The health centre, which has been in place for over thirty years, is no longer fit for purpose. Structurally the building requires significant investments for the level of repairs required and the level of capacity it is no longer able to accommodate the increasing demands placed upon it. In an area which has higher than both the Fife and Scottish levels of multiple health problems we need a Health Centre which is able to support the increasing population and provide support for the varying degrees of mental and physical support that the people of Lochgelly deserve.

Chancellor George Osborne is committed to cutting a further 100,000 Civil Service jobs by 2020 and shrinking the entire Government Estate by 75% before 2023. Government services that the public rely on are being decimated as a result of job cuts. Examples from the Passport Office, HMCTS, Land Registry, HMRC, DWP and elsewhere show that cuts in the Civil Service are having a negative impact on service users. Communities are being cut-off from local services. The Civil Service is near to breaking point, the digital technology replacing local services untested and unstable making the planned cuts unsustainable. In Stoke-on-Trent the HMRC have announced that Blackburn House tax office will close by or before 2020 with the loss of between 250-300 jobs to the local economy. Locally DWP has lost around a third of its workforce in the area since 2010 to the detriment of service delivery and the welfare of its remaining workforce. The impact of the loss of this significant number of jobs to the local economy and labour market cannot be underestimated. There is no clear evidence that growth in private sector jobs within the area will replace these jobs. We call on the Government to halt the cuts to Civil Service jobs in Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire and invest in Central Government services within the region.

At yesterday's Penge Forum meeting which was very well attended, standing room only, residents, trustees and councillor’s agreed to set up an action group led by Cllr Kevin Brooks, to work with and support the Trustees to devise a plan to make the services provided at Melvin Hall financially sustainable. Trustees had given notice of closure to LBB but the portfolio holder for care appeared to have listened to the residents demand to save this vital service in Penge, and he suggested there was a possibility of further rent relief payments and an opportunity of hiring out the halls when not required by Age Concern. This is just a very brief update on our last blog on the possible closure of Melvin Hall. This facility has not yet been saved, there is still a long way to go so work needs to start now to engage with the Trustees and LBB and take this fight forward. Ever since opening at the end of the second world war the Melvin Hall Day Centre’s main aim has been to increase the happiness of the older people of Penge.

In 2007 consultation on mental health facilities in north Essex gave rise to lively public meetings which resulted in the ward being saved, but in 2016 there was NO consultation because apparently moving a ward to another hospital in another town so long as it bears the same name is NOT a closure!!! At the very least, N.E.P.T. (North Essex Partnership Trust predecessors along with S.E.P.T. South Essex Partnership Trust, to E.P.U.T. Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust) should have held a new consultation process, but our feeling is still, along with the views and sentiments expressed by many eleven years ago, that nothing has changed, except that the facilities in Clacton needed revising including to allow for NHS single sex privacy and dignity accommodation, for which there was ample space available by using the adjacent and connected former Freeland Court. While people are often sent many miles away to find an available bed, we contended that mental health services could ill afford to lose beds in Clacton, though we would have welcomed extra beds in Colchester, but in addition, not instead of! As we were protesting the Colchester move we learnt from a whistleblower that the trust intended to downgrade the ward to an assessment centre, making a mockery of their assertion that the ward would be exactly the same in it's new location and if true, this would be a very definite change of service demanding thorough consultation! This was vehemently denied at the time but now we learn, not even 18 months later that service changes are being considered and this time, unlike the move, they do intend to consult! If after a wide consultation among all stakeholders including professionals, staff and public it can be demonstrated that the consulted changes would be in the best interest of patients, we shall be content, though we do not believe it will. If, as we are led to believe, the plans are indeed to downgrade Peter Bruff from an acute ward to an assessment centre this will amount to a de facto loss of 17 beds at a time of continuing high occupancy and the likelihood exists that patients needing continuing acute care may not find a bed within Colchester hospital and maybe forced to travel many miles away to find one. Two years ago we raised concerns over the difficulties many living in Clacton would face accessing Colchester. "With Colchester being about 15 miles away from Clacton concern was raised for patients who when discharged would face an expensive taxi bill or the prospect of at least two buses, train, long walk or combination! This distance would also likely make it difficult for many reasons, perhaps financial, for friends and families of patients to visit. Day visits and weekend visits home, for those recovering all made that more difficult when recovery itself is difficult enough!" 15 miles may soon seem like wishful thinking! And all this mainly on the pretext of saving the money spent on rent at Clacton!. Here's what we found out about that! " N.E.P.T. did not own the Clacton Peter Bruff Ward, but RENTED it from NHS Properties!! This was one of their excuses for wishing to CLOSE, I mean, MOVE the ward so as to save money on rent, but a freedom of information request revealed that N.E.P.T. were in fact only paying a "PEPPERCORN RENT!" https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/346733/response/855134/attach/2/FOI%20190716%2001%20reply%2018.8.16.pdf?cookie_passthrough=1 Safeguarding the service as it is may well be within our gift. It is doubtless thanks to everyone's efforts that E.P.U.T. are contemplating any consultation whatsoever because our first notification from a whistleblower indicated a fait d'compli. Well done everyone! I still dream that the day will come when we can "Keep Peter Bruff Ward Open In CLACTON!

Margate has The Turner Centre and Dreamland to attract visitors. We have our beautiful Royal Harbour, Tunnels and wonderful cafe culture but we need more reasons for families to visit. Thanet as a whole would benefit from the added tourism as we would be able to offer a better package, more reasons to visit. The wheel would not incur huge capital investment, ongoing leasing fees would be paid for out of revenue, therefore no risk to the council.

The Practice Group plc (a private company) has been running The Willows Surgery in Lower Bevendean along with four other GP surgeries in Brighton and Hove. At the beginning of this year they announced that they would no longer be running their Brighton and Hove surgeries after June (this already follows the closure of two of the city's GP surgeries last year). This announcement has left a huge hole and The Willows is now threatened with closure. Lower Bevendean is in a somewhat isolated area on the outskirts of Brighton. It is an area of mostly low income households and is made up of largely council and ex-council housing. The surgery has just under 2,000 patients and all have been feeling extremely anxious since the news. No-one wants to see their GP surgery close down! If The Willows were to close patients would have to travel outside their local area to see a doctor. The nearest GP to Lower Bevendean would be a long trek up and down a hilly area and as a large number of The Willows patients are elderly or disabled or in poor health they would not be able to manage the extra travel to see a Doctor. Even if travelling wasn't a problem, the nearest GP surgery simply has not got the capacity to take on an extra 2,000 patients. So realistically patients would have to travel a lot further to register with a new GP. As there seems to be no 'highest priority' scheme in place, the elderly and the less able bodied will be the last in the race to find a new GP and will find themselves having to travel the furthest. We've heard reports of elderly patients in tears as they are so worried about what will happen if their doctor disappears from their community. The less frail residents are angry. Why must they travel across the city to see a doctor? How is it possible that an NHS GP will vanish from the neighbourhood because the private company who were running the surgery decided that they wanted to earn more profit from us? In order to keep our NHS public we need to fight the 'behind our backs' privatisation of our health services! We need to make sure that our health service is about people and not profits! The community in Lower Bevendean need your support in their fight to stop the closure of The Willows GP Surgery. The community of Lower Bevendean needs to have local access to a GP and they require NHS England, along with Brighton and Hove CCG to ensure that a GP service will continue at the Willows Surgery !

This has heavily impacted on the local community. Many people, especially the elderly in this rural area, rely on public transport for getting around Perthshire and to the major Scottish cities. As a popular tourist destination it also makes it much harder for visitors to reach us by bus. Please sign this petition to show that people value our public transport and how important it is in rural areas.

The organization helps thousands of vulnerable, including people with mental health issues and disadvantaged Derby and Derbyshire residents a year with debt advice, free legal assistance and advocacy. It is vital these groups get help and support.

Currently our health service is in crisis and are failing to deliver a service that we, the tax payer are paying for. The mill stone of PFI is bringing the national health service closer and closer to the door marked private health service and this Government is pushing it closer and to closer to this door unless we stand up and be counted. Make no mistake the smoke and mirror of free at the point of delivery is just that smoke and mirrors and by tomorrow we will no longer have a national health service. Waiting times are through the roof, Junior doctor being victimised and bullied into accepting a new contract not fit for purpose by Jeremy Hunt. Ambulance services on their knees and patients are suffering and dying because of staff shortage and stretched resources to pay off the PFI bill and not because Junior Doctors do not work, which they do, on weekends. The PFI are forcing Health services to make cuts across the board and this is to reduce the wage bill so that share holders are paid there dividends at the end of the month. So if we want to save our health service then we need to nationalise the PFI dept and to this end we need to be patitioning our local MP's to suppor the nationalising of the PFI's

It is a sacrilege and a disgrace to have so many empty buildings (paid and subsidised by us the tax payers) when they could be used for greater good. KCC do the right thing and open up your empty buildings to the homeless now!!!

This post office is vital for the local economy. This backdoor privatisation will threaten jobs and lower the standard and range of services that is provided. It is also an important focal point for the community.

KEEP BACKING THE BILL! KEEP SIGNING THE PETITION! KEEP WRITING TO YOUR MP! ** UPDATE 15/03/2017** The postponed 2nd Reading of the NHS Bill is scheduled for 24th March 2017. It is so far down the list that it is unlikely to be debated. The NHS deserves more than this. Please email/tweet/facebook your MP asking them to support the NHS Bill. We are in this campaign for the long haul.** ** UPDATE 31/10/2016** The NHS Bill has been published in full on the parliament site. We need MPs to support it on 4th November in the House of Commons. Keep our NHS Public are organising a rally of support outside parliament from 11am-1pm - all welcome. It is unlikely the Bill will proceed further on this day, but the campaign - and the pressure on MPs - will continue. **UPDATE 30/7/2016** On 13th July 2016, the NHS Reinstatement Bill was successfully presented in the House of Commons, by Margaret Greenwood, Labour MP for Wirral West. Although opposed by Philip Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley, he did not call for a vote and so it was introduced by acclamation. The debate was well attended by Labour MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn. We think it’s positive the Bill wasn’t voted down, was presented by a Labour MP and has the support of the Labour front bench. But it needs to be published in full before its second reading on 4th November 2016, so we'll be keeping a close watch. **UPDATE 12/3/2016** We have been amazed at the number of people who have signed this petition, even since the debate closed. Fantastic. Please don't be put off signing as every signature helps to show and build support for the Bill.** **UPDATE 11/3/2016**The petition was formally handed over on 11 March 2016, on the day the Bill was discussed in Parliament. The Bill was filibustered by Conservative MPs who spent 4.5 hours talking about their Bill, so only 17 minutes was left for the NHS Bill. However, there is a huge groundswell of support for the NHS Bill, and we will be looking at ways to reintroduce the NHS Bill to Parliament. But we need to build more support from MPs, especially those in the Labour party. So PLEASE do write to your MP asking them to back it. The campaign continues.** The NHS in England is being dismantled. NHS services - including acute and emergency, children’s, elderly and maternity care - have been deliberately underfunded since 2010. The comprehensive care we’ve come to expect continues to be cut back. Many services have been handed to private companies such as Virgin, Serco and US giant United Health, hiding behind the NHS logo. Valuable NHS buildings and land are being sold off to property developers, often as a result of the exorbitant costs of paying for new hospitals built under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). These are our services and our assets. We the public own them. And polls repeatedly show that most of us want to keep our NHS. Privatised services cost the NHS and tax payer far more than when provided by our publicly owned and publicly run NHS. That is because public health systems don’t seek profits. They don’t need to pay dividends to shareholders. They don’t have the added costs of private sector loans. And they don't have to pay the management fees that private companies charge. A public NHS also doesn't have privatisation’s heavy marketing and contract administration costs of extra lawyers, accountants and management - at least £4.5 billion annually on one estimate and rising. Just cutting them, not NHS services, would go a long way to cover the shortfall between government underfunding and the NHS' needs over the next 5 years. These huge commercial costs and the chaos caused by the ongoing NHS fragmentation are the direct result of privatisation. This is endangering the quality and safety of our public healthcare. Privatisation isn’t just bad for the tax-payer. It's bad for our health. The Bill was presented to Parliament in July 2015 by Caroline Lucas MP with the cross-party support of 77 MPs. It is backed by the Green Party and the SNP, as well as by Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and other Labour MPs, one Plaid Cymru and one Liberal Democrat MP. Please sign the Petition to show MPs that we, the public, want them to reinstate the NHS as a public service. It is their responsibility to do so. And please write to your MP - whatever party she/he belongs to - stating your wish and urging him/her to back the Bill to bring back our NHS in England. You can find out who your MP is, how to write your letter and get more information on the NHS Reinstatement Bill Group’s website: http://www.nhsbill2015.org/ And join in the conversation on Twitter: @nhsbillnow and #NHSBillNow. Launched on 11th February 2016 this Petition originates from the NHS Reinstatement Bill Group, which includes the Bill’s co-authors Professor Allyson Pollock and lawyer Peter Roderick. Backing for the Bill continues to come from NHS personnel across the spectrum, from paramedics, nurses and Junior Doctors to senior consultants and managers. Over 300, including well-known names (Alan Bennett, Keira Knightley, Melvyn Bragg, Damian Lewis, Helena Kennedy, Stephen Frears, Alexei Sayle, Darcey Bussell) signed a letter of support published in The Guardian on 4th March 2016: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/04/why-we-support-the-cross-party-nhs-bill