NHS group may fight elections

8:55am Tuesday 10th October 2006

NHS campaigners in Oxfordshire are considering putting a candidate up for election to help their fight against hospital cuts.

The Keep Our NHS Public campaign said there was an uprising of anger about slashes in the NHS locally and nationally.

And now campaigners are talking about taking the fight into the public arena.

Chairman of the Oxford campaign, Larry Sanders, said: "We have discussed the idea of putting someone up for election recently, but the time scale was against us.

"It is certainly a possibility - if a suitable by-election came up and if we had enough time. But it would take a while to get things moving.

"It is something we are discussing. I would not be able to stand - it would have to be someone else because I'm too identifiable as a Green Party councillor."

Mr Sanders, a county councillor for East Oxford, said protests about cuts in NHS services were building up across the country - and could threaten to rival the rebellion against the poll tax.

Mr Sanders added that there was increasing awareness and knowledge of the problems faced by the NHS.

He said: "There is an uprising because people are starting to realise what is happening.

"We started a year ago and people are really starting to understand how the NHS is suffering and what is at stake."

The Oxford Radcliffe NHS Trust has to make savings of £33m and is shedding 600 posts across its hospitals - although trust chief executive Trevor Campbell Davis says it now looks like no more than 60 staff will be made redundant.

If the campaign group does enter a candidate in an up-coming election, they can take heart from Dr Richard Taylor. In 2001, he became MP for Wyre Forest after pledging to fight the closure of Kidderminster's accident & emergency department.

The Keep Our NHS Public campaign is planning a demonstration on Saturday starting at Hinksey Park at noon and then going towards Broad Street.