Newsletter – July 2016

KONP held our AGM on the 16th July in London. Thank you to all of you who came and participated in a very constructive and positive day. We had some excellent discussions on NHS England's pernicious Sustainability and Transformation Plans, as well as utilising social media more effectively, and a very informative talk by Colin Leys on the important recent research of the Centre for Health and Public Interest. If you would like to find out about what happened there is a record of the motions and our strategy paper on the website here.

KONP made the decision at the AGM to campaign with others who are calling for additional funding for the NHS. This is a hugely important issue and KONP needs to be at the forefront of campaigning against the imposition of cuts that are designed to set the NHS up to fail. There is a very useful article on this in the new issue of the Health Campaigns Together newspaper written by John Lister here (PDF).

KONP is currently attempting to recruit celebrity patrons. If you know, or have the contact details of anyone suitable please contact Terry Tallis at [email protected].

We are still trying to build up our funding to enable to us to campaign more aggressively at this crucial time. Please follow this link to donate, https://keepournhspublic.com/donate/ Setting up a regular monthly donation instead of a one off makes a great difference. Please also share this with anyone you know who might be interested in supporting our campaign.

We are also looking for a volunteer (who is not a KONP officer) to help with our accounts audit. There is no need to be professionally qualified, though some financial experience is required. If you are someone with the relevant skills and would consider helping us please send a brief CV to [email protected]

Health Campaigns Together is holding a conference on STP on Saturday September 17 in Birmingham. More details on the HCT website. You can also book directly with Eventbrite.

Finally, issue 3 of the HCT newspaper, as well as 5 Things Doctor Need to Know lealfets, updated STP leaflets and the PDF of the HCT STP event leaflet are all available to order here.

Theresa May deliberated and decided to reappoint Jeremy Hunt as Secretary of State for Health. Junior doctors are very angry as this seems to signal a decision to continue with confrontation, and the imposition of the JD contract.

This comes against a background of The House of Commons Health Select Committee accusing Jeremy Hunt of misleading the public about how much is being spent on the NHS. As well as challenging the realistic viability of Simon Stevens NHS funding plans altogether. This Guardian article explains how the Government are playing with the figures to hide the true extent of cuts to the NHS.

There is a video of the Health Select Committee at work here.