{"id":12991,"date":"2017-08-10T12:54:38","date_gmt":"2017-08-10T11:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=12991"},"modified":"2017-08-10T12:54:38","modified_gmt":"2017-08-10T11:54:38","slug":"swingeing-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=12991","title":{"rendered":"‘Swingeing’ cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Families with children and babies in Shropshire face swingeing cuts to health visiting services, Unite has warned.<\/p>\n

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Unite said that proposals could see the number of specialist community nurse posts, mainly senior health visitors, being cut by 19.5 whole time equivalent (WTE) posts, with the resulting negative impact on families, often the most vulnerable in the community.<\/p>\n

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Unite said cuts, understood to be \u00c2\u0141600,000 a year, being demanded by Shropshire county council in the proposed contract for Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust, due to start on October 11, should\u00c2\u00a0 be reversed.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis is the thin end of the wedge and we are calling on the Shropshire public to make its collective voice heard before the consultation process ends on September 8, so these proposed cuts are stopped in their tracks,” said Unite regional officer Stuart Baker.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe rhetoric is to improve services, but the actual agenda is to drive through cuts estimated to be \u00c2\u0141600,000 a year \u00e2\u20ac\u201c or a 14.3 per cent budget cut for these services. The health visiting and school nursing services now come under the public health budget which resides with local authorities.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat we are faced with is a tsunami of cuts to health visiting, school nursing and community nursery nurses in Shropshire.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWithout the support for breastfeeding; supporting maternal mental health; early intervention for developmental problems; early work to intervene and prevent families entering the child protection arena;\u00c2\u00a0we are creating a cruel society which perpetuates health inequalities among the most vulnerable.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe plan is get rid of the specialist health visitors and replace them with less well-qualified staff who may not be trained to pick up these serious problems,” he added.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt makes a savage mockery of the Tory government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s investment in the implementation plan to increase the health visitor workforce and is yet again evidence of a lack of foresight and empathy by health secretary Jeremy Hunt in considering the long term consequences on the future health of the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

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Unite, which embraces the Community Practitioners\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and Health Visitors\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Association (CPHVA), is holding a series of meetings with its health visitor, school nurse and community nursery nurse members beginning August 24.<\/p>\n

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Unite points to the irony that the first meeting is being held in the middle of Health Visitor Week (August 21-25) which is designed to promote the important role\u00c2\u00a0of health visiting across the country.<\/p>\n

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Unite lead professional officer Jane Beach added, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bJust last week Nursing & Midwifery Council chief executive Jackie Smith called on nurse leaders to address the staffing issues.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI would go further and question why our nurse leaders, nationally and at local level, are not standing up for specialist nurses.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bInstead what is happening is directors of nursing in trusts in England are implementing new models of community public health nursing services that are removing specialist nurse posts with reckless abandon.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Families with children and babies in Shropshire face swingeing cuts to health visiting services, Unite has warned.   Unite said that proposals could see the number of specialist community nurse posts, mainly senior health visitors, being cut by 19.5 whole time equivalent (WTE) posts, with the resulting negative impact on families, often the most vulnerable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4082,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[461,77,571],"wps_subtitle":"Shropshire health visiting faces tsunami of cuts","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12991"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12992,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12991\/revisions\/12992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}