Protests as new School of Public Health opens

This Monday, Imperial celebrated the opening of the new School of Public Health. The school will focus on both teaching and, according to its director, Professor Elio Riboli, research aimed at providing “the evidence that will help societies understand the causes of diseases and how to prevent them”. Visitors to the opening event, taking place in the Great Hall and featuring Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, were, however, met by a group of over twenty demonstrators, part of the ‘Big Society NHS’ campaign against the government’s planned NHS reforms. Although they were not allowed into the Sherfield building’s entrance foyer, the group stood outside, handing out leaflets and shouting the slogans “public health not private wealth” and “Lansley, Lansley don’t be a fool – you’re making me quit medical school”.

Big Society NHS opposes Lansley’s plans to abolish primary care trusts, transferring their powers to GPs, and allow more competition between different health service providers, including the private sector. While the protesters admitted that “GPs should have a larger say” in the care of patients they were adamant that this was not the right way to achieve this. Their literature points out that “over half of GPs don’t want this responsibility”. Indeed, a recent Royal College of GPs survey found that only 21.5% agreed with Lansley’s reforms.

James Chan, a foundation year one doctor, said the plan would allow the “private sector [to] undercut” the NHS, leading to its “fragmentation”. He argued that the “best doctors [would be] attracted to better paying private healthcare” which will be “focused in rich areas” leading to “budget healthcare” for the poor. He said that in his experience “cooperation”, rather than the financial competition supported by the coalition, “leads to better healthcare”. A number of the protests’ organisers issued a joint statement saying that they were “opposed to the new health and social care bill which signified a moving away from the NHS’ founding principle”. They said that if the bill was passed the health service would “no longer [act] in the best interest of the people[ but in the interest of] profit” instead.

The group was also keen to stress how they believed that the Conservatives were not impartial in this issue. They pointed out how, since 2006, the party has received £107,000 in donations from the family of the CEO of the private health company Care UK, with Lansley personally receiving a separate £21,000 from the company. They accused the party of serious misconduct in afterwards awarding the company with a £53 million prison healthcare contract. The Conservative Party have previously denied that the donations had any influence on policy-making.

College members were poorly represented at the protest, with most of the students involved coming from UCL. Reactions of passer-bys were, however, mixed. Humam, who did want to give his full name, pointed out that a system similar to the one proposed by the coalition already seemed to be working well in Germany. On the other hand, Ben Bell, a third year mechanical engineer, said that he would have liked to have attended the demonstration from the beginning and wished that it “could have been better publicised”.

The protest passed peacefully and wound down quietly after just over an hour. The jury is still out over whether it did any good. Laurence Pope, a second year life sciences student not involved in the event, said that while the people involved were certainly “loud enough” and that he thought that they might affect a few students’ opinions, they were unlikely to change Lansley’s policies.