Emergency Demonstration, Saturday 3rd February, London

Wednesday 31st January 2018

Circular No. National Policy NP/019/BO

To all Branches and Regional Councils


Dear Colleagues,

Emergency Demonstration, Saturday 3rd February, London.
Assembling 12 noon, Gower Street, London WC1 marching to Westminster

Health Campaigns Together and the People’s Assembly have organised an emergency demonstration in response to the growing crisis in our NHS. RMT members are urged to attend and support the demands:

•      End the winter crisis with a cash injection to restore the NHS budget
•      Commit to increased funding each year
•      End the cap on NHS pay
•      No cuts, no closures, no privatisation

Patients are dying; staff are at breaking point with ambulances queuing for hours to hand over seriously ill patients, patients left in corridors waiting for beds, operations postponed, and mental health patients taken hundreds of miles to find a bed. The problem comes from deliberate government policy of cuts, bed closures, pay restraint and privatisation. Our NHS has been starved of funding with inadequate investment in staff and resources. 8,000 front line beds and 20% of mental health beds have closed. Eight years of below inflation pay settlements have contributed to 100,000 vacant posts for health professionals – leaving no spare capacity for peaks of demand & increasing the pressure on the dedicated staff who remain
I urge everyone to do all you can to attend this important demonstration.

Bring colleagues, friends and family. The NHS is the single greatest achievement of working class people in Britain. We cannot allow it to be undermined and ultimately destroyed. We must echo Nye Bevan’s words, sending a clear statement to this government; “The NHS will last as long as there are folk with the faith to fight for it.”
Thanking you in anticipation

Yours sincerely,

 
Mick Cash
General Secretary