So the Conservatives won the election ....

Update 3rd June. We're pleased to report a big surge in interest since the election as people want to know how they can resist the threat of a 5 year Tory government both to the NHS and to health in general. Come to our public meeting on 2nd July (7pm Quaker Meeting House) to find out more.

Original Post Well it wasn't because of their policies on the NHS. More a matter of a heavily funded press-backed fear campaign based partly on xenophobia against an opposition which at a national level lacked presence, profile, conviction, narrative and personality. To the myth that Labour were mostly responsible for the banking crisis is now being added the myth that Labour went too far to the left. As if. It made mild moves about taxation, refused - for business reasons - to back an EU referendum and offered little in the way of redistribution - buying into the shirkers smears. Now it will have to regenerate.

What does this mean for the NHS? Well the first thing to recognise is that the national and local campaigns for the NHS have not been wasted. They placed the NHS high (though not high enough)among voter priorities and held at least some of the worst intentions of Lansley's reforms in check. They also forced Cameron to pledge continued funding for the NHS. Now we can expect to see the further reconfigurations of the 5 year Forward View being rolled out along with attempts (which will include cuts) to deal with the immediate funding crisis. One of the most crucial tests will be seeing how the government deals with the likely vast increase in hospital financial 'failures'. Will offers to the private sector be their first solution and is so will the private sector bite? There will need to be significant and prolonged campaigning as has recently begun in Staffordshire, backed by national liaison through organisations such as Keep Our NHS Public (to which SSONHS is at present affiliated). Trades Unions will need to improve the ways they informing the public and canvas support.

At the same time campaigning will have to be well informed. Resisting all changes to hospitals and other services, including transfers of services to community bases, will neither be helpful nor successful. We will have to disentangle all the projected winners and losers from each proposal.

There will also be the question of devolution and whether it will, as in Manchester, include health spending. Local politicians, especially Labour, will need persuading not to accept chalices which contain the poisons of limited funding and limited accountability (national or local) as well as others to be identified.

Health treatment for migrants will also be an issue, with the Tories likely to use this as a pilot for further charges.

Neither Cameron (nor Hunt if he continues) will embark on policies which can be easily branded as the breakdown of the NHS. They will be more subtle building on the the quite widely voiced feeling (including among doctors) that the conditions of a service matter more than who provides it (without seeing how the two are related).

But most importantly of all, the NHS cannot be viewed in isolation. Cameron refused to say where his promised funding of the NHS would come from - and remember it was on top of the £12billion welfare cuts. If he works to a fixed budget, backed by his promised tax lock, all other public services, especially those for the poorest, will suffer worst - thus causing even more of a burden on the NHS. This cannot be allowed to happen - it will not have been this for which people voted - rather that they felt safer under Cameron. Instead they have voted to live on a cliff edge which is being eroded from below. Disasters will undoubtedly follow.

To continue campaigning SSONHS will need more support from all those dismayed at the scale of the Tory triumph and who are rightly fearful of what it will mean for all our services, especially the NHS.

If you are not already a SSONHS supporter and want to be more involved, let us know by emailing team@sheffieldsaveournhs.co.uk. We will need people who are willing to get involved all sorts of different ways of trying to protect the NHS, from making sure that the public are aware of what will be planned to getting involved in some of the detailed consultations and engagement we can expect from our local NHS.