Stroud Against Cuts has seen a letter from the head of the South West Strategic Health Authority which states that Cllr Gravells (then chair of the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee or HOSC) told the NHS bosses last summer that they didn’t need to bother consulting us in relation to the transfer of our hospitals, […]
Martin Horwood has left a long comment on this website in response to a blog posted in March, entitled “Martin Horwood gives cuts the thumbs up”. He makes a number of points (on the NHS, Unemployment, Taxation, Green Investment Bank, etc.). Our response to each is as follows. 1. Yes, cuts are necessary because we’ve […]
This coming Thursday, 28th July, is the day on which South West Strategic Health Authority will meet to approve plans for all services provided by Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust to LEAVE THE NHS on 1st October. Locally, qualified NHS staff will leave the NHS and transfer into a ‘social enterprise’. Although the government claimed this […]
At the Gloucestershire Health Debate (held on 18th May in Cheltenham), the private sector had representation on the panel in the form of Dr. Eduard Lotz, Executive Director of UK Specialist Hospitals South West. Dr. Lotz` area of responsibility includes the Shepton Mallet Treatment Centre which a recent report revealed has been paid almost £7 […]
It`s difficult for a right-wing government already implementing devastating cuts to libraries, youth services & other areas to sell those same devastating cuts to the public when the area in question is the much-treasured NHS. Therefore the more acceptable term “savings” has been used, sometimes sanitised still further as “efficiency savings”. The term “savings” is […]
The Gloucestershire Echo recently published an article by John Webster in which he argued that cuts were justified on grounds of the UK having a “structural deficit”. It’s a silly argument, and we’re grateful to the Echo for publishing our response in today’s paper. Since the letter won’t be available electronically for a few days, here it is […]
Councillor John Webster (LibDem), Cheltenham Borough Council`s Cabinet Member for Finance, has deigned to respond to one of our number. As usual he manages to be both incoherent and incorrect. Look out for this bit, where he includes his own party in his criticism: “None of the three main party’s (sic) have policies that address […]
In 2011 the NHS satisfaction levels were at ‘a record high’ – 64% of people either ‘very or quite satisfied’.(1) This has been the result of considerable investment in time, staff effort, loyalty and money; the NHS bill in 2010 was £110bn. Now, although NHS income is supposedly held constant in real terms(2), there are […]
A member of Cheltenham Against Cuts was amongst those who received an email from Councillor John Webster (the council’s Cabinet Member for Finance) today in which he informs us he won`t be standing for re-election next year. He writes: After two terms of office and having been a Cabinet member for 6 of those 8 […]
Cheltenham & Gloucester Against Cuts 