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HUNDREDS marched through Bristol this weekend against plans by the city’s health chiefs to dish out NHS contracts to tax avoiders.
Campaigners in the city are demanding that Bristol Clinical Commissioning Group, the body responsible for handing out lucrative contracts to health privateers, should continue to veto the handing of contracts to firms who avoid paying their taxes.
As revealed exclusively in the Morning Star last month, the commissioning group in Bristol is considering dropping its veto for fear of facing legal action for discriminating against tax-dodging privateers.
Saturday’s demonstrators supported the demand that the veto be maintained and also the NHS Reinstatement Bill, backed so far by 76 MPs. The Bill will be debated in the House of Commons on Friday.
It proposes restoration of the NHS as an accountable public service, reversing 25 years of running the NHS on a “free market” basis, which enables profit-hungry privateers to undercut NHS service-provision costs by axing jobs, slashing wages and reducing quality of care.
The Bill would also put health services back under the control of public bodies accountable to local communities.
Mike Campbell of Bristol Protect Our NHS said: “There were hundreds of us and the protest brought together a range of groups dedicated to protecting our NHS.”
Campaign groups involved included Bristol Protect Our National Health Service, Bristol People’s Assembly, Protect Children’s Community Health Services and Severn Region Junior Doctors Pressure Group.
