{"id":496,"date":"2011-02-20T13:00:15","date_gmt":"2011-02-20T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lasunison.sc12.co.uk\/eblog\/?p=496"},"modified":"2011-02-20T13:00:15","modified_gmt":"2011-02-20T12:00:15","slug":"city-hall-takeover-or-londoners-democratic-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/?p=496","title":{"rendered":"Mayor of London Ambulance!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>You may have heard that the <em>London Assembly&#8217;s Health and Public Services Committee <\/em>have recently launched a review of the London Ambulance Service.<!--more--><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Committee&#8217;s aim is (and I quote) <em>&#8216;to investigate how the Service can meet the operational and strategic challenges it faces, particularly in the light of the government&#8217;s NHS reforms&#8217;.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The terms of reference for the review are:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>To examine the operational, financial and organisational challenges facing the London Ambulance Service and consider how these can be met.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>To consider what role the Mayor of London should have in relation to the governance, commissioning and delivery of the London Ambulance Service.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>This is serious stuff which has far reaching\u00c2\u00a0implications for us all, particularly the second bullet point.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Put in a nutshell the questions really\u00c2\u00a0being asked<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0<strong>are: should the Mayor of London have a greater say in the running of the LAS? Should the Mayor and the\u00c2\u00a0 <em>London Assembly&#8217;s Health and Public Services<\/em> <em>Committee<\/em> be more involved in the way the Service is\u00c2\u00a0organised and funded? Should City Hall\u00c2\u00a0possess a scrutiny oversight mechanism that can hold the LAS, it&#8217;s management and staff to account?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>City Hall already have powers over Policing , as well as Fire and Emergency Planning in London. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>When the Coalition published the <em>NHS White Paper<\/em> (currently at Committee stage in Parliament as the <em>Health and Social Care\u00c2\u00a0Bill<\/em>) the London Assembly wrote to the Secretary of State for Health to suggest that as part of the reforms the London Ambulance Service could become accountable to the Mayor. Hence this review!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>I will be\u00c2\u00a0having a meeting soon\u00c2\u00a0with the\u00c2\u00a0Scrutiny Manager\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0of\u00c2\u00a0the Assembly&#8217;s\u00c2\u00a0Health Committee to\u00c2\u00a0discuss these questions from a Union perspective. Want do we want?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>If the <em>Health and Social Care Bill <\/em>is passed into legislation in its current form, it will, without a doubt,\u00c2\u00a0change the political landscape in Health. Irreversibly in some cases.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>GP Commissioning. Foundation Trusts. Any Willing Provider.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The health map in London will change, and with it, of course, the London Ambulance Service will change.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>As the Coalition&#8217;s Health policies further fragment the NHS,\u00c2\u00a0allowing GP consortia to\u00c2\u00a0commission services from Any Willing Provider, and forcing all health trusts down the Foundation route, the question is:\u00c2\u00a0where is the democratic accountability? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The old refrain that Foundation Trusts will still be part of the NHS is meaningless when we may\u00c2\u00a0no longer have a National Health Service\u00c2\u00a0as we know it.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>In the case of the LAS how will Londoners have a real say in how the Service does its job on their behalf?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Having a strong, organised trade union within the Service,\u00c2\u00a0on their side, will certainly help. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>LAS UNISON is that union.\u00c2\u00a0 More than any other union within the LAS we are fighting the\u00c2\u00a0lies and\u00c2\u00a0 wholesale distortions\u00c2\u00a0of this vindictive Coalition\u00c2\u00a0government. We believe in the Service and staff,\u00c2\u00a0and are\u00c2\u00a0always clear in our support for public services.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>We are\u00c2\u00a0very concerned over the move to Foundation Trust status within the present political climate. We need to be involved in this review to make sure that the LAS is not cast adrift as a pseudo private entity. On the other hand we do not support a &#8216;takeover&#8217; by other emergency services. The London Ambulance Service must stay\u00c2\u00a0as part of health, independent, but democratically accountable.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Will Foundation Trust public\u00c2\u00a0members really have the power to scrutinise and hold the Service to proper account? In my own opinion &#8211; no!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Will the Council of Governors? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Will elected London Assembly members?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Will the Mayor?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>These real questions need real answers, otherwise a Foundation Trust becomes a law unto itself, accountable to no one, except the Foundation Trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>If you want to read more about the review then click\u00c2\u00a0<a title=\"London Ambulance Review\" href=\"http:\/\/www.london.gov.uk\/who-runs-london\/the-london-assembly\/investigations\/Londonambulance\" target=\"_blank\">\u00c2\u00a0London Assembly<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>____________________<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/bsb.lasunison.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/NW_Ambulance_AGM1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-536 aligncenter\" title=\"North West Ambulance AGM\" src=\"http:\/\/bsb.lasunison.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/NW_Ambulance_AGM1-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/NW_Ambulance_AGM1-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/NW_Ambulance_AGM1-1024x767.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Myself, along with the Branch Chair and Branch Communication Officer were guests at the North West Ambulance UNISON Branch annual general meeting last week (in fact , because the North West Region is so big, over 5000 square miles, they have three meetings over three days, first in Cumbria, then Warrington and then in Manchester!). We went to the last two.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>I spoke at both meetings on behalf of our Branch.\u00c2\u00a0 We could also\u00c2\u00a0have written the agenda for both meetings! Rest Breaks, Sickness Policies, Foundation Trust! <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Different Service, same agenda! <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>One interesting thing was that they also\u00c2\u00a0conducted all the meetings on-line\u00c2\u00a0via a web link in real time.\u00c2\u00a0 This included a camera link. We took away some technology ideas and the\u00c2\u00a0 Branch Communication Officer will have a look if anything can be useful for us in London.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>____________________<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>I read that our Service is asking for staff to work on\u00c2\u00a0Saturday 26th March to cover the Trade Union Congress demonstration in London. It is hoped that a million people will be on the street that day protesting against the Coalition government&#8217;s cuts and policies regarding the public services.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Now I know\u00c2\u00a0that the LAS has\u00c2\u00a0a statutory duty to do this and the Service have to ask staff, but, if anyone is off that day, I would suggest that they join us on the march, not sit outside it.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Campaign and march with us to defend our health service at the most difficult time in its history. When it&#8217;s gone -\u00c2\u00a0it&#8217;s gone.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Join us to march for our jobs, march for our pensions, march for our NHS, march for public services!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Join us on Saturday 26th March 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Full details on the website.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>____________________<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>If you are reading this, work for the London Ambulance Service or are eligible to join,\u00c2\u00a0and are not yet a member of UNISON Join Today!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/strong><strong>I Am Frontline You Are Frontline We Are All Frontline<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>We are stronger together.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Eric Roberts<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Branch Secretary.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You may have heard that the London Assembly&#8217;s Health and Public Services Committee have recently launched a review of the London Ambulance Service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1095,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsblog.lasunison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}