medical profession would have to suomit any plans to une workers movement before they were allowed to go ahead with them. Plans for centralisation into larger hospitals, the closure of smaller hospitals, the building of community health centres, and budgets for new equipment and staff would all have to go before elected committees of the workforce, who would have an absolute right of veto over any aspect of any plan.
Only by having access to all information and only by having the right to decide in what way resources shall be used can the democratic rights of the working class be guaranteed. Unless they exercise their control over the health service the health care of working people will be subordinated to the needs of private industry and its custodian, the capItalist state.
THE BANNING OF ALL PRIVATE PRACTICE, INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE NHS is necessary to stop the present drain on the resources of the NHS. Inside the health service it uses NHS equipment and staff. Outside the NHS it attracts staff and money away from an already depleted health service.
All private health care facilities outside the NHS must be taken over and brought into the NHS compensation must be paid. Because the NHS is so inadequate a growing number of working people are already putting their money into private health schemes. another way in which the Government shifts the burden of the capitalist crisis onto the individual, and leads in the direction of a two-tier As long as people have the right to buy better meccar care and the 'right' to jump the queue it is not possible to develop a genuinely socialist health service. sector justifies the sordid practice of exploiting the social needs of people for capitalist gain, because medical care is hawked around like any other capitalist commodity and sold to the highest bidder. MCAPP Conference votes for sliding scale; open the books; workers enquiry focus the attention of the whole Wing under attack from a Labour for the capitalist crisis. movement has to set up its own Commission. sion possible. devoted to research into diseases women - and of course there is a No This is simply anoth A private A WORKERS' ENQUIRY can working class on the need to defend and extend the health service. The NHS is short of funds. It does not have enough staff, equipment and facilities. At the same time it is comGovernment which intends to run it down even further in order to pay This constitutes a massive attack on the working class. The lives and health of all workers are in danger.
The workers movement cannot afford to leave the future of the NHS to some Royal Commission set up by the capitalist state. The job of the Royal Commission is to justify the present cuts and produce reasons for making even more. The labour enquiry in opposition to the Royal An enquiry is needed, based on ical protession. the whole trade union and labour movement, which will set itself the task of determining the health needs of the working class. This means an enquiry which will determine how to begin building new hospitals, training more staff and providing more equipment. It will also have to discuss where the funds will come from to make such a programme of expan Evidence for such an enquiry must be collected from all the organisations of the working class. Really to improve the NHS it will also be necessary to have more out-patient abortion facilities, more money must be and ailments which specifically effect need for more nursery facilities for both patients and staff. In order to ensure that these needs are met, such an enquiry must involve organisations from the women's movement.
A workers' enquiry would have to enlist the support and collaboration of socialist health workers. Such people can play an essential role in preparing a plan in consultation with other trade union members that chal lenges the capitalist basis of the med. ical care that is now practised in the NHS. They can also help to prepare and work for a real alternative to the present domination and monopoly of knowledge exercised by the medAt local level the threat of any cuts should be met not only with resistance Dy une workers movement but also with the setting up of local workers' enquiries. These can be used to demonstrate to trade unionists and the whole of the community what the real priorities are Such enquiries can give clear and precise examples of how resources are aramed away because local autu orities are paying exorbitant interest rates on loans, which depletes the budgets of the essential social services. Enquiries can also bring right to the fore the decisive question - who shall decide, the capitalist state or the working class.
insist that they be set up on the chris Davies (Report)
Believe it or not, this is the same hospital: de luxe breakfast service for the rich, decline and disintegration in the public ward basis of the above demands? No. We say that the basis of all committees should be an agreed opposition to all the cuts in the N It would be sectarian and divisive tell some trade union militant wh wants to fight against the closure a hospital that they cannot join b cause they do not agree with all o demands. The task is to mobilise the biggest possible forces in the workers movement to resist and f back against every attempt of the Labour Government to attack the However, the IMG does insist tl a successful fight against the cuts means taking up these demands. Such demands offer the only prac tical way to fight attacks on the 1 In any committee or organisatior that is set up to fight the cuts, we will fight for the adoption of this programme and try to win people over to fight for these demands.
You mentioned the Labou Party Conference resolution earlier. Surely you realise th the Labour Government has intention of implementing it The carrying of such a resolution only the first step. Clearly it wou be crazy to sit back and expect th Labour Cabinet to put it into pra tice when they are busy sabotagin
y 22 April 1976 Health Cuts 7
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CRISIS IN THE THE SOCIALIST SOLUTION ACTICE NOV 2 ;
3 When committees are set up to fight the cuts, does the IMG