Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group, unelected privateers.

THE DORSET CLINICAL COMMISSIONING GROUP, the unelected band of potential privateers now running our NHS, has finally set its proposals out to public consultation, some weeks after authorising changes to Dorset County Maternity to facilitate them (see below). The consultation is a fraud, covering up massive cuts as simple accommodations to changed circumstances and funding. The proposed changes are nothing to do with “creating a modern and efficient NHS” and everything to do with cuts and softening up the NHS for full privatisation. The current government wants to abolish the NHS in its current form. By cutting the Health Service into large, potentially profitable, chunks, it makes the piecemeal remains more attractive to a potential buyer, like Virgin Healthcare. Staff conditions are more easily eroded; unions kicked out! This company has already gobbled up large social contracts, like East Devon childrens’s care. The proposals are draconian. Several small hospitals are destined for closure, including Portland, St Leonards, Wareham, Shaftesbury, maybe even Weymouth, Poole will lose its A&E, DCH most of its Maternity. The GP proposals are, if anything, even worse! They are not, unsurprisingly, being put to consultation, since they involve the closure of 29-55% of Dorset surgeries, leaving the average surgery size at 50,000 patients! Just ripe for flogging off to a profit-making company! If you have mobility problems and lose a local surgery, you will be stuck with threadbare local bus transport or the price of a cab fare. If you are poor….. The campaigns and unions supporting this leaflet, SAVE KINGFISHER & SCBU, Dorset Branch CPB, DORSET SOCIALISTS and PCS DWP DORSET BRANCH, urge you to lobby the CCG “consultation” presentations [we will try to cover the first hour of each, in tandem with Momentum groups and other health campaigners]; and to deluge your MP and your local council with complaints. Councils in Devon and the Isle of Wight have already rejected their CCG proposals! Join any street protests and lobbies across Dorset. KEEP OUR NHS NATIONAL, LOCAL AND FREE TO USERS Contact the campaigns via https://en-gb.facebook.com/KONPdorset

SAVE DCH MATERNITY AND KINGFISHER WARD: As part of the overall “plan” one option heavily favoured is to shift the bulk of maternity work to, conveniently, Yeovil. Prior to the public consultation, work has already begun to convert the Maternity Ward at DCH to a subordinate role, dealing with less pregnancies. This will have a knock-on effect on Kingfisher Children’s Ward. This is a crucial Resource that must be kept!