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UK Uncut transform banks into hospitals in protest at NHS cuts

UK Uncut, the anti-austerity action group, will tomorrow occupy high-street banks in at least 35 towns and cities across the country, in the biggest display so far of direct action against proposed NHS cuts.

Despite Cameron's election promise to not cut the NHS, 50,000 NHS jobs will be lost over the next five years including thousands of doctors, nurses and midwives [1]. Protesters will occupy high street banks to highlight alternatives to NHS cuts, including making banks pay for their ongoing public subsidy of up to £100bn a year. They point to a recent speech by a chief executive at the Bank of England, in which he pointed out that the annual public subsidy to the banks, in the form of free insurance and guarantees, was roughly equal to the entire NHS budget. [2] [3]

Dubbed 'The Emergency Operation', tomorrow's day of action will take place in over 35 towns and cities nationwide [4], with activists dressed in scrubs and armed with fake blood and bandages setting up 'operating theatres' inside branches of the four major banks. Saturday will be UK Uncut's first major action since the arrests of 145 protesters during the sit-in at Fortnum & Mason on March 26th, a protest described by a senior police officer on scene at the time as 'peaceful and non-violent' [5]. A coalition of high-profile trade unions and NGOs subsequently wrote a letter in support of UK Uncut activists arrested in the store and criticised police behaviour [6].

In a sign of increasing unity between the trade unions and direct action groups, the PCS union has encouraged its members to attend UK Uncut actions tomorrow [7]. Meanwhile, the Uncut movement continues to spread around the globe, with Portugal and Canada Uncut holding their first actions [8]. Last month, US Uncut staged hundreds of occupations of tax-dodging corporations from Hawaii to New Hampshire across a four-day period [9].

Health worker and UK Uncut supporter Rosie Beech, 29, said of tomorrow's protest: "David Cameron said he wasn't going to cut the NHS. He lied. 50,000 NHS staff will lose their jobs, whilst the taxpayer continues to subsidise the banks. Why is the government cutting the NHS and privatising what's left rather than forcing our broken banking system to pay up?"

UK Uncut activist Josephine Hill, 34, who was arrested for taking part in the Fortnum and Mason sit-in, said: "I will not be intimidated out of protesting by blatant political policing. It is vital that we continue to take action against the government's brutal cuts agenda, especially the wholesale destruction of the NHS."

[1] http://www.channel4.com/news/50-000-nhs-job-cuts-hit-mental-health-services
[2] http://treasureislands.org/uks-implicit-bank-subsidy-cost-of-nhs/
[3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2010/12/how_to_curb_bonuses.html
[4] http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/actions/list
[5] http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/about/fortnum
[6] http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/blog/unions-and-campaign-groups-voice-support-for-uk-uncut
[7] http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/pcs_comment/index.cfm/id/328CB306-CC6F-49FB-AD50E7A095A95664
[8] http://www.facebook.com/portugaluncut
[9] http://www.usuncut.org

Enquiries: 07415063231

NHS Direct Action and UK Uncut target 'think tank' lobbying for NHS privatisation
2 protesters arrested outside 'think tank' lobbying for NHS privatisation as government 'listening exercise' nears its end

This morning, at 9:00am, 15 NHS Direct Action [1] and UK Uncut [2] activists visited 2020health to protest against the think tank's role in lobbying for NHS privatisation.

The think tank, which claims to be "independent and grassroots", has been a key influence on Andrew Lansley's Health and Social Care Bill.

Dressed in medical scrubs, the protesters entered the building at 83 Victoria Street through the front door and took the lift up to 2020health's offices, where they asked to see the chairman, Tom Sackville. After being refused an audience with a representative from 2020health, the activists were asked to leave and did so peacefully.

Once outside, they continued their protest but were confronted by over 20 riot police and one FIT team surveillance officer. Two activists were then searched and arrested on suspicion of "aggravated criminal damage". The protesters had been handing out leaflets to the public and had marked the pavement outside the office with "NHS" in a water-based fake blood solution.

The group of medical students, health workers and NHS users are angry over the access 2020health has been given to senior Conservatives and policy makers. The Chair, Tom Sackville, a health minister under Margaret Thatcher, is the CEO of the International Federation of Health Plans, which represents 100 private healthcare companies in 31 countries.

Numerous other 2020health executives have lucrative positions on private sector healthcare payrolls [3]. The centre-right think tank, that believes in reducing the number of NHS services provided for free, had a large presence at the Tory party conference.

The protest comes just days before UK Uncut and NHS Direct Action are due to hold their first full day of action over the proposed NHS reforms. Over 30 groups around the country are planning to turn banks into hospitals to send the message 'it's the banks that are sick and in need of reform, not the NHS' [4].

Jane Macdonald, a medical student, said "2020healthcare likes to say that it's grassroots and independent, when in reality all it stands for is profits for large health care companies."

"The government's so called NHS listening exercise is a sham. It's clear that the only voices being listened to are those of the private sector health care companies and think tanks that are due to rake in profits from selling off the principle of universal health care for all."

"Andrew Lansley's proposals to start privatising health care are an insult to the generations who have fought to build a public health care system. Lansley should resign immediately and the government must start actually listening to the doctors, nurses and patients who are crying out for these reforms to be stopped."

ENDS

Notes to editors

[1] NHS Direct Action is a protest group of students, health workers and patients organising creative direct actions against the privatisation of the NHS. Companies and think-tanks such as Care UK and the Policy Exchange have been previously targeted with auctions, die-ins and impromptu occupations.

[2] UK Uncut have creatively occupied hundreds of banks and retail shops belonging to tax-avoiding corporations over the last 8 months. It is a direct action network with a national reach, and 30,000 followers on twitter.

[3] http://www.spinwatch.org/blogs-mainmenu-29/tamasin-cave-mainmenu-107/5391-private-health-lobby-out-in-force-at-tory-conference

[4] More details over the day of action can be found at www.ukuncut.org.uk/emergency

This is a guest post by Adam Ramsay. You can follow him on Twitter at @AdamRamsay.

Around 50% of American bankruptcies are triggered by medical bills. When we talk of 'sub-prime mortgages', we are talking about real people facing financial ruin. The main reason that these Americans are thrown out of their homes is that they get sick.

When a whole economic system is rotten you can't solely blame one corner for its collapse. But you can say that this piece too has failed. And so it is with healthcare in the USA. One of the main reasons that our global economy fell apart is that in the richest county on earth, hundreds of thousands of people were forced from their homes when they became ill. They had to choose between their house and their health. They defaulted on their mortgages.

Bankers had built vast towers of imagined wealth by gambling on the value of these houses. As medical bills soared, as more and more families faced foreclosure, the towers toppled. They crushed an economy that had come to worship their mad, majestic height.

And so the corporations who run America's healthcare hold huge responsibility for the credit crunch. It is they who caused the bankruptcies. It is they who forced people from their homes. It is they who kicked the base from our teetering jenga economy.

And it is they who are now trying to take control of Britain's healthcare. When Andrew Lansley talks of NHS reform, we need to be clear what he is talking about. Because 'reform' isn't what The Lancet call it. They call it “the end of our National Health Service”. What the government is attempting is not a re-structuring. It is an auction.

And as in all auctions, the winner will be the highest bidder. That's why America's medical corporations are so desperate for the Health and Social Care Bill to pass. That's why companies like United Health have been so delighted to bankroll the Government's favourite think tanks. For they know that this Secretary of State is doing his best to roll the NHS onto its back so they can gorge on its soft belly. And let's be clear too about the scale of this gorging. In 2010, Stephen J. Hemsley, chief executive of United Health personally received $10,810,131. Unlike our relatively lean NHS, the company is bloated and inefficient: it bears the blubber of its corporate fat-cats.

When we are told that these corporations will improve efficiency in our care, this is simply a lie. Every fact, every international comparison, every statistic, every fact shows that private healthcare systems with their overpaid executives and demanding shareholders have much higher overheads. All these companies know of is the efficiency of the crammed commuter train, the efficiency of the under-staffed call centre, the efficiency to rapidly enriching their executives: the efficiency of asset strippers and of profiteers. This is not the same as the efficiency of a well run healthcare system.

These companies have built for themselves the most expensive and exploitative healthcare system on earth – the American system President Obama worked so hard to reform. Their executives have forced millions of sick people into bankruptcy so they can continue to lounge in luxury. They are inefficient and ineffective, greedy and destructive. They have no place on our island. In Britain, medical decisions are based on need, not corporate greed. They are made for patients, not for profits. And we must stand together and ensure that we never forget this. For generations, people in this country fought for a National Health Service. Our grandparents came home from the carnage of the Second World War and they finally built it. For 60 years, we have worked to defend their creation, their gift to us: a healthcare system owned by all of us, run for all of us. Now, our grandparent's legacy faces its biggest attack. Now, we must build its biggest defence.

But we must do more than protect the NHS. It was not just America's corporate healthcare that caused economic catastrophe. And when we do think back, it is astonishing to realise that almost nothing has been done to restructure our banks.

It is a bitter irony that Cameron's government is using the chaos of a financial crisis to scrap the NHS and replace it with the seeds of the American model which contributed so much to this crisis. It is absolutely outrageous that nothing has been done to reform the banks who delivered the crash. On Saturday, we will insist that this ludicrous inversion is ended. We will take action in bank branches all over Britain. We will demand that the government remove its hatchet from our NHS, and turn it on the bloated banks. Join us.

UK Uncut's Emergency Operation to save the NHS is this Saturday, with actions across the country. Read more and find an action near you at www.ukuncut.org.uk/emergency

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