Since the 1st of July 2022 our NHS across England has been reorganised. England is now divided into 42 new NHS bodies called Integrated Care Systems (ICS). Each ICS will is controlled by a board of directors with a duty to provide healthcare for people in that area.
This reorganisation of the NHS provides our local NHS leaders with an opportunity to reset the direction of travel of our NHS. Instead of continuing full steam toward more privatisation, they must put the needs of local people first.
After a pandemic that has brought our NHS to its knees and following 10 years of chronic underfunding by the government, we demand that our local NHS leaders rebuild our NHS and get private profiteers out NOW.
Demand that your local NHS leaders commit to:
- Commit to publishing a report on how a contract will save lives and improve the quality of life of users before any introduction or renewal of outsourcing and
- Commit to ending privatisation in the local NHS in the long term and to reducing it where possible in the short term.
Local wins so far:
Which ICSs have taken our earlier pledge to ban private companies from sitting on boards?
- Bath & North East Somerset Swindon & Wiltshire ICS
- Bristol, North Somerset & South Gloucestershire ICS
- Devon ICS
- Sussex ICS
- Birmingham & Solihull ICS
- Hertfordshire & West Essex ICS
- North East & North Cumbria ICS
- Nottingham & Nottinghamshire ICS
- South East London ICS
- Suffolk and North East Essex ICS
- West Yorkshire ICS
Check whether your local leaders have taken the pledge yet by searching your postcode here!
How these wins have been achieved by local people power:
- Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire ICS - After months of campaigning led by Protect Our NHS BANES and We Own It, including getting coverage in Somerset Live, Bath Echo and other local outlets, the ICB chair, Stephanie Elsy, pledged that private providers will not have a seat on the ICS board.
- After local activists in the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICS met with their MP and expressed their worry that the reorganisation could open the door to privative companies in the local NHS, the MP met with the chair of the ICS and recieved assurances that private companies will not have a sit on their board.
- A response to the campaign on behalf of the chair of the Sussex ICS board has pledged that private companies will not be included in their board.
- The chair of the Birmingham and Solihull ICS has pledged that private companies will not have a seat on their ICS board.
- In response to a question posed by a local councillor about the role of private companies in the Hertfordshire and West Essex ICS, an officer of the ICS indicated that there is no plan to include private companies on their board.
- The chair of the South East London ICS board has pledged, in response to letters from local people, that they will not appoint private companies to their ICS board.
- The chair of West Yorkshire ICS has pledged both that private companies won't have a seat on their board and that the board will not delegate any commissioning duties to any body or committee that includes people who work for private companies.
