The Keep our NHS Public campaign will be lobbying outside the County Council's Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday 7th March. Come and join the lobby with other Greens on 7th March at County Hall from 8.30am to about 9:30am.

City Council today (5th Dec) passes Green motion opposing NHS cuts and 'secret' Sustainability and Transformation Plan for Oxfordshire.

Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (OCCG) plans to close all nine of Oxfordshire's community hospitals. The plans were originally released in the papers for its meeting on 29th September.

Larry Sanders, Green Party Candidate for Witney, will be joining junior doctors at a demonstration on Thursday 29th September in Bonn Square, Oxford at 6.00pm. The event, organised by Oxfordshire Keep Our NHS Public, marks the continuing opposition of junior doctors and their supporters to new contracts, which are to be imposed from October.

We believe that the National Health Service must be a public service funded by, run by, and accountable to local and national government. The Green Party is completely opposed to any form of privatisation within the NHS. The recent spectacular collapse of Circle's management of Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire serves as a warning of the dangers.

This is why Green MP Caroline Lucas has presented the cross-party NHS Reinstatement Bill to Parliament, and why it has my full support. The bill will end the privatisation of the NHS and restore the founding principles of the NHS: providing care that is truly public, free at the point of delivery, and fully protected. The NHS should not be subject to market forces, whether internal or external. As it is, large chunks of it are constrained by the mortgages from hell which are the Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) introduced initially by a Conservative government but enthusiastically promoted by the last Labour Government's Treasury Secretary, Andrew Smith. Even George Osborne (in opposition) called PFI totally discredited, but has continued the policy.

The proposed NHS Reinstatement Bill would restore the obligation on Government to provide a comprehensive health service, abolish competition and market-based commissioning, and re-establish public accountability of our NHS. Caroline’s presentation of this bill is emblematic of the Green Party’s commitment to taking back our health service for the public good. We have championed the fight for a publicly funded, publicly provided NHS, and will continue to do so until a complete restoration is achieved.

You can sign Larry Sander's petition here, or pledge below to vote for Ann Duncan to save the NHS from the damage done to it by Andrew Smith's Labour government and the current coalition government.

Liz Taylor, local midwife: "I am disgusted to see [the NHS] being sold off, and I want my MP to work hard to bring it back into public hands"

Oxfordshire Green Party is supporting industrial action by hospital porters against threatened cuts to their incomes. 

A Green Group motion to a full meeting of Oxford City Council condemning NHS privatisation was today watered-down by Labour Councillors removing reference to, amongst other things, support for the NHS Reinstatement Bill.

Larry Sanders, Ann Duncan and Allyson Pollock

Around 200 people came to Oxford Town Hall on Tuesday to hear Prof. Alysson Pollock explain how the NHS has been dismantled and how to reinstate it. Listen to her talk.

She explained how over 20 years, under different governments, more and more of the NHS has been opened to private money, until the Health and Social Care Act 2012 removed the Government’s obligation to provide comprehensive free health care for all. The NHS is no longer providing a service, but an organisation commissioning contracts. The contractors can often pick and choose who they will treat.

Oxfordshire Green Party announced that it will support NHS staff in their strike on November 24 to protest the Government’s decision to reject the independent pay review body’s recommendation of a 1% wage increase.