www.peoplesinquiry.org
A Unique Inquiry
London's NHS faces exceptional problems: very large targets for cost savings, a series of proposals for far-reaching reconfiguration and cutbacks in hospital services with question marks over their viability, stretched mental health and social care services, struggling PFI hospitals, and many other issues.
So what are the implications and future prospects for patients, staff and the wider public? Unite the union has set up a People's Inquiry, with a distinguished, independent-minded panel, to gather the facts and take the pulse.
The People's Inquiry - Panel
Roy Lilley is well known as an established, independent blogger (nhsManagers.net) and health policy analyst, writer, broadcaster and commentator on health and social issues.
Polly Toynbee is a political and social commentator for The Guardian. Previously she was the BBC's Social Affairs Editor. She is vice president of the British Humanist Association and Chair of the Brighton Dome and Festival and a trustee of the Social Mobility Foundation.
Sue Richards was Professor of Public Management at the University of Birmingham, and from 2005 to 2010 was seconded to the Cabinet Office, where she was Director of Strategic Leadership at the National School of Government. She has researched, written and taught about many aspects of management and leadership in the public domain. In March 2013 she became co-chair of the campaigning organisation Keep Our NHS Public, a body which is committed to fighting the increasing marketisation of health services.
Dr. Louise Irvine has been an inner city GP for 20 years, and also a GP trainer and programme director. She is Chair of Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign. Louise sits as a member of the Panel in a personal capacity, but she is also a member of the BMA Council, and of the Medical Practitioners Union of Unite
Naledi Kline RN, SCPHN, MSc has worked in the NHS as a registered nurse, midwife, and health visitor with many years front line practice, mainly in London. She has been a clinical senior manager in four London Trusts. Naledi is currently Head of Nursing: Standards and Practice at a large London NHS Trust and was runner up in the CPHVA "Manager of the Year" award for 2013.
Frank Wood is presently on the executive committee of UNITE the Union representing over 90,000 health workers. He has worked in the NHS for over 25 years in pathology services. He is chair of the joint trades unions at Kings College Hospital where he has established a reputation as an active and campaigning trade unionist linking health workers with the local community and service users.
The Inquiry's Researcher,
John Lister
Now a freelance, John Lister has been a journalist for almost 40 years. Since 1984, working for the pressure group London Health Emergency, he has specialised in health policy.
Having obtained a PhD from Coventry University in 2004 for a thesis on market-style "reforms" in global health care, John this year published a completely revised and updated edition of the book based on it, now entitled Global Health Versus Private Profit. He won a 2009 Medical Journalists' Association award for his history of the NHS: The NHS After 60: for patients or profits?
