A several million pound publicly funded contract has been agreed but not yet signed by NHS Lambeth. The money is not being spent on employing qualified and experienced counsellors by The Awareness Centre who has been subcontracted to provide counselling. There has not been any transparent discussion on the role of trainee counsellors in Lambeth and nobody in Lambeth has been properly consulted about the change to services. The current counselling service that provides experienced and qualified therapists for patients registered with GP's in Lambeth is being replaced by a private organisation that uses trainees and volunteers only. This means that they don't get paid (and even have to pay for their internal training) and that they will be working alongside no qualified staff. This is both unethical for patients and for trainees. I have been working for the NHS since 1984 and the complexity of cases has got harder and harder and I dread to imagine the impact this will have on patients and staff.

The consortium – which includes Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust – aims to cut pay for nurses, doctors and other healthcare staff by up to 15 per cent at a time of unprecedented change and financial pressures in the health service A total of 20 trusts across the south west are ploughing £200,000 into the cartel in an attempt to introduce radical changes to pay and conditions through a regional pay system. The proposals – which could include making staff work longer hours with less annual leave and smaller pay packets – would undermine the national pay system that provides a fair and transparent system and ensures health managers anywhere in the country can recruit staff with the right skills and experience to give patients the right care. The proposals will be bad for staff morale and have an adverse knock-on effect for patient care. It will damage recruitment at the hospital and cause staff instability as fewer people are attracted to work in a low pay zone. With a workforce of 4,000 at Salisbury, lower local pay will also hit the local economy.

Patients will face longer journeys to A&E at other hospitals in Manchester and longer delays for treatment because these hospitals are already working well above their planned capacity. Patients lives in Trafford will be put at risk if they are stuck in traffic jams when they need emergency care. And loved ones face longer, more expensive journeys to visit patients in hospitals outside the borough. See www.savetraffordgeneral.com

In Britain there is a suicide every 90 minutes and research suggests that it could be three times higher than this, as coroners often return verdicts of misadventure or open verdicts. For every suicide 6 to 8 people are intimately affected, with many more having resultant bereavement problems. To lose someone you love through suicide is indescribably awful. It has been referred to as a personal holocaust. People torture themselves with a million questions of ‘Why?’ There is a whole kaleidoscope of emotions and feelings stirring around in a pit of despair. The sense of rejection can be crushing too. How can he have loved me to do what he did? Then there is the searing guilt - if only I’d done this or that-the replaying in the mind of countless permutations of possible scenarios of what may have been. Over 30 years ago, I was bereaved through my father’s suicide. At that time there was no support available to my sister and I, other than what we could offer each other. It was incredibly hard. My sister became depressed and I went with her to see a psychiatrist who just told her to take tablets. There was no referral to a counsellor to whom she could ventilate her feelings. I was only 19 at the time and knew nothing about mental health problems and distress. However, common sense and intuition told me she needed someone to talk to but this was not on offer. The tablets had all sorts of nasty side effects and my sister gave up taking them. As a consequence, she became more depressed and suffered with depression for many more years. It is a fact that people bereaved through suicide are more likely to have mental health problems and be at increased risk of suicide themselves. In general terms, men have a lot more difficulty than women discussing their emotional issues and problems. Male macho culture, and the concept that ‘big boys don’t cry’ is still very much around and accounts for the fact that many more men than women take their own lives. There is also a strong need to develop culturally sensitive suicide bereavement/prevention services to people from ethnic minorities and asylum seekers and refugees. Another important need is to develop a suicide bereavement service for children and young people this by its very nature will demand a skilful, sensitive and specialised response. Another area of concern are mental health workers who loses service users through suicide. These workers need help and support in the distress that they are experiencing and often with the guilt around their perceived professional failure towards the person they have lost. We need to build a coalition of interested organisations to develop a national suicide bereavement response this also needs to be incorporated into the National Suicide Prevention Strategy similar to that developed in Australia. Presently in Britain we have a number of voluntary groups trying to provide a good service but limited by inadequate funding. This leads to a postcode lottery with some provision in some places and little or nothing elsewhere. Suicide bereavement and prevention are opposite sides to the same coin if we do not provide good support to those bereaved through suicide we will have further suicides. There is a lot of good evidence that properly run Suicide Bereavement support groups save lives and help to reduce mental and emotional distress. I was involved in running the Leeds organisation of Survivors of Suicide for 15 years and I know that during that time the group really helped many people bereaved through suicide and I am sure it played an important role in preventing further suicides. The Samaritans have people bereaved through suicide as one of their priority groups. I gave a keynote speech at the National Samaritans Conference in September 2009 on the “Impact of Suicide on Others” and highlighted the need for a national response. This is clearly necessary as, every day, people are being bereaved through suicide. They are an overlooked, badly neglected group of people, whose acute needs and problems are very considerable and warrant a compassionate, well-organised and systematic response. If we live in a civilised society is this too much to ask? Common humanity demands that we take effective action but, in addition, a fully funded National Suicide Bereavement Strategy would, in fact, prove to be very cost-effective because of its effect of in relieving mental distress and helping to reduce further suicides’. We desperately need a national, well-funded, organised, compassionate response to people bereaved through suicide throughout the country as soon as possible. I am delighted to say that the Samaritans are very supportive of the need for this. Mike Bush Consultant in Mental Health Retired Mental Health Social Worker Member of the Leeds Suicide Prevention Strategy Member of the All Party Group Suicide and Self Harm Prevention

The NHS is very important to us as it is to millions of people in this Country.Myself and family have a lot to thank the doctors,nurses and staff as they saved the lives of our two grandchildren when they were babies both suffered from a virus which nearly killed them both. Thanks to the doctors and nurses they are both fit and well aged 11 years old and 8 years old.Our son who has a genetic conditon also has a lot to thank our local hospital and a hospital in Sunderland who done their best for our sons eye sight they give him years of sight and fought very hard to save his sight but sadly 3 years ago he lost his sight.He then went on to have a stroke at the age of 24 years old through the skill and care he recieved by James Cook Hospital he has pulled through with no lasting effects. So for us our NHS is the best in the World and fighting these cuts in services like a hospital a few miles away from us is having to run a monthly care boot sale to pay for front line services.This should not have to happen to our NHS we care passionatly as we do about our GP's service.Thank You.Ron,Viv

When a girl undergoes female genital cutting, some or all of her external genitals are cut away. This can be part or all of her labia, part or all of her clitoris and part or all of her clitoral hood (the prepuce). In its most extreme form, all of her external genitals will be cut away. This often happens in very basic circumstances with rudimentary tools; it is unlikely that there will be any anaesthetic or sterile conditions and often severe and life threatening complications follow FGM. In the harshest form of FGM, the wound that is left may be sewn closed with thorns or string and only a small hole is left for menstrual blood and urine. The wound then heals over and the scar tissue “seals” her vagina. When she is married she will then have to be cut open to make sexual intercourse possible, often on her wedding night. When she goes into labour, she has to be cut open again. After this she may be re-sewn and cut open again every time she conceives and gives birth. The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies FGM into four categories dependent on severity (initially there were three categories, the fourth was added later): Type I: Also known as clitoridectomy, this type consists of partial or total removal of the clitoris and/or its prepuce. Type II: Also known as excision, the clitoris and labia minora are partially or totally removed, with or without excision of the labia majora. Type III: The most severe form, it is also known as infibulation or pharaonic type. The procedure consists of narrowing the vaginal orifice with creation of a covering seal by cutting and appositioning the labia minora and/or labia majora, with or without removal of the clitoris. The appositioning of the wound edges consists of stitching or holding the cut areas together for a certain period of time (for example, girls’ legs are bound together), to create the covering seal. A small opening is left for urine and menstrual blood to escape. An infibulation must be opened either through penetrative sexual intercourse or surgery. Type IV: This type consists of all other procedures to the genitalia of women for non-medical purposes, such as pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterization. The usual age for girls to be cut is between five and eight although in some communities, girls undergo FGM in their early teenage years and the procedure acts as a rite of passage into womanhood. Throughout history barbaric practices have been stopped mainly through a sustained process of education and legislation. FGM has continued because it has been a secretive and taboo subject. It is time to break the silence, educate and legislate, and eradicate FGM totally.

The government is planning to sell off Plasma Resources UK, the firm responsible for supplying blood plasma products to the NHS, to a private contractor. We, the undersigned feel that this is unacceptable for the following reasons: 1. Blood plasma is essential for the treatment of many conditions, including burns, shock and major trauma; immune disorders and neurological conditions; protecting unborn children from haemolytic diseases. Possibly best known plasma product is Factor VIII used to treat around 3,000 haemophilia patients. 2. The profit impetus may compel any company taking over services to cut corners in order to make return. This could have devastating consequences for patient safety should contaminated, poorly packaged or improperly labelled products reach frontline healthcare services. The next part of this section is a fuller statement about Blood Plasma and why it is so important to stop the sell off of Plasma Resources UK. It shows how the Government has already split plasma services away from the National Blood Service so that part of what was a unified Blood Transfusion Service can be sold off for profit. Read on: First of all an apology. I started this petition on 38 Degrees after seeing and signing a similar one on the Government ePetition website. After doing a little research of my own and receiving an email via this site, it is clear that the Blood Transfusion Service (NHSBT) is not being sold off. However, Mr. Lansley has been party to breaking up NHSBT in 2011. It is the part that he has separated off that he is looking to sell off. That company is Plasma Resources UK (PRUK), the principal supplier of plasma and plasma products to the NHS. Blood and Plasma are obviously ‘joined at the hip’. When a donor gives a pint of blood, 55% of that fluid by volume is plasma. Much of today’s service is about producing blood and plasma products for the treatment of a wide range of patients. Treatments using plasma products are no less important than those using blood products. You have only to ‘google’ medical uses of plasma to find out the wonderful way its products can influence patients lives, such as the treatment folk suffering from burns, shock and major trauma; immune disorders and neurological conditions; protecting unborn children from haemolytic diseases. Possibly best known plasma product is Factor VIII used to treat around 3,000 haemophilia patients. The work of producing these valuable plasma products (there are hundreds of them) has been carried out by the Bio Products Laboratory (merged with the Blood Service in 1993 and now called Bio Products Limited (BPL)). Plasma Resources UK (PRUK) is the Health Dept company that manages the supply of blood plasma from the US through US based British owned company DCI Inc, which has been necessary since the BSE outbreak and concerns about people developing vCJD. For some years there has been a particular strategy to reduce the dependency of NHSBT's blood products division (BPL) on government subsidies. ‘Our Fractionated Products division (BPL) operates in competitive markets across the UK and globally with other multi-national pharmaceutical companies. A key strategic goal has been to move this part of our organisation into a profitable trading position. This was achieved during 2008/09 thanks to the continued growth in sales and throughput. Our future plans seek to sustain and build on this performance.’ Just a year later this part of the Blood Service was hived off to a separate division from NHSBT: ‘On 1 January 2011 Bio Products Laboratory was transferred into a new legal entity, Bio Products Laboratory Limited, a 100% owned subsidiary of Plasma Resources UK Limited (PRUK), which is 100% owned and managed by the Department of Health.' There are concerns about ‘blood and plasma markets’ in the US. The cost to DCI includes payment to donors. The market has also been described as working like a monopoly or cartel, where at one extreme price can be fixed or competition can be fierce leading to among other things attempts to reduce costs and all the inherent dangers in that. This market in the USA has been described as representing “everything wrong with American-style capitalism”. It is too early to know what relationship a privatised PRUK would have with the NHS and hence what the implications to the NHS might be in terms of cost and guarantees about supply. I recall that a few years ago there were fears of a flu epidemic (I think) and it was found that vaccine originally destined for this country was redirected to other countries where the Pharmaceutical Company could get a higher price. Could the same happen with a privatised Plasma Products company? If the time comes when we can recommence plasma donations in this country, would anyone sign up if their altruistic gift was given to a company concerned with making a profit from it?

Current research shows that in U.K., more than 62% of clinical psychologist report having experienced mental health difficulties at some point in their career. With the implementation of the SCoPED frame of work the counselling and psychotherapy industry in the U.K. is one step closer to being regulated and receiving the deserved attention. In a society where mental health is beginning to be appreciated in all sectors and aspects of one's life, it is irresponsible that regulator organisations, which are part of the SCoPED frame of work, such as the BACP, ACC, HGI & NCS, facilitate trainees and "registered/accredited members" who are not undergoing personal therapy as an integrated part of their training and professional development; to practice in paid client work obtained through directories managed by the said organisations. Such can be verified by reading the SCoPED PowerPoint (slide 14) frame of work published ON THE WEBSITES of those organisations mentioned. When it comes to ethical and safe therapy offered to vulnerable people, there should be no buts or ifs. Clients of any kind have next to no understanding of what constitutes a professional counsellor, nor should they be held responsible for doing so. Counsellors and organisations who profit from the service they provide are entirely responsible and, above all should be making sure of doing no harm. Many courses accredited by those organisations mentioned do not integrate personal therapy in their training, placing students and potential clients at great risk. People should join my campaign to support a safer and more regulated industry. Supervisors would know the risks involved and should back me up to protect their supervise. Institutions benefitting from the high cost of the training they offer are obliged to provide an ethical frame of reference to their students before they reach the public. Regulators like the UKCP and BPS, who fortunately require personal therapy, should help to set the standards that they themselves believe in and sign up for the petition.

Palantir was formed by the CIA and its expertise is in surveillance and border security, NOT health or patient data. Palantir is fully American owned. There is no guarantee that your patient data won't be harvested and stored outside the UK. This would make it very difficult to police the security of your data. Although the data is meant to be anonymised various organisations could get hold of the means of restoring personal data from the database.

I have two sons who both live with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. We are grateful for the NHS and have always received fantastic care any time we have needed it. There is just one problem, most of the Nurses we have encountered in both Paediatric and Adult Departments have little experience in Moving and Handling patients who require hoisting. This is due to a comparatively small number of patients requiring this, however for those patients who do, this is essential. Nurses really ought to receive moving and handling training, including with slings and hoists, and should have access to refresher courses at least once a year, to ensure that every patient receives the best care possible. Every patient deserves the best care, and when Nursing Staff have little or no experience this can result in injury to the patient and themselves.

The NHS was founded as a two pronged system. There was the NHS - The national Health Service, and there was the NHS - The Natural Health Service. The second NHS is far less well known but equally important. The idea behind the movement was to give all people access to the natural landscape around us for the benefits it gives to us mentally and physically. This was important as people has just returned from second world war - people had died for this land and they deserve access to it. The move to give people access to our natural landscape was blocked by the House Of Lords (as you can imagine they don't want people snooping around there land). The point here is that the NHS was founded under the principle that we would have access to landscape and people. Today, social and nature prescription is on the rise but still has little to no space in the public sphere as a genuine way for us to tackle our health crisis. We need it as a part of our preventative and ongoing care for people with issues from mental health to physical ailments. It's cheaper than medecine and strengthens community bonds and resilience.

Targets, (whether or not they are achieved by the NHS), help us to judge the performance of the NHS over time.