Keep our NHS public – meeting tonight Bethnal Green

What future for our NHS in East London?

Are the plans for 40% less hospital services, cuts and privatisation the answer?

Health Services: Condition critical!
NHS Care and Jobs are under attack from massive cuts and privatisation.
Stop money for our public services going to Government bank bailouts.

There will be a meeting tonight (11th November) starting at 6.15 at Oxford House, Derbyshire Street (off Bethnal Green Road). This is only five minutes walk from Bethnal Green station.
Admission: free

London’s air quality is deadlier than H1N1 flu

Over the Bank Holiday I was out leafleting for the forthcoming European elections in Old Ford Road when an irate resident approached me brandishing the rolled up newspaper I had put through his letter box. (no plug included) It is the moment all politicians dread. I need not have worried.
“Air quality”, he said, what are you going to do about it. Old Ford Road, he said, is a rat run for cars that turn off Cambridge Heath Road. I could see the problem as we tried to talk whilst a bus manoeuvred its way along the narrow roadway.
It is unfortunately that the swine flu virus has dominated the headlines over the past few weeks as it has overshadowed the release of a report by the London Assembly t that will be of more concern to Londoners and in particular to places like Old Ford Road
Just as the swine flue is carried in the air, air quality is affected by pollutant particles called PM10 and inhaled by people. Yet everyday in London people are breathing in polluted particles that the report believes kill an estimated 3,000 Londoners a year, in particular people who suffer from asthma, as well as heart and lung disease.
The report by the London Assembly’s Environment Committee states that London air quality, already among the worst in the country as well as the rest of Europe, is having a costly effect on the National Health Service.
Government figures estimate air-quality related health costs for the UK to be up to £20 billion a year.

Emissions from diesel vehicles contribute to a range of health problems, from coughing and sneezing to more serious illnesses, requiring hospitals. Children and the elderly are worst effected. Among the worst affected areas is the City of London and surrounding boroughs.
London’s air quality is well below the targets set by the European Union. Despite this, the Labour government just before the report was released submitted an application for a further delay on current EU air quality targets – targets that the government was meant to meet in 2005!
The Committee in its report calls upon Boris Johnson to act upon the recommendations of the report.
They include forcing motorists to fit particulate filters to reduce emissions by 90 per cent. To reconsider his rejection of the introduction of stage three of the low emission zone which would have taken 90,000 of the most polluting vehicles off London’s road.
Londoners should not hold their breath, so to speak, upon the Mayor taking such action.
Despite his election pledge to “take action to make London the greenest city in the world his decisions in office show that he, or his advisors, has sided with the ‘dirty white van man’ than the interests of the health of Londoners.
Whilst he himself cycles he has cut the cycling budget by half. He has also halved the number of people in the environment team at City Hall. As a result of the Mayor’s decision not to ban polluting heavy goods the UK is facing the prospect of a heavy fine from the EU in the region of £300 million. That is the price Londoners will pay for poor air quality and something for not only the man in Old Ford Road to think about then they vote on June 4 in the European elections.

Terry McGrenera, Coordinator, Tower Hamlets Green Party.

Green New Deal for the NHS

In these days of £75 billion ‘Quantitative easing” and several hundred more billion in Bail-outs for bankers, we wonder how the money could be spent better.
For £1.8 bn we could fix NHS dentistry.

Here are some startling new figures on NHS dentistry:

55% of NHS practices are not taking new patients
Little more than two-thirds of children visit NHS dentists – and it’s getting worse
Access to NHS dentistry is down to “geographical accident”

A new policy report to be launched this week by the Green Party will reveal startling new figures on the state of NHS dentistry, based on Freedom of Information Act research.

And the new report – A Green New Deal for the NHS – will show that just £1.8 billion a year would make NHS dentistry “a service that Britain can be proud of.”

The report will show that:

Between 55% and 60% of NHS practices are not taking new NHS patients.
Access to NHS dentists can range from 1 dentist per 1,000 people – to as little as one-quarter of that, depending on where people live.
Some Primary Care Trusts have no NHS dentists taking on new patients.
The percentage of children who visited NHS dentists fell from 70.7% in March 2006 to 69.0% in June 2008.
Less than half of the adult population is accessing NHS dentistry, and the numbers are continuing to decline.

Green Party health spokesperson Stuart Jeffery said today:

“The dental service received £2.1 billion of direct funding in 2007/08. If the current NHS dental service was provided free at the point of use, the total cost to the NHS would increase by £531m to a total of £2.6 billion.

“If the NHS wanted to provide free dentistry to 75% of the population (from the current 50%, assuming that some people will want to remain private), the total level of funding would need to increase from £2.6 billion to £3.9 billion. As the NHS currently provides £2.1 billion, an increase in funding of £1.8 billion would be required for patients to have dentistry free at the point of access.

“It seems little to ask to restore NHS dentistry to what it should be – a service that Britain can be proud of.”

The full report A Green New Deal for the NHS will be published later this week.