The Socialist inbox

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Send your news, views and criticism in not more than 150 words to Socialist Postbox, PO Box 24697, London E11 1YD, phone 020 8988 8771 or email [email protected]

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Forced out of the NHS

Marching to save the NHS, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

I work for the NHS. With only a 22.5-hours-a-week contract, I have to pick up extra hours from the 'bank' at the hospital. During recent months these have dwindled considerably.

I recently applied for bank work with a response centre. These centres answer calls from elderly and disabled people with alarms fitted in their homes.

Up until six months ago this service was manned by six to eight full-time staff. It is now manned by a skeleton staff, mostly lone workers, with the manager told she cannot appoint contract staff, only bank staff, until it can be sold off to a private company.

I love my job but cannot cope with the insecurity and am contemplating leaving the NHS.

NHS worker, Devon

Building regulations

In light of the Grenfell Tower disaster, with its tragic loss of human life, the focus has rightly turned to the adequacy of existing building regulations, particularly in relation to fire safety. We have also seen government repeatedly and mysteriously refuse to update these regulations in the light of incidents which exposed their shortcomings.

In addition, pressure groups such as the 'Red Tape Initiative' have plans post-Brexit to dismantle regulations on construction materials. A perhaps more worrying example of official reluctance to update regulations can be found in a Northern Ireland government-facilitated report, the 2016 Housing Supply Forum report, which recommends that "any further increase in building regulation requirements incurring additional build costs should be deferred until volumes have recovered significantly... Stability in regulations will help to control build costs, increase certainty, and facilitate increasing build volumes."

While the Grenfell inquiry will no doubt result in recommendations on the construction materials to be used in future, it is surely essential to take immediate action throughout the country to ensure that safety forms the basis of any building regulation, and doesn't become an option to be added when "volumes" - ie profits - are high.

George Dunn, Belfast Metropolitan Residents Group

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Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.

Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.

We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to click here to donate to our Fighting Fund.