What Brexit could mean...

On what is to me a sad day I couldn't help smile at this cartoon in the UNISON members InFOCUS magazine.

Update: below is fab as well. hat tip Franzi Bee

Bursary or Bust!

Picture from demonstration yesterday in London by 5000 NHS nurses and supporters against Tory plans to scrap their bursaries.There was also demonstrations in Manchester and Newcastle.

From UNISON "The government plans to force nurses into debt of at least £51,600 by making them pay the entire bill for their training, even though nurses spend 50% of their training time working for the NHS on clinical placements, and their starting salary is £22,799".

Sign the petition to keep bursaries here https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/113491
Hat tip picture Captain Swing

Save Our NHS Bursaries

I have just signed the Parliamentary Petition here to keep bursaries for trainee NHS Nurses. The petition has 148,815 supporters (according to the map on the site 250 have signed from my West Ham Consistency.

Parliament will debate this petition on January 11th.

The Government is proposing to axe the bursary from next year and charge tuition fees for nurses the year after. This will mean that anyone training to be a nurse in the future could face debts over £50,000 for a starting salary of under £23,000.

Trainee nurses are already expected to work for half of their courses on full time placements in hospitals. There is already a shortage of nurses in the NHS. This latest latest Tory wheeze towards the privatisation of the NHS will make the situation even worse.

Filipino Nurses Protest outside the "racist" Daily Mail

Over 250 Filipino NHS nurses protested today outside the Headquarters of the right wing tabloid newspaper, The Daily Mail. They were demanding an apology from the Mail for racially stereotyping all Filipino nurses as potential "murderers", following the conviction of Philippine born Victorino Chua.

It is pretty clear that Victorino Chua is a duplicitous psychopath. However, so was the serial child killer nurse, Beverley Allitt and the mass murderer, Doctor Harold Shipman. I don't recall any calls at the time they were convicted to ban all english born medical professionals. If there is fraud in any medical recruitment this needs to be dealt with but don't tar everyone with the same brush.

Filipino nurses due to their caring and medical skills are in great demand all over the world. In the UK we are short of 20,000 nurses. UNISON estimates by directly employing Filipino nurses saves the NHS £300 million per year in agency nursing fees.

I suspect that nearly all of us have been treated (gratefully) at a hospital by a Filipino nurse at one time or another. I know I have. To slur all of them with the actions of one is simply a disgrace and if the Daily Mail had any real journalistic values - it should apologise.

UPDATE:
This is the statement handed in to the Daily Mail yesterday by protesters.

"Solidarity gathering supporting UK Filipino Health Workers

Following the recent conviction and sentencing of Nurse Victoriano Chua for murdering 2 patients and poisoning 18 others, the Daily Mail published several references to him being Filipino.

We believed that the nationality of the perpetrator of these wicked crimes should be irrelevant. We would accept a reference to Chua being of Filipino ethnicity within the body of the story, however the Daily Mail refereed to Chua as a ' Filipino serial killer' in the title of the news article is uncalled for.

The other headline story which is causing offence and indeed difficulties for Filipino nurses is 'Why are the NHS still hiring Filipino nurses?'

We believe that one person’s mistake doesn’t reflect everyone.

We consider the article by Daily Mail questioning the credibility of Filipino Nurses, including all working Filipinos in the UK, malicious and degrading. Filipino nurses have undergone four years of tedious study, community and clinical based experiences and need to pass a gruelling board examination before they can be called Registered Nurse.

What happened was a tragedy and safety measures have to be implemented to stop it from happening again however, scaremongering and targeting a specific group of people is not helping.

The Daily Mail should be shamed of its biased, partial reporting that is inciting racial hatred which we believe is a crime in the United Kingdom.

These are the reasons for our protest, we demand an apology and for the Daily Mail to highlight the outstanding contribution Filipino health care workers make to the United Kingdom.

Finally, on behalf of the organising committee, in one with the overwhelming majority of Filipinos throughout the United Kingdom and indeed the world, we would like to say how truly sorry we are about the shocking crimes committed by Chua and we send our deepest condolences and prayers to the families of the victims.

Organisers

Malcolm Conlan

Araial Ilustre

Ric Patriarca

Tara Tiyagarajan

Vannz Bio

Glenda Salazar Taylor

Phoebe Dimacali

Rommel C. Abellar

SIGNED

Saturday 30th May 2015"

UNISON Filipino Nurses on Tolpuddle Martyrs Procession 2014

Photo collage is from this years' procession and festival at  Tolpuddle, Dorset.

UNISON Filipino members lead their section of the march and show respect outside one of the martyrs homes.

This festival is held each July to commentate the birth of trade unionism in this country and the sacrifice made by 6 farm workers who were imprisoned and transported to Australia for daring to form a trade union.

Hat tip @LondonNurse2014  ·

UKIP: More Tory, than the Tories

I find it is amazing that people don't "get" that UKIP is such a right wing Ultra Tory Party.

Check out their millionaire Banker leader comments on "Working Mothers Worth Less Than Men"

hat tip picture Mr Rayner

UNISON Nurses meet Labour Health spokesman after Government "pause".

"UNISON nurses and midwives meet with Labour Health spokesman John Healey and local Tooting MP Sadiq Khan at the House of Commons (4th April 2011) to discuss the on going campaign against the Coalition's NHS & Social Care Bill, after Conservative Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley was forced to invoke a two month pause in the passage of the Bill because of growing opposition from NHS professionals and the public.
 
Maureen Brown UNISON Nursing Convenor stated  "The growing campaign against the NHS Bill, had forced the Government to pause, now we need to move forward with the public to ram home the overwhelming opposition to the NHS Bill and NHS privatisation".

John Healey stated the Government NHS proposals were now weighed down in "confusion, chaos and incompetence" he also referred to Andrews Lansley's ability to unite in opposition to his NHS Reforms former right wing Thatcherite Minister Norman Tebbit and rap star NxtGen, the later responsible for viral video hit Andrew Lansley NHS Rap.

Sadiq Khan MP stated  "He would work tirelessly with UNISON, NHS staff and patients to defend the NHS from this vicious attack". (UNISON press release)

Our NHS, Our Future: Oppose the Health & Social Care Bill

Today (Monday 31 Jan) there will be the second reading at the House of Commons of the The Health and Social Care Bill.  Nurses at St. George's Hospital in Tooting, South London demonstrate support for our NHS.

Nurses Vote on Action to Stop Cuts at St Georges Hospital

"Four hundred Theatre Nurses and Practitioner members of health care union UNISON at St Georges hospital, South London, have started balloting in an “indicative” ballot that could, if agreed lead to official industrial action at St Georges by nurses for the first time in twenty three years.

UNISON the health care union has been angered at the plans to implement Tory Led Government health cuts at St Georges Hospital, Tooting. In particular nurses and technical staff are angry at the decision to press ahead with major changes to the rotas, duties and pay of four hundred Theatre nurses and practitioners.

These changes  would see staff suffer pay cuts, day staff forced to work night duty and some of those with childcare commitments forced to quit Theatres. This means the loss of many dedicated and experienced NHS staff. Nursing Staff (many of whom are women) will also be forced to work a late shift which finishes at 10pm, forcing them to make their way back home across London in the dark.

UNISON Regional Officer Michael Walker condemned the move and stated:-

 “When this Government of millionaires are telling hard pressed professional Theatre nurses that they need to cut their pay, work nights and walk home late at night, you can understand why nursing staff are so angry.

 “It would seem that the Government and some managers have totally lost all understanding of compassion and fairness in the way they treat dedicated nurses, in their quest to implement Government cuts to the NHS.”

UNISON Branch Secretary Geoff Thorne states :-

“It is regrettable that, despite UNISON’s best efforts to resolve these issues, it now looks inevitable that we are heading towards industrial action by nurses and practitioners, a situation created by management’s refusal to sit down and discuss child care and pay protection arrangements.

UNISON will now be waging a vigorous campaign in the community, and amongst consultants and NHS professionals at the hospital to highlight the plight of dedicated NHS nurses and staff at St Georges Hospital.”

UNISON Nursing Convenor Jane Pilgrim stated:-
“I remain hopeful that even at this late stage, we can still sit down and resolve the outstanding issues affecting nursing staff so that patients can continue to receive high quality services,”

Management at St Georges have left nursing and professional staff in a very invidious position where they either allow management to significantly cut the pay and conditions or they are reluctantly take some form of industrial action”.  

Hat-tip UNISON press release.

Dont' let Nurses Freeze

So the CONDEMs are going to protect the NHS and front line services?

The first of many protests - Nurses at Kingston Hospital protest today at a job freeze.  Check out this UNISON press release.

"Dont' let Nurses Freeze

Kingston hospital’s decision to freeze front-line nursing posts will hit patient care hard as well as adding to the burden on existing over-stretched staff, said UNISON nurses at the hospital today (insert date). The nurses condemned moves to cut the number of nurses on wards as part of a jobs freeze at the hospital, saying that it flies in the face of pledges to protect front-line NHS staff.

The Trust management have stated that they will not replace nurses who leave unless they are “critical”.

Michael Walker, Nursing officer for UNISON slammed the proposed cuts as “putting patient care at risk” saying:

“ it is outrageous that overworked nurses are being expected to cover for nursing posts that are not filled. UNISON believes that the cuts will put lives and patient care at risk. The Coalition Government told us that they would not cut front line services, and yet at Kingston - Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s local hospital - this is exactly what we are witnessing - nurses are very much frontline service”.

Nora Pearce, UNISON Nursing & Midwifery Convenor at the hospital said:

“The NHS has a very high turnover of nursing posts; nurses cannot simply be expected to pick up the work of posts no longer filled without compromising the care we provide.

“I urge those implementing the cuts to take serious consideration of our concerns and reverse this decision”

Ends

Tory MPs saucy snaps demean Nurses

Anyone with the slightest bit of common sense could work out that many nurses will be “unimpressed” with Tory MP’s Peter Bottomley and Tim Laughton posing with models dressed up as so called “saucy nurses” in a calendar.

Apart from the fact that the Tories are up to their normal tricks of trying to scare everyone that their local hospital is going to close down (if in power they would privatise it and charge you for treatment – but that is another issue).

Steve Brazier, regional head of health for UNISON in the South East, is quoted as saying he received a letter from a number of nurses who were disgusted and outraged because of the way their profession was portrayed.

He said: "It is a dinosaur stereotype of nurses as sexual objects which is deplorable and inappropriate and unacceptable.

"It demeans the whole profession."

If you are a female nurse working night shifts on a Friday and Saturday you have enough on your plate from leering drunks and fondle merchants, without being told “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” such offensive comments and behaviour are just “harmless fun” and “what’s the fuss?”.

Hat tip to Colonel Roi