Notice of intention to seek judicial review served on Hunt
Co -author of the NHS Reinstatement Bill (with Peter Roderick) Professor Allyson Pollock, Dr Colin Hutchinson, Professor Sue Richards and Dr Graham Winyard, have written to the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt. They have given him notice of their intention to seek a judicial review to stop NHS England from introducing new commercial, non-NHS bodies to run health and social services without proper public consultation and without full Parliamentary scrutiny.
They have been working with Harrison Grant Solicitors and Nigel Pleming QC to argue that introducing new commercial, non-NHS bodies (ACOs) to run health and social care services without proper public consultation and without full Parliamentary scrutiny would be unlawful.
Professor Allyson Pollock writes:
These non-NHS bodies, known as Accountable Care Organisations (ACOs), originate in the US.
ACOs will fundamentally change the NHS and involve a radical reorganisation of health and social services in England. They will have control over the allocation of NHS and taxpayers’ money. Their accountability for spending it and their obligations to the public will be under commercial contracts, not statutes.
This is a critical time in the move to the privatisation and americanisation of the NHS in England. It’s going to be a big fight and we need everybody to help. It will be expensive so, please consider donating towards the cost of the judicial review when the crowd justice site goes live Friday November 3 at 8am. It is critical that we reach our funding targets for the case to proceed.
Please do all you can to spread the word to your family , friends and neighbours and colleagues and send this link on. [updated to Phase 2 8.12.17]
ACOs are one of the main mechanisms for implementing the policies Professor Stephen Hawking criticised last August. See this Guardian article, or our post on Hunt vs Hawking .
This is a crucial moment in these further moves to embed privatisation in geographical structures and further weaken the NHS in England. This is a tough battle we have to support – they will need all the financial help they can get, alongside the political support of campaigners.
Support the fight by donating here – #JR4NHS
[updated to Phase 2 link 8.12.17]
We, the public need to do something to save our NHS
What is the best way of waking the public up to this? Could Keep Our NHS public use donations to a TV campaign highlighting the issues where public money is going to private business and not for health service staff, medicine, treatment or equipment. All people see is failure when those in the service are stretched to breaking point. Keep the NHS public!!
Keep Our NHS Public doesn’t have that kind of money sadly! But do help us, join us as an individual member and find our nearest local group to you. Thanks