ceedings.
Details and rumours of the Committee's intentions have however leaked their way down, causing disquiet amongst various Community Health Councils. Caroline Langridge, secretary of Wandsworth & East Merton Community Health Council, wrote to Sir Philip Rogers (Permanent Secretary of State) asking for representation on the Committee. Miss Langridge met a bland refusal. The titled aide to Mrs Castle wrote back saying that any additions would make the Committee too unwieldy to do its job properly....
DEPENDENT
The health service unions and the local communities who are depmdent on the hospitals have also en kept in the dark as the Comthe NHS in Inner London. The Committee consists entirely of state health officers, and no elected members of Regional and Local Health Authorities are allowed to participate in its promittee works out its schemes to *achieve stringent economy in revenue. To do this it favours closure of small and ineffectively used accommodation' and 'any rationalisation of hospital resources which can be achieved without significant expenditure.' In an inflation wracked society with costs mounting, such a hope is either stupid euphoria or cynical recognition that its job is to cut costs at the expense of people's health needs.
As the document begins by stating that 'in the present economic situation it would be sensible to assume that there would be no increase in the total capital and revenue resources available to the NHS for several years', there are no prizes for guessing that the Coordinating Committee members are not suffering from an overdose of euphoria. BOB PENNINGTON reports on secret plans to carve up the National Health Service The Coordinating Committee makes no bones about the fact that hospitals like the Royal Waterloo and the Grosvenor (both in South London) will have to close. Despite the fact that the area has never had sufficient beds to meet local needs, these closures are "justified' on the ground that St Thomas's will provide over 400 beds. So this part of South London will be lucky if it ities; but as the Committee is also speculating about closing Lambeth, it will most likely suffer a decrease.
is nothing if not an ambitious body, and has its eyes fixed on even more Hospital in Camden, which has already had its accident department for the axe according to the Report.
of the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, it is suggested, 'might be relocated at St Stephen's Hospital thereby take place. maintains its present inadequate facilAMBITIOUS But the Coordinating Committee centrate on cuts. sweeping proposals. The Temperance the case.
closed, looks an inevitable candidate The Great Portland Street branch Islington! depriving another working class area of a local hospital. The bait here is that part of the present accommodation at St Stephen's: could be distributed to 'the Westminster and Chating Cross Hospitals. When you have done all the sums, that means a cut back no matter what distributions and re-allocations REPLACEMENTS In carefully worded language, the Report talks about long-term recommendations, which one might have thought would have concentrated on replacements and expansions, in view of the fact that its short-term recommendations essentially conBut that is not The Report says that its proposals on Inner North West London 'do not exclude the possibility of eventually reducing by one the six hospitals listed in Kensington, Chelsea, Westminster, Camden and Last week the BBC ran five programmes on the NHS, finishing with The City and East London Area Health Authority (Teaching) A CONSULTATIVE PAPER Party Manifesto meant nothing. If Labour had been serious about improving the NHS, then the first thing it would have done was to BIG CAMPAIGN If these attacks are to be fought This London Coordinating Committee represents four areas in London - they stretch in the South-East, for example, from Lewisham to Dover. They are insisting that a plan be introduced for the rationalisation of this "London' area. We cannot fight that unless we mount a respon se right across the area and unify We will be fighting to build a class-wide response to meet this Mrs Castle speaking to a panel on Friday evening. On Thursday night night's programme MCAPP member Dr Dominic Costa revealed the existence of the document, but Mrs Castle remained tight-lipped about its savage plans for cutting up the London Health Service. She remained equally tight-lipped when MCAPP. organiser Janet Maguire accused the Labour Government of attacking workers' health standards.
INSISTENCE
Maguire's insistence that the cuts can only be fought by the whole workers' movement and her rejection of a Royal Commission in favour of a Workers' Enquiry were not to Mrs Castle's taste. But they are the only way forward to smash the attacks of the Labour Government and break down its secret deals
----- pull-quotes -----
Behind closed doors - its discussions kept exclusive to top civil servants and Mrs Castle - a body called the London Coordinat- ing Committee has been plotting for two years how to carve up
PROPOSALS FOR THE RE-ARRANGEMENT OF HOSPITAL SERVICES CITY AND HACKNEY HEALTH DISTRICT