Month: May 2011

Notts SOS meeting tonight – 9th May 2011

Notts SOS continues its campaign against all cuts in Nottingham and Notts. Join our planning meeting tonight (Monday 9th May 2011) at 7.30pm at the YMCA International Community Centre on Mansfield Road. Meetings are every two weeks and usually last around an hour and a half. We are compiling a more comprehensive list of cuts and threats to services to help build the bigger picture locally and to spur action, so please help. And there is plenty more to get involved with between meetings (next one after this is the 23rd)!

Week of action against ATOS Healthcare and the DWP over ‘Work Capability Assessments’ starts May 9th

Disability activists, claimant groups and anti-cuts campaigners have called a week of action against ‘poverty pimps’ ATOS Origin beginning on Monday 9th May 2011, the same week that 1000s of people will march in London or take part in a ‘virtual’ online protest under the banner ‘The Hardest Hit’, against cuts to welfare benefits and allowances for disabled people. Calls have also been made for the media to stop demonising disabled claimants.

Update: Watch video on Guardian website (after annoying advert): Disabled people protest against Atos Origin.

Join Local action: Meet at 11am outside Office Angels (located in the city centre past the right lion. Next door to MAC and opposite The Square bar/club). Angel House, 12-13 Cheapside, City Centre, Nottingham, NG1 2HU. This is an action against treatment of temp workers that will continue at the ATOS Healthcare assessment centre on Stoney Street, Hockley.
Continue reading “Week of action against ATOS Healthcare and the DWP over ‘Work Capability Assessments’ starts May 9th”

Lobby against Playworkers redundancies and privatisation of Learning Disability Services – Notts Unison report 4-5-2011

Notts Unison found out at very short notice that the County Council were proposing to rush through legislation relating to the privatisation of local Elderly persons Homes and learning Centres for people with Disabliites and mounted a lobby of council on 4th May 2011. Full story: http://www.nottsunison.org.uk/lobby4may11.html

Nottingham Mayday 2011 photos – and (partial) list of services due to close in the County & City

The Nottiingham Mayday celebrations for 2011 took place in Victoria Park and the Market Square with a march between.

Why were we celebrating? Mayday has been going at least since 1886 when workers in the USA began a general strike for an 8-hour day. See photos on Indymedia (including Chesterfield as well as Nottingham and reports about both).

Why were we marching, demonstrating and making public speeches? Take a look at this list of services due to close in the city and county. Many more are closing or threatened. Get in touch with Notts SOS (or comment on this artilcle) if your service is not listed here.

How much more will we be forced to work or suffer cuts to pay, pensions and services to bail out the debt and bank bail-outs caused by capitalist speculators and sanctioned by our rulers?

Save Hayward House Daycare submissions to Scrutiny Committee needed before 23rd May 2011

This is a gentle reminder that we need people to make written representations to the Scrutiny Committee concerning the proposal to ‘transfer services’ in cancer care from the City Hospital site by closing Hayward House Daycare (please see the website www.savehaywarddaycare.org.uk). We don’t have long. Maybe if you know someone who has difficulty writing for reasons of health, confidence, eyesight or whatever, you might be able to help them?

VERY IMPORTANT: JOINT HEALTH SCRUTINY COMMITTEE

The proposed closure of Hayward House daycare has to be examined by the Joint Health Scrutiny Committee, which combines both City and County Councillors. The meeting at which HH will be on the agenda is on June 14th (starting at 10.15am in room LB41, Loxley House). The role of the Committee is to consider:

Whether, as a statutory body, the relevant Overview and Scrutiny Committee has been properly consulted within the consultation process.

Whether, in developing the proposals for service changes, the health body concerned has taken into account the public interest through appropriate patient and public involvement and consultation.

Whether a proposal for changes is in the interests of the local health service.

The Committee can then make recommendations on the basis of what it hears. The Committee has the power to refer the matter to the Secretary of State for Health either where it believes that consultation with patients, and the public has not been satisfactory or where they consider that a proposal of an NHS body is not in the interests of the health service in the area. Where a referral has been made, the Secretary of State may send the referral back to the NHS (in effect, the SHA) for local resolution or may ask the Independent Reconfiguration Panel (IRP) to advise him on the matter. The IRP has been set up to provide expert advice on proposed NHS reconfigurations or significant service change. The IRP believes that local determination is the best solution and, before accepting a referral, will wish to be satisfied that all options for local resolution have been fully explored.

The Committee’s response will depend on the evidence that it hears at the meeting on June 14th. Written submissions are essential and will be included within the Public Papers that will be made public on June 6th.

All written submissions will need to be received by May 23rd, so that the committee section have time to turn these into a report for the Chairs Briefing on May 25th.

All Submissions need to go to Kim Pocock ( Scrutiny Co-ordinator ), Loxley House, Station Street, Nottingham, NG2 3NG.
So if you feel that the PCT’s decision to close HH daycare does not pass any of the above tests, 1, 2 and 3, then please send in a submission.

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT OPPORTUNITY TO FORCE THE PCT TO THINK AGAIN.

Bassettlaw SOS flyer, Letter and Worksop meeting on 12th May 2011

Bassetlaw Save Our Services have a Protect Our People flyer and also announce a meeting in Worksop on 12th May 2011 (details in letter below).

The Editor
Worksop Guardian

Dear Sir

I should be grateful if you would print my letter which is advertising a public meeting on the 12th May.

“Robin Hood, if he were alive today might find a lot about the world that he would recognise. Firstly, that the poor of our land are being robbed to pay the rich, in the form of bigger bonuses and fatter profits for the banks and big business. Secondly, that the poor (that’s you and me – because Bassetlaw is a low paid area) are being expected to get us out of this crisis by borrowing more than we can afford. We will need to do this to make ends meet because our wages, pensions and benefits are failing to keep up with inflation. This is made clear by the Office for Budget Responsibility which in its recent report said it expected households to go further in debt each year between now and 2015.

Now, my recollection of the ConDem Government’s justification for the current “age of austerity” is that we (as a country) can’t afford to borrow “beyond our means”. As a result we are having a huge squeeze on our public finances, with huge job losses, savage cuts to our essential public services and a cull of local businesses faced with customers who cannot afford to shop.

So, it seems the Government’s plan to get us out of this crisis is to transfer the debt from the state to households up and down the land. I don’t think that this part of the ConDem Government’s plan to get us out of this crisis has received the publicity it deserves – naturally it’s something you would want to hide, not advertise.

If you feel, like Robin Hood, that the poor should not be expected to solve the present crisis by going into more and more debt then join our group ‘Bassetlaw Protecting our People and Services’ which is being set up to campaign against the savage cuts to our services and standards of living.

We will be meeting at 7.00 pm on Thursday 12th May, at The Christchurch, 15 Thievesdale Close, Worksop, S81 OXS. You will be very welcome.

Yours faithfully

Ann Donlan
Chair
Bassetlaw Protecting our People and Services”

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