Demand #1: Radically democratised health and social care: run by us, for us

The government had no political mandate, no public support and no professional backing from NHS workers when it passed the Health and Social CareAct 2012. There was no consultation, referendum or even much cross-partysupport. All that was evident was the government’s enthusiastic ambition to help  private healthcare firms to make more money - as evidenced by the long list of ministers, Lords and MPs holding roles, stocks and shares in corporate entities set to benefit from healthcare privatisation. Despite years of under-funding, dodgy PFI initiatives and other disastrous policies, the NHS is still rated as the world’s best healthcare system in terms of quality of care and value for money (the US insurance-based model comes last). The government is privatising our health and social care services with no good reason and without our permission.

We don’t just want to repeal the bill. Reversing the damage recently inflicted on our over-burdened services is only the start. The NHS and social care services were always works in progress, essential but imperfect. But top-down reorganisation, sneaking privatisation, and the emptiness of ‘choice’ and ‘competition’ are not the answer. They’re a product of the orthodoxy of late or ‘neoliberal’ capitalism, which prescribes the shifting of services to the private sector in the name of efficiency, and a system that allows and encourages an attitude of fundamental disinterest by politicians in the people that they are supposed to represent.

Radical democratisation is needed: we demand health and social care services controlled by and for the people, designed and managed in consultation with the real experts – the patients, porters, nurses, doctors, social workers and allied health professionals who know the reality of the job, the service and making it work.

Plan C supports the recent collective action by workers in the NHS and social care services and wants to help to intensify this struggle and win these demands. Their working conditions are our conditions of care.


Members of Plan C MCR

3rd March 2015


We’re not the only group campaigning around these issues – here’s an incomplete list of allies (if we’ve missed people out, feel free to reblog and add more):

http://www.keepournhspublic.com/index.php

http://www.nhscampaign.org/about.html

http://999callfornhs.org.uk/

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/efforts/save-our-nhs/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Doncaster-Supported-Living-Unison-Strike/1465854936976109

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demands uk election 2015 demand the future nhs democracy health and social care health care future luxury communism

Mar 03, 2015
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    This is the first of 50 demands in the run up to the General Election, I’d recommend following this tumblr. This is an...
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