Hands Off Our Hospitals cam- paign will find a strong echo of support throughout the workers' movement. Unfortunately the pre- dictable absence from its launch of all but the smallest handful of the London Labour Party hard left suggests that once again they will miss the boat, and fail to take up a highly popular issue. Fighting in defence of the NHS is not only a way for the left to re- late to the broad layers of women and hlack workers in the NHS unions, but a real chance to par ticipate in a campaign that could yet give Thatcher a bloody nose It's not too late to join in! Harry Sloan Hands Off Our Hospitals can contacted c/o London Health Emergency, 335, Grays Inn Rd, London WC1. 01-833the King's Fund to write a typical- ly mealy-mouthed apology for ..the programme secks to preserve the basic principles on which the NHS was founded and in tackie its weaknesses through a series of incremental and imagina- "To those on the Left EIl, a dis- criminating response 1s ap- propriate. Outright rejection of the White Paper would be both wrong and a missed opportunity. While the Eurocommunists in their armchairs debate how to give critical support to the White Paper, health workers and others are beginning to organise the fightback. So far the London teaching hospitals have been the focus of most of the early activity. An active trade union based cam- paign is already leafletting Guy's and staging lobbies; in nearby St Thomas's, onions have called a mass mecting and are strongly campaigning against the Tory plans; and unions are also mobilis. ing in Kings College, St Mary's, University College and Middlesex Hospitals, while at Charing Cross Hospital a meeting addressed by Tony Benn has set up a 'Hands Off Charing Cross Hospital' cam- A successful 150-strong meettive reforms... (March 1989) bandwagon for 'self-governing' In London's Guy's Hospital, Professor Ian McColl, who has very much set the pace as the lead- ing advocate of the Tory plans, and publicly boasted that Guy's would be the first hospital to opt out, has come under fire from his own medical staff, Professor of psychiatry Jim Watson hit back at McColl, telling the Health Service "It is a matter of substantial em- barrassment to us that the profes sor of surgery...is talking about Guy's opting out as though it was 'He does not speak for the majority of medical staff here". There are similar problems facing the Tories from family doc- tors: the bigger GP practices and health centres (with over 11,000 patients) are being urged to be- come independent "budget- holders, accepting rigid cash- limits, averaging only £60 per head per year. But a preliminary poll of 30 percent of the country's GPs found a massive eighty per- cent opposed to the White Paper Indeed one of the few voicex raised in uny support of the Tory White Paper has been that of Mar- azsm Today, which conmissioned health academic Chris Ham from
a fait accompli. WITH OPINION POLLS al- ready showing 70 percent op- posed to the government's White Paper on the National Health Service, the first steps in building a massive fightback have now been Health Secretary Kenneth Clarke will be ruefully con- templating the failure of his lavish El million campaign to 'sell' the White Paper proposals to the public and to health workers. In many hospitals, staff have been taken compulsorily off their jobs, forced to watch a 20 minute party political video promoting the new scheme, and handed a glossy sum- mary of the full document: the result in many cases has been to in- crease their anger and opposition. Yet it isnot only health workers who have emerged as predictably suspicious and hostile to the prospect of their hospitals opting out of health authority control - and simultaneously shedding any commitment to maintain trade union rights, stuffing levels, or the hasic guaranteed pay scales, pon- sion and other benefits and work- negotiated through Whitley Coun cils. Even some consultants are beginning to hit back at attempts to rope them onto the Tory in building
proposais which are widely scenar local level milirancy and the preparedness to strike varics a great deal. There is no doubt that a national campaign of opposition capahle of doing this is anotber likely to respond hy supporting These should obviously be built unions, in secondary. an attack both on conditions and on academic freedom. But at the beyond, and links built with other certainly go for the universities Jane Kelly Whether NATPHE is NATFHE leaders are more local struggles as they develop. and spread to the region and further education and universily sectors. If the govemment get away with these plans they will could he built with the right leader SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 13 March 1989 teachers* next. branch is balloting its members for action. At Leeds Polytechnic the new govering hady voted only 6 to 4 in favour of implementing the new icans and conditions. The NATFHE branch there has a good chance of halting the process. At North East London Polytechnic a ment to do likewise has been seen