There are two local NHS issues that really reflect the national picture - that the NHS is currently being mismanaged, underfunded and increasingly privatised.

These NHS news items show how important it is to keep campaigning and to keep speaking out - focusing on the NHS founding principles of a publically run, managed and accountable NHS.

NHS Pay dispute: what is happening?
NHS workers iin GMB, RCN and UNISON have voted overwhelmingly to reject the insulting pay award of 3%. (UNITE have extended their indicative ballot to the 3rd October. So, if you're a UNITE member, there is still time to vote). 

This resounding 'NO' vote means that these unions will now be balloting staff for their views on industrial action. Sussex Defend the NHS supports these actions and the positive implications they also have for patient safety and recruitment of staff. 

We have been able to support several unions 'days of action' and will be ready again. Check our social media if you'd like to join in.

Our local NHS: what is happening?
You may have seen in the press that local hospital doctors have written a very strong and damning letter to their Trust Chief Executive and Board. (The newly formed University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust). The NHS staff claim that some care is unsafe, staff are utterly burnout and that the management is uncaring and incompetent. They ask for some services to be provided elsewhere.

We believe that staff must be under intolerable pressure to have to whistleblow in this way. We also believe this completely reflects the national picture - the NHS is being pushed into this crisis, started many years ago but laid bare by the Covid 19 pandemic. Even before the pandemic, there was underfunding, there was privatisation, there was 100,000 staff vacancies, there was undermining of core values. All these issues are now much worse. 

And this is not the only thing where national failings are played out in local services. (and where campaigning is beginning to make a difference). We have discussed Integrated Care Systems (ICS's), and the current Health Bill (the bill that is making enabling legislation for the ICS to be legal), several times. 

Our ICS - the Sussex Health and Care partnership - have produced a document stating that at least 14 services are 'fragile and challenged'. The Health Service Journal (behind paywall) reports:
"The services on the list, put together by Sussex Health and Care Partnership, were: maternity; major trauma; cancer; paediatrics; stroke; diagnostics; musculoskeletal/orthopaedics; ear, nose and throat; cardiology; ophthalmology; dermatology; burns; sleep; and critical care for adults." It's not sounding great...but reflects the national picture and the growing opposition to both ICS's and the Health & Care Bill. 

This is also an area where our collective campaigning is haveing an effect - you may have seen the very recent announcements that people (and perhaps companies) with private healthcare interests will not be able to sit on local Integrated Care Boards. Whilst showing that camapigning does work, these piecemeal amendments are not nearly enough - the whole ICS programme and the Health & Care Bill should be scrapped.

We have raised the issue of racism in BSUH (now University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust) before...but want to talk about Dr Vivienne Lyfar-Cisse again. It's sometimes not helpful to single out individuals when we want to talk about institutional or structural racism - but Vivienne has a national profile, she is the chair of the National NHS BME Network and she is now taking her case to the European Court of Human Rights. You can read more about her case on Vivienne's crowdfunding site. Sussex Defend the NHS support Vivienne in her quest to clear her name and achieve justice following her (unfair) dismissal. 

The NHS Pay Review Body has recommended that NHS workers get a 3% pay rise this year (from March 2021). This is, of course, an insulting pay offer - below inflation and coming on top of more than a decade of similar below inflation rises or pay freezes.

All the main NHS unions are instructing their members to reject this paltry offer and have begun indicative ballots (do you support or reject the pay offer).

Check our Press Release, and look out for us on Latest TV and Radio Sussex! ​
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC2Na6EycSI

Sussex Defend the NHS is out on the streets in the next few weeks supporting health workers in their campaign for a decent pay rise. Next they will be outside the Royal Sussex County Hospital at 11am on August 17th joining a demonstration and ballot-signing organised by the GMB and the campaign NHSPayJustice.
 
Clare Jones, a local NHS nurse UNITE staff rep.*, says “A below-inflation pay rise is an insult for NHS workers. I am pleased that the unions are working together and saying ‘Not good enough’ to the Government.”
 
After a long delay the government have offered a derisory 3% which all of the major health unions say is totally inadequate.  It will mean less than the Real Living Wage (£9.50ph) for the lowest paid, and it’s less than the rise in the cost of housing, food and travel to work. It will widen the pay gap within the workforce, and keeping wages so low will mean disaster for recruiting and for retaining staff. 
 
Louise, a local mental health nurse in UNISON, says “I am voting to reject the offer and I’m prepared to strike; I’m encouraging my colleagues to do the same.”
 
Kelly, a registered nurse from Brighton and GMB activist**, explained why she and her union are sticking out for 15%: “ We have faced a decade of austerity so another real- terms pay cut is just rubbing salt into the wound for staff. This year it’s actually less than a 1% pay rise in real terms after 4% predicted inflation, and we’ve already seen a 20% pay cut since 2010. Also the NHS is chronically understaffed and this 3% offer isn’t enough to persuade overworked current staff to stay, let alone recruit the new workers we desperately need.”
 
Sussex Defend the NHS sees this offer as insulting, and part of the government’s efforts to undermine and privatise the NHS. It has used the pandemic as an excuse to speed up the process, wasting huge amounts of public money keeping private hospitals afloat, and funding an unworkable Track and Trace system. Instead, it should be fully funding the NHS including a 15% wages to its staff.

We wholeheartedly support Dr Vivienne Lyfar-Cissé and other members of the BME network in BSUHT, fighting tirelessly to expose racial inequality and institutional racism in Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust.

We condemn the Trust senior management who have spent £100s of 1000s to quash the legal actions of Dr Lyfar-Cisséand and others to intimidate them into silence. 

Here is Vivienne's personal statement re her campaign:
"Since 2004 Dr Vivienne Lyfar-Cissé has dedicated considerable energy on working on her own behalf and with and for others to challenging institutional racism in Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust and the NHS more generally. Her determined stance (as one of two black women in a senior position) in the furtherance of full racial equality in the Trust systematically made her a target for senior management. This resulted in a number of successful and unsuccessful Employment Tribunal claims for racial discrimination and victimisation over the years.
On 1 April 2017 Ms Marianne Griffiths was appointed Chief Executive of the then Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust and by June 2017 she had dismissed Dr Lyfar-Cissé, based on the outcome of a disciplinary against Dr Lyfar-Cissé some 6 months before her appointment. Both the disciplinary and dismissal charges gave rise to Employment Tribunal claims, which are now the subject of a claim before the European Court of Human Rights, because of the Tribunal’s violations of Dr Lyfar-Cissé’s right to a fair trial.
Dr Lyfar-Cissé has by way of her crowdfund appeal, to cover her legal costs and expenses, set out for the first time her position as to matters that are currently in the public domain in the hope that this will encourage people to support her fight for justice".
http://www.justiceforvivienne.org/  

Sussex Defend the NHS statement: 
"In all the years Sussex Defend the NHS has known and worked with Dr Lyfar-Cissé and other members of the BME network in BSUHT they have been fighting tirelessly to expose racial inequality and institutional racism in Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust. The BME Network under the leadership of Dr Lyfar-Cisse, has done this with little thought for their own interests. Over a period of several years, successive trust managements have tried to suppress the Network and individual members, intimidating them with threats of disciplinary action, but have been successfully fought off. 
That is until the new Trust management, led by CEO Marianne Griffiths, took over on 1 April 2017. Determined to quash the BME Network and silence dissent - three senior black members of staff, including two black medical consultants, were dismissed within 6 months. Dr Lyfar-Cissé was herself dismissed on 28th June, 2017, on trumped-up charges, and has been fighting through employment tribunals and courts ever since to clear her name, and obtain redress for her unjust treatment at the hands of the CEO and the senior trust management.
We wholeheartedly support her latest brave action in pursuit of her right to a legally valid and unprejudiced trial and justice, taking on the UK government via legal proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights. We will do all in our power to support her and very much hope other campaigns, groups and organisations will do the same". 

Alongside many NHS campaigners, we are calling for the complete halt of ICS's. The new NHS Bill is due to be law later this year (the White Paper was in Feb).  At the time we talked about how this would increase privatisation, put profits before patients and generally undermine the principles of the NHS. We are not ones to say 'we told you so', but these things are happening now before the necessary changes have even become law. GP practices have been taken over by US insurance giant Centene, a massive grab & sale of our health data ** is planned and we may see Dido Harding as the head of NHSE/I. 
Keep our NHS Public has produced some great information about the implications of ICS, and they also have a petition. We will be distributing their leaflets - get in touch on our email if you'd like to be involved in this. And lobby your MP. The delay of both the data grab and the Police bill show that public protest and outcry, as well as targeted legal action, are working.