NHS campaign receives Labour Party backing

NHS (Click to enlarge)

William Jarrett, North Tyneside Socialist Party

Save North Tyneside NHS is a campaign of local residents, service users, healthcare professionals, and trade unionists to prevent the local clinical commissioning group's (CCG) proposed closures of three NHS walk-in centres. It was initiated by Socialist Party members and National Shop Stewards Network supporters in November of 2016.

It holds campaign stalls in town centres, where we have so far gathered over 3,000 signatures on our petition. Contrast this with the CCG's paltry return of just over 700 from its shoddy consultation. The campaign also took a strong position against sustainability and transformation plans (STPs).

On 14 August members of the campaign active in Labour, Unite the Union and the Socialist Party met with North Tyneside constituency MP and shadow cabinet member Mary Glindon, to discuss the proposed closures and STPs.

We shared our strategies and requested Labour bring its official resources to the campaign. We agreed to jointly promote an October meeting in Wallsend's Battle Hill community, which Mary would chair.

It was also revealed that the CCG has delayed the proposed 1 September closure date for the walk-ins, setting a new decision deadline of February 2018. This is more evidence of the growing pressure applied by the campaign.

On 19 August Socialist Party members of the campaign were back in action in North Shields town centre, to update the public with developments. The stall generated an additional 200 signatures, and raised Ł74.25 from sales of the Socialist and donations to the Socialist Party's fighting fund.

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