The Save Our NHS Leicestershire and the Campaign Against NHS Privatization groups will be leading the charge this weekend to demand the Government acts in the face of the NHS crisis
Protesters in the city and county will call on the Government to invest more in the NHS and future proof hospitals.
The Save Our NHS Leicestershire and the Campaign Against NHS Privatization groups will be leading the charge this weekend to demand the Government acts in the face of the NHS crisis.
They will be holding protests by both the Clock Tower in Leicester City centre and The Square in Market Harborough at midday on Saturday as part of a national day of action.
The groups are calling for a £20 billion investment in the NHS, which they say should be used to expand the health service and slash waiting times.
They also want a pay rise for all NHS and care workers and, locally, a firm commitment from the Government to fund in full Leicester’s hospital reorganisation scheme with enough beds and space to ‘future proof’ it.
The £450 scheme was approved last summer. It included plans to move all acute – or emergency care – to Leicester Royal Infirmary and Glenfield Hospital, create ‘a new state-of-the-art maternity hospital’ and a new children’s hospital at the LRI, and use Leicester General as for urgent primary care treatment, operating similarly to a GP surgery.
Tom Barker, one of the organisers of the Leicester protest, said: A ‘decade of austerity’ has left NHS and social care funding falling behind the costs of patient need.
Pay freezes and pay caps for staff, excessive workloads on limited resources and abolishing the training bursary for nurses have led a recruitment and retention crisis, with around 100,000 vacancies, he said.
He said: And decisions to keep cutting hospital bed numbers and closing hospital departments has led to a growing reliance on the private sector and the creation a two-tier health service.