Who We Are

Service must come before profit:

Doctors who care about the NHS

That describes us in a nutshell. We’ve been around for over 30 years. We’ve achieved a lot in that time (for example, the NHS Support Federation produces detailed analyses on changes affecting the NHS, and we regularly fund it).

But then things started to happen which made us decide we needed to change. The Health and Social Care Act (2012) was the latest in a long (and to our mind ignoble) line of legal steps which undermined the founding principles of the NHS. The increasing fragmentation of the NHS concerns all doctors. There are over 700 members nationally – and we want more to join us.

Key members of our Executive Committee (which consists of 21 members and meets bi-monthly) are detailed below.

Mr Colin Hutchinson – Chair, DFNHS

DFNHS Chair Mr Colin Hutchinson, with Albert Promenade, Halifax, in the background

Colin is a retired Consultant Ophthalmologist. He graduated from Cambridge University School of Clinical Medicine in 1979, having enrolled in the school’s founding year. He held training posts in Norwich, Cambridge, Glasgow, Leeds, Bradford and Aberdeen, before being appointed Consultant in Aberdeen for 8 years. He re-located to West Yorkshire in 1995, for a mixture of family and professional reasons, and was Consultant in Halifax and Huddersfield until retiring in 2015. Colin was Clinical Director of Head and Neck Services for 10 years. He specialised in corneal transplantation and ophthalmic plastic surgery and led the skin cancer team for many years.

Colin believes strongly that access to high quality, personalised healthcare is a basic human right and should not be regarded as a commodity.

He is enjoying his retirement. He has been active in campaigning against the degradation of local health services, which has got involved him in local politics, and he was one of the claimants in a Judicial Review, challenging the lawfulness of Accountable Care Organisations, alongside Profs. Stephen Hawking, Allyson Pollock, Sue Richards and Dr Graham Winyard. He is also currently a local Councillor (Labour).

Colin can be contacted by phone on 0796 332 3082 or by email: [email protected]

Dr Peter Trewby – Treasurer, DFNHS

Peter trained at Cambridge University and St George’s Hospital. After junior posts in London he moved to Darlington as a consultant gastroenterologist and general physician, a post he occupied for 30 years before becoming an Acute Physician. He has been Royal College of Physicians Regional Advisor, CME adviser and Censor, and national and international MRCP examiner. His work with international graduates in the UK resulted in the BAPIO award for services to International Graduates. He has retired from clinical work but is President of the Association of North of England Physicians (ANEP), and RCP Associate International Director for International Graduates.

He is passionate about the NHS, believing that wherever possible local services should be available for local people and that the benefits of specialist tertiary centres are often exaggerated. He believes that the goodwill and altruism of doctors is at least as important in ensuring the delivery of equitable, high-quality healthcare for all as the often politically driven management structures and imperatives.

Dr Andrea Franks – Executive Committee member

Dr Andrea Franks

Andrea grew up in Sheffield. She graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge, and did her clinical studies in Oxford. Posts in various mainly medical specialties (Bath, Oxford, Cardiff, medical registrar at the London Hospital), then started part-time dermatology in London after the birth of the first of three children. She spent 5 years in New Zealand: a year in Auckland during part of husband Roger’s training, a paediatric cardiothoracic surgeon and also a member of DFNHS, and 4 years in Wellington where he was a consultant. Both then returned to Liverpool, where they still live. Andrea was appointed as consultant dermatologist in Chester in 1996.

She joined NHSCA (now DFNHS) about 12 years ago (she can’t remember when exactly!) and she has been an active member of Keep Our NHS Public Merseyside for about 9 years.

Andrea could not face looking back after the destruction of the NHS and knowing she had not even tried to save it.

YOU

Any organisation relies on the individuals who join it. They can achieve so much more than anyone can acting alone. So:

Join us

If you care about the NHS.
If you believe every effective treatment should be free at the point of delivery.
If you believe the NHS should be democratically accountable at all levels.
If you see the separation into purchaser and provider as completely inappropriate.
If you grow alarmed with the increasing pressures put on staff in the name of ‘efficiency’.
If you see the breaking apart of the NHS as fundamentally wrong.
If you believe that it is your patients and colleagues who are going to continue to suffer because of all this.

Please…join us. Talk to us. Be with us. We know there are many colleagues who are as frustrated and as deeply concerned as we are. We are asking you to join us, and give the NHS the future it deserves.

Make a difference – join us now.

Alan Taman – Media and communications contact

DFNHS Communications Manager Alan Taman; the backdrop is Birmingham’s Grand Central

We employ Alan Taman as our Communications Manager (part time).

He has many years’ experience as a health journalist and has worked in the NHS as a senior communications manager. He has also campaigned for standards in health journalism and public relations. He holds a Masters degree (MA in health journalism, Coventry), researching the ethics of public relations in the NHS, and his first degree was in biochemistry (King’s, London). He received his editorial training on the British Medical Journal.

He was involved with the Campaign for the NHS (Reinstatement) Bill 2015, and he also worked part time for Keep Our NHS Public, which we support. As well as media work (DFNHS is regularly contacted by national media), Alan develops our social media and printed communications, including our quarterly newsletter which goes out to all members. He sits on our National Executive as a non-voting member.

Alan can be contacted by e-mail ([email protected]) or by phone (07870 757 309) at any time.