Large protest expected in Manchester City Centre, calling for more help for NHS.

Over 40 campaign organisations and trade unions nationally have come together to form the group ‘SOS NHS’ and they will protest in Manchester City Centre, this Saturday, 26 February. 

The new action group claim that the NHS is suffering from crises; with not enough funding to pay for all the treatment that people need, longer waiting times for diagnosis and treatment and staff being overworked and underpaid. 

They also claim that nearly 5,000 hospital beds which were closed at the start of lockdown in March 2020 – to make space for people with Covid – have not been reopened and more than 100,000 staff vacancies are unfilled.

This new campaign has three main demands for the government:

1. Approve emergency funding of £20 billion to save lives this winter

2. Invest in a fully publicly owned NHS and guarantee free healthcare for future generations

3. Pay staff properly: without fair pay, staffing shortages will cost lives 

The Greater Manchester branch of Keep Our NHS Public (GM KONP) has joined forces with the Manchester People’s Assembly, Care and Support Workers Organise!, and regional offices and branches of many trade unions, including UNISON, Unite, GMB, PCS to organise a protest as part of a National Day of Local Actions on Saturday, between 2 and 4pm. 

A rally in St Peter’s Square, Manchester, will be followed by a march round Manchester city centre.

Health workers, including nurses, midwives, doctors will be at the event and are expected to talk about their everyday experience of working in an NHS, under constant attack from cuts, increased demand and staff shortages.

Caroline Bedale of GM KONP said: “Waiting lists are growing so that those with serious illnesses might not even get diagnosed let alone treated.

"Staff are severely overworked, exhausted from the toll of the Covid pandemic, and far from being rewarded for all their hard work they have had a cut in real take-home pay.

"It’s not surprising that many are leaving the NHS when they can earn more for easier work in shops.

"The government claims that the private sector fills gaps in NHS service provision, but the reality is that private companies drain NHS resources by taking staff who are trained and gain their experience in the NHS, and their profits go to shareholders rather than being invested for health in the future.”

Ali Treacher of Care and Support Workers Organise! said: “We fully support our colleagues in the NHS in this protest, and know that the crisis in the NHS is closely linked to the crisis in social care.

"In CASWO! we aim to raise the profile of the dismal terms and conditions plaguing staff in social care, and we want to see a radical transformation of the way that social care services are provided.

"Nearly two-thirds of care workers are not paid the real living wage, many are on zero hours contracts, most are employed by private companies – and of those, many are owned by hedge funds or where profits are taken offshore.

"Faced with the overwhelming demands of the pandemic, many care homes closed and so many staff have left the sector that there are over 112,000 vacancies."

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