Ilford South Labour Party

Monday March 8th is the deadline for the public consultation on the health authorities proposals for North East London, including the closure of Accident & Emergency and other services at King George Hospital.

What can you do NOW?

1. Take part in the consultation, which runs until March 8 2010. Fill in the questionnaire on the Website www.healthfornel.nhs.uk.

2. Write in protest to Freepost RSAE RCET ATJY, Health for North East London, Harrow, HA1 2QG.

3. Call them with your views on 0808 238 5416 ( it is a free line).

4. Sign Mike Gapes M.P’s new petition on line at www.savekinggeorgehospital.org.uk or by requesting forms from his Constituency Office at 6 Mildmay Road, Ilford, Essex, IG1 1DT, Tel: 020 8911 0899. Forms need to be returned by Monday 8th March.

5. If you can manage it, we are encouraging everyone to ask for some forms and get their friends and neighbours to sign. Just remember we need them back by March 8th

Despite poor weather on 13th. February hundreds of supporters of the campaign to keep King George Hospital turned out to march from the Hospital to the Town Hall.
Ilford South Labour Party members were prominent on the march and the overall organiser Andy Walker is a member of Seven Kings Branch Labour Party.

At the Town Hall there were speeches from local M.P’s including our own Mike Gapes and Margaret Hodge from Barking.

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Among our photos here we see Mike Gapes M.P. at the start of the march, crowds outside the Town Hall, Cllr Stuart Bellwood and Aziz Choudhry Labour candidate for Valentines in the May  council elections in demonstrating mood, and Cllr Javed with Ilford South Labour Party Chair Helen Coomb and her sister Catherine on the march.

The Campaign goes on with another rally planned for 17 April. This time the idea is to get the local faith groups, who have all been keen supporters of the hospital to take the lead. Andy Walker is again the Organiser, watch out for more details.

In the meantime remember to sign Mike’s petition on his website, or if you want to  get your friends and neighbours to sign, ask for paper copies ( phone 020 8911 0899) and return them to Mike’s Constituency Office at: 6 Mildmay Road, Ilford, Essex, IG1 1DT.

Also remember you have until 8 March to participate in the consultation on health services in North East London. Go to www.healthfornel.nhs.uk or use the freephone 0808 238 5416.

This item is with apologies to anyone who knows all this information, but even long term Labour Party Members sometimes ask about the Co-operative Party!

For over 90 years the Co-operative Party has stood for giving economic and political power to everyone in our society. It stands for:-

• Supporting co-operative and mutual enterprise.
• Employee Ownership
• Remutualisation
• Land Reform
• Investing in a Co-operative future
• An economy in all our interests
• Delivering high quality affordable housing
• Building Stronger Communities

Internationally they stand for:-

• A move from speculation to long term investment
• Protecting the future of our planet
• Tackling Global Poverty
• Trade Justice

The Co-operative Party works in a long term agreement with the Labour Party. It sponsors the constituencies of Members of Parliament who are members. Our own M.P. Mike Gapes is a ‘Labour and Co-operative M.P’. There is a branch that meets in Redbridge. You do not have to be a Labour Party Member to join the Co-op Party, but many Labour Party members have membership of both parties. If you agree with these principles find out more and join.

Find out more:-

From www. Party.coop.
From www.Thefeelingsmutual.org.uk
By writing or phoning to the Co-operative Party, 77 Weston Street, London, SE1 3SD. Tel: 020 7367 4150.
By writing to the local secretary Roy Emmett 63 Brocket Way, Chigwell, IG7 4ER.

Whilst you are about it the Co-operative Group has taken over Somerfield. There are now many more places locally where you can get a dividend on your purchases. If you are not a member find out more now.
Visit the Co-operative Group Website www.co-operative.coop

The photograph shows Ilford South Labour Party members, with their M.P Mike Gapes, just before they presented the petition with 28,000 signatures demanding that King George Hospital be saved in 2007.

Our 2007 Campaign was successful. Now the regional health service management have returned to this ridiculous proposal. They have issued ‘Health for North East London’ a consultation document which in their view is the route to ‘delivering high quality hospital health services for the people of north east London’. What appears again is the downgrading of King George Hospital, closure of the A&E and closure of the maternity unit.

4 years ago Lord Ara Darzi was commissioned by the Government to look into the future of healthcare in London. His initial proposals envisaged local hospitals serving a population of between 200,000 and 250,000 proposals. Under these proposals, from our health service managers, Redbridge plus Barking and Dagenham with an expanding population, currently of 446,000 will be deprived of a local hospital.

Already Redbridge Council has rejected the proposals at its Health Scrutiny Committee and voted to ‘refer the issue to the Secretary of State for Health requesting that he establish an independent review of these proposals…’

What can you do?

1. Take part in the consultation, which runs until March 8 2010. Fill in the questionnaire on the Website www.healthfornel.nhs.uk.

2. Write in protest to Freepost RSAE RCET ATJY, Health for North East London, Harrow, HA1 2QG.

3. Call them with your views on 0808 238 5416 ( it is a free line).

4. Sign Mike Gapes M.P’s new petition on line at www.savekinggeorgehospital.org.uk or by requesting forms from his Constituency Office at 6 Mildmay Road, Ilford, Essex, IG1 1DT, Tel: 020 8911 0899.

5. If you can manage it, we are encouraging everyone to ask for some forms and get their friends and neighbours to sign. Just remember we need them back by March 8th

6. JOIN THE MARCH AND RALLY. Meet outside King George Hospital on Barley Lane at 1.15 p.m. on Saturday 13 February 2010. March to the Town Hall in Ilford High Road where you will hear Mike Gapes M.P (Ilford South), Lee Scott M.P. ( Ilford North) and Chris Carter (Editor of the Ilford Recorder) speak against the proposals from the Town Hall steps.

Read Mike Gapes full speech in Parliament on this subject, go to www.mikegapes.org.uk

Mike Gapes, along with other local politicians, will lead a march from King George Hospital at 1.15 on Saturday 13th February to a Rally at Ilford Town Hall where he will speak against the proposed closure of the Hospital’s Accident & Emergency department and threat to over 400 beds. Come along on the day and make your voice heard. Commit to attending at:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=216847844343

What was life like with the Conservatives?

“In March 1991 over 50,000 patients were waiting 2 years or more to go into hospital… For hip or knee replacements and cataract operations, a waiting time guarantee of 18 months has already been established… From April 1995, the NHS is broadening this 18-month guarantee to cover all admissions to hospital.”
NHS Patient’s Charter, 1995

How things have changed under Labour!

“By December 2008, the longest you will wait after being referred by your GP until you start your treatment will be 18 weeks - that is, unless it is clinically appropriate to wait longer, or you choose to delay treatment. Wherever possible you will wait less than this. Any hospital appointments, tests, scans or other procedures that you may need before being treated will all happen within this maximum time limit.”
http://www.18weeks.nhs.uk

On Monday 5th October Mike Gapes attended the monthly branch meeting of the Seven Kings Branch Labour Party. He responded to questions collected from branch members and put to him by one of their number, Liz Pearce. Mike talked about his constiuency, the situation in Sri Lanka and the Labour Party Conference.

Mike Gapes, MP for Ilford South, spoke to a meeting of local Labour Party members last Thursday night on the inhumane detention of 300,000 Tamil men, women & children by the Sri Lankan government. He will be supporting a resolution to the Labour Party Conference supporting the call by the National Union of Journalists to allow journalists to enter Sri Lanka to report on what is happening in the camps. British Tamils need to know what has happened to their relatives. The resolution also urges the government to press for the withdrawal of favoured trading status for Sri Lanka, which is currently being reconsidered by the European Union, until aid charities and journalists have free access to the country.

Two former Labour Councillors who have been deselected by the London Region of the Labour Party have defected to the Lib Dems. In doing so they betray those who voted for them because they were Labour candidates, their Labour colleagues locally and the Labour values they professed to hold.

Barbara White, speaking for the Local Government Committee of Redbridge Labour Party, commented:

“What has happened has nothing to do with the local Labour Party so I am puzzled and bitterly disappointed that these two councillors have turned their backs on their colleagues. Not only have they turned their backs on their colleagues they have treated the residents who supported them very badly. Did Cllrs Satnam Singh and Fiaz Noor change their political views overnight or have they been cheating on their supporters for a long time pretending to be something that they are not?

These two councillors have worked well for the residents of Redbridge for many years and how sad that because things didn’t go their way for once they now seem hell bent on destruction and they have thrown their core values out of the window.

Like many others I am saddened that people who you would expect to be pillars of society are adopting such a cavalier attitude and hurting those around them.”