[Tuesday 5 April 2016]
Doctors for the NHS, which has campaigned against the privatisation of the NHS since its formation as the NHS Consultants’ Association in the seventies, is continuing to back the junior doctors in their fight against the new contract.
DFNHS is determined to support all doctors in training as they fight against the contract with renewed strike action for 48 hours on Wednesday (6 April), and members will be joining their colleagues on picket lines up and down the country – unless, of course, they are a consultant and so are choosing to support their juniors by working at their hospitals to cover for their colleagues as they defend themselves.
Dr Eric Watts is a consultant haematologist and Chair of DFNHS:
“Junior doctors are the specialists of tomorrow. It is in the interests of patient safety that they have decent working conditions, and dialogues with their employers. We support them in their work to achieve this.”
[Ends]
Editor’s Notes
Doctors for the NHS (DFNHS) was formed in March 2015 by the NHS Consultants’ Association re-naming itself and asking GPs and medical trainees to join. It has the explicit aim of countering marketisation [1,2] of the NHS by gathering the already impressive evidence (eg, on health funding – see OECD figures below); pointing to its ill effects on NHS services and founding principles; and campaigning widely to stop then repair the damage http://premier-pharmacy.com/product/cymbalta/ before it is too late and cannot be reversed.
DFNHS’s press officer is Alan Taman:
07870 757 309
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Doctors4NHS
Facebook: DoctorsForTheNHS
OECD expenditure figures
These figures give the lie to the arguments that we can’t afford a publicly funded NHS as other countries spend more public money on health services than we do.
We are 15th overall in total spend and 13th in public spending USA and 11 European countries spend more
[1] Davis, J., Lister, J. and Wrigely, D. (2015) NHS For Sale. London: Merlin Press.
Leys, C. and Player, S. (2011) The Plot Against the NHS. Pontypool: Merlin
Lister, J. (2008) The NHS After 60: For Patients or Profits? London: Middlesex University Press
Owen, D. (2014) The Health of the Nation: The NHS in Peril. York: Methuen, Chapter 4.
Player, S. (2013) ‘Ready for market’. In NHS SOS ed by Davis, J. and Tallis, R. London: Oneworld, pp.38-61.
[2] The belief that ‘competition is always best’ does not work when applied to healthcare. A comprehensive and universal health service is best funded by public donation, which has been shown to be far more efficient overall than private-insurance healthcare models
[Davis, J., Lister, J. and Wrigley, D. (2015) NHS For Sale. London: Merlin Press. Chapters 2 and 8.
Lister, J. (2013) Health Policy Reform: global health versus private profit. Libri: Faringdon.
Pollock, A. and Price, D. (2013) In NHS SOS, ed by Davis, J. and Tallis, R. Oneworld: London, 174.]
Comments are closed.