On the High Seas

by New Worker correspondent

Once again workers who man the Woolwich Ferry which has been taking people across the lower Thames since the 14th century are taking strike action. Two years ago they went on strike seeking a pay rise and over safety concerns when the new operators cut staff numbers and set new shift patterns after acquiring new ships.
      Last year the workers won a good deal when they won 100 per cent furlough pay from then operator Briggs Marine Contractors. Now the enemy is Transport for London (TfL). The cause of the latest action is the victimisation of a union rep. The lower Thames ferry’s 57 Unite the union members voted by 97 per cent on favour of eight days of strike action on Fridays and Mondays, this month and next.
     The Union say that the latest episode has been dubbed a ‘Groundhog Day’ dispute as the same problems keep coming up. Apart from the victimisation matter, workers are angry at TfL’s failure to agree a new pay and reward scheme; the excessive use of agency staff; and the failure to provide adequate health and safety training to new employees.
     Unite regional officer Onay Kasab sorrowfully said: “It is a sad indictment of the TfL bosses that they seem to be following the same course as Briggs Marine Contractors which meted out some appalling employment practices to the workforce in the recent past.
    “Our members have returned an overwhelming mandate for strike action at the Woolwich Ferry in support of their victimised shop steward and over a myriad of other employment issues.
     “Hopefully, the ballot result will be a light bulb moment for TfL and the management can get employment relations back on an even keel before strike action begins. To that end, Unite’s door is open 24/7 for constructive talks to resolve all the outstanding issues”. He concluded by warning that “The strikes will cause disruption to car drivers and foot passengers as ferry traffic picks up with commuters returning to their workplaces in the capital following the easing of lockdown.”

...and on dry land

In nearby Greenwich teachers at the John Roan School have taken strike action in defence of Kirstie Paton, a psychology teacher and National Education Union (NEU) rep who faces the sack for mentioning alleged improper use of Covid tests. They walked out just before a disciplinary hearing last Friday and will be balloting for further strike action.
     Her crime was to publish, in December last year, on the NEU Inner London Facebook page complaints about the school being used for pilot testing of Lateral Flow Tests (LFTs) for Covid-19. These tests, which were being supported by the Department for Education (DfE) were to be carried out by school staff. These tests have now been discontinued as they gave too many false negatives. The school was initially keen on LFTs serial testing to replace self-isolation protocols in its schools, but now the DfE has instructed schools not to use LFTs.
     The John Roan School is now one of the United Learning academies, Paton’s opposition to it becoming an academy has obviously not gone unremembered.
     The NEU say that they have been “left with no choice” but to defend their rep. Tim Woodcock, the NEU rep for Greenwich, said they had no choice but to defend their rep for speaking out, or else leave every other rep vulnerable and scared to speak out.
    "UL want to victimise Kirstie so they can intimidate staff into silence and deprive our members of an effective and dedicated union rep”.

Standing up to racism in Blackheath

 by New Worker correspondent

 Local campaigners took to the streets of south London this month to protest against racist and anti-semitic graffiti that had defaced local shop-fronts and trees. Around 130 people, including two Greenwich councillors and members of the local trades council, took part in the rally that at Bartley Park near the Royal Standard pub in Blackheath.

They made it clear that racism was not welcome in their community and their voices were joined by those of local Labour councillors including Greenwich council deputy leader David Gardner and councillor Ann-Marie Cousins.

NHS crisis: GPs to be packaged for sale and side-lined

 Dr Bob Gill, Anne Athow, Frances Hook and Dr Paul Hobday.

By Daphne Liddle

THREE campaigning doctors warned that imminent changes to the way general practitioner (GP) surgeries are organised threaten to destroy the traditional relationship between family doctors and their patients, and to package primary healthcare in this country ready for sale to giant corporations.

Retired GP Dr Paul Hobday, current GP Dr Bob Gill and retired surgeon Anne Athow were addressing a packed meeting last Friday evening in a community hall in Eltham, south London, organised by Greenwich Keep Our NHS Public.

GPs are currently being pressured to sign a new contract committing them to the new ‘NHS Long-Term Plan’, which sounds wonderful at first sight: all GP practices within a locality joining together with other health providers – dentists, pharmacists, podiatrists, mental health care providers, volunteer health workers and so on – to work together as a team to provide the best possible care for everyone living in that locality and using the latest new technology to do so.

These groupings will be called Primary Care Networks (PCNs), to become the vehicles for a ‘Directed Enhanced Service’ (DES). The word ‘directed’ gives a clue as to the real role of these giant bodies that will be responsible for the healthcare of up to 80,000 members of the public.

And the general direction, as dictated from above, will be to reduce drastically the numbers of hospital admissions, of visits to Accident and Emergency (A&E) units and to replace the role of doctors with a plethora of less qualified people.

People will no longer have a named GP they are registered with – already people are logged as being registered to a group practice rather than an individual doctor. Under the new plan, when someone is ill their first call will be answered by someone who does not know them, who has few if any medical skills and who will them re-direct the call to the ‘specialist’ they deem most appropriate. This could be a pharmacist, a nurse practitioner or a voluntary body such as Mind.

Only very serious and complicated cases will get through to real, qualified doctors – and then it will be a doctor they do not know and who does not know them. Their notes and case history will be available to the doctors but they will not have time to read them. Most of these interviews with patients will take place on Skype.

In fact, all the data about all the patients will be available to an army of strangers – including advertising and insurance companies.

Some patients will be expected to diagnose themselves using on-line questionnaires and then take the computer programme’s advice on caring for themselves.

Meanwhile the PCNs will operate ‘shared savings schemes’ that will allow doctors to benefit financially from reduced A&E admissions, attendances and other hospital admissions, and early unsafe discharges, as well as major cuts to outpatient appointments.

The contracts for joining the PCNs are currently being dished out by the current Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and GP practices have until 15th May to sign them – effectively signing themselves into redundancy. But even if they do not sign, their patient lists with all the data will be transferred to the new PCNs anyway. Practices will lose control of their budgets to the PCNs, which will become embryonic American-style integrated health companies ready for quick privatisation.

Anne Athow displays the document

The priority concern of these companies – and imposed on all their staff – will not the patients but the economic well-being of the company.

Doctors are under heavy pressure to sign these contracts and few have time to study the contents. Even fewer patients are aware of the impending changes.

Regrettably the British Medical Association (BMA) has endorsed the plans without a debate or vote on the issue. Other health unions have failed to raise a campaign against them, even though their members will find themselves downgraded, more exploited and often expected to make medical judgements beyond their training and competence and then carry the can for mistakes.

Dr Paul Hobday spoke of the early days of the NHS before the preparation for privatisation began in the late 1980s and ‘90s. GPs used to visit patients at home; they very rarely sent people to hospital but when they did, they sent them straight to the appropriate consultant – and knew which consultants NOT to send them to.

There were no long waits in A&E (Casualty, then) to be assessed by junior doctors who knew a lot less than the GPs about what that patient needed. There were no financial pressures then, the needs of the patient were the only priority.

In those days admin accounted for about four per cent of the NHS budget, compared with 17 per cent now; and the NHS was all about co-operation, not competition.

He described the current “salami slicing” of the NHS to the private sector and the growing demoralisation amongst health workers.

Under the new five-year plan GPs will no longer be able to be advocates for their patients, patients will have to travel further for treatments to anonymous hubs.

“The affluent will jump ship,” he said. He warned that the private sector will be out to milk those patients who can afford it – prescribing unnecessary but lucrative treatments, but “no cure for those who can’t afford it”.

He also warned that: “This is not a cock-up; it’s a plan.”

Anne Athow took the meeting through the documents the GPs are being pressured to sign, warning that this was part of the capitalist system and the only real answer is to get rid of that system.

Dr Bob Gill spoke of the effects of the downgrading of the Queens Mary Hospital near his GP practice. The hospital lost its maternity and A&E units, sold off for luxury housing development to resolve huge debts caused by PFI [private finance initiative]. He said this caused difficulty in referring his patients to hospitals within reasonable travelling distance.

He warned that the new plans would set up conflicts and rivalries amongst GP practices and hospitals trusts – based on money, not the best interests of the patients.

All the speakers urged the audience to contact their own GPs and warn against signing the documents and raising awareness of the impending changes generally.

But in discussion afterwards the speakers said that there was little optimism about achieving an effective campaign in the short time available.

One speaker from the floor suggested campaigning within the Labour Party and directly with Jeremy Corbyn to get the party to commit to reverse these changes once Labour is in power. This in itself would act as a deterrence to the giant companies hovering like vultures over the NHS and its GP practices.

News round-up

Greenwich battle of the books

LIBRARY workers in Greenwich began a 48-hours strike last Wednesday in protest at plans to cut the borough’s mobile library service.

The union Unite called the strike as Greenwich councillors ploughed ahead with plans to close the mobile service which delivers 33,000 books a year to children, an increase from the 22,000 books lent last year.

The union said that what is at stake is children’s literacy, the gateway to future employment, which is being jeopardised for a comparatively small annual saving of £126,000; although the council has £320 million stashed away in reserves.

Unite regional officer Onay Kasab said: “Literacy is a fundamental human right and anything that erodes that life chance should be strongly opposed. Good reading skills are the key to decent employment in adulthood – so the blinkered actions of the council need to be condemned.”

Backing Bromley holds council to account

A COMMUNITY group in the London borough of Bromley, calling itself “Backing Bromley”, was launched on Wednesday to “tackle councillors’ failings”.

Backing Bromley raised around 1,200 protest signs on Wednesday. The signs warned that residents are “no longer prepared to accept elected leaders falling short of their responsibilities to the young, the old and the vulnerable”.

Cray Valley resident David Christian said: “Backing Bromley is being launched so residents can come together to hold the council to account over its failures and we will be making our presence felt.

“We want our council to succeed but believe its leaders should be more responsive to us, the people of Bromley.

“The leader of the council, Stephen Carr and the deputy leader Colin Smith will no longer be able to rest on their laurels while old, young and vulnerable are let down because a new group is here to stand up for Bromley.”

Residents from Bromley Common and Keston, Bickley, Chelsfield and Pratts Bottom, Chislehurst, Copers Cope, Cray Valley West, Farnborough and Crofton, Hayes and Coney Hall, Plaistow and Sundridge wards have all joined to form the new group.

They complain of a “catalogue of failures” by councillors, with concerns over the treatment of whistle-blowers, school places, parental support for disabled children and the quality of care homes.

• Backing Bromley