Lobby of Parliament 0n Tuesday 26th March
No Privatisation of the NHS
Act Now to Stop the Section 75 Regulations

Called by the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign and supported by NHS campaigners all over the country, a lobby of 300 protesters held a rally outside Parliament and held a packed meeting in a committee. room. The rally was backed by Unite the Union.

 Picture Andy Worthington

Andy Worthington, photographer and blogger comments:
‘On March 26, 2013, when hundreds of campaigners from across London and the rest of England converged on Parliament for a protest against the Tory-led coalition government’s attempts to subject almost the whole of the NHS to privatisation, I photographed this man, Danny, a former teacher who had recently heard about the campaign, with whom I spent some time talking as we queued up to get into the House of Commons, along with Anna, a campaigner from north London.
The demonstration outside Parliament was followed by a powerful and rousing meeting inside the House of Commons, featuring the Green MP Caroline Lucas, the Labour MPs Diane Abbott, John McDonnell and Heidi Alexander, and the Labour peer Philip Hunt (Baron Hunt of Kings Heath), and Dr. Brian Fisher, a GP from the London Borough of Lewisham, and a key player in the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign, seen below.’ For his full report click here.

Dr Brian Fisher                                             Caroline Lucas, MP for the Green Party
Pictures Andy Worthington
Click here to urgently write a letter to a Lord 

See video of rally and meeting from Stuart Monro below


 

To see Andy Worthington’s pictures click here or click to see slideshow at bottom of page
For the last month the Government have been trying to sneak through regulations (the fine details) to the Health and Social Care Act that will mean the  privatisation of the NHS.Despite giving repeated assurances they would not do this the drive for profit is greater than their commitment to promises made to us, the electorate. They were caught red-handed and after an amazing groundswell of opposition from all over the country the Government were pushed into re-writing the regulations. A small victory for us, but they are now back with the same wrecking ideas spruced up, cowardly repackaged and due to come in to force on April 1^st 

We are calling on all who support the NHS to defend the NHS as a public service and to urgently keep writing to Lords who are Liberals or cross-benchers.
Click here to urgently write a letter to a Lord 

We want to make sure that CCGs are not forced to use competition, but can decide for themselves whether they use NHS services or whether they choose to use private providers like Virgin or other international companies.

Andy Worthington photos see below