Mining Memories

Memories of the Nottinghamshire Coalfields - David Bell - Countryside books

This fascinating little book, which BFTF borrowed from Nottingham Central Library, describes the working and community lives of miners in Nottinghamshire.

Banter
The book includes a section on the banter that the miners enjoyed, perhaps the best example of whih relates to Ralph Richardson, one of the engine men at Thoresby Colliery, who used the quiet periods during the day to cut the hair of colleagues who were in the know. This worked well until the day that Mr Thorneycroft, the manager, happeded to catch him in the act. . .

"I pay you to wind, not to cut hair. Explain yourself" demanded the manager

nter "Sir , this hair had grown in company time so why can't I cut it in company time?" replied Ralph

"It didn't all grow in company time, did it?" retorted the manager

"I know, so I'm not cutting it all off" responded Ralph, winningly.

Hornets
Keith "Scouse" Pruden recalls how, at Rufford Colliery, they had a delivery of wooden blocks from Russia. Unbeknownst to the miners, the wood had hornet larvae in it and in the heat of the mine they were soon boring out of the wood and flying around as 2-3inch long hornets!

Pit Ponies
One of the tricks of the pit ponies (who were extremely well looked after, btw) was to steal miners food from unattended jackets that were hanging up, especially if the food was not in a tin or plastic container. Keith Stanley comments that "I've actually seen a pit pony suck an orange through the fabric of the coat. And when the miner came back for his orange, all that were left of were a mosh. The pony had sucked all the juice out through the coat pocket""

The Best Of It
The universal answer was that is was the friendships and camaraderie that was the best thing about working in the pit. But some also commented that the money was also an attraction. Roy Mills, a coal face machine driver who was not afraid of overtime, managed to earn nearly £50k at Ollerton in 1991.

The Worst of It
The image of a coal mine that usually comes to mind is one that is dry and dusty - but this was not always the case, and difficult conditions were one of the hardest aspects of mining. Roy Mills commented that "Sludge is a horrible thing to work in, especially if you have to kneel in it or shovel it cos your machines are bogged down"

Keith Pruden comments that, as a youngster at Rufford he was "working in mud up to my knees, carrying material through mud and water. And the heat, it was like 100 degrees (F)

Injuries
Miners recalled some of the more serious injuries they had seen. Keith Stanley recalled what happened when a large side of coal fell onto the back of fellow miner Terry Noone ". .I shot over the chains to him and helped the coal off him but he said "I'm sore down here" So I lifted his shirt up and he days "Is it all right?" It had gone that deep that you could actually see inside him. I could see this purple thing moving in his back, some blooody internal organ. But I just shoved his shirt back and I said "Neah, Tet, it's not that bad, it's just a scratch" I bandanged him up and he went out of the pit. He was in hospital for two or three days for that"

Ron Booth gave an account of an accident he was involved in which occurred in difficult working conditions at Bestwood colliery "there was a coal cutter coming round, and in the fast end it were real bad work. I was bringign the coal cutter into the fast end , and the roof was shaley and soft. It all collapsed and buried me. One of the chaps. . had the sense to run back and scrape all the clay and clag off my face, else I would have suffocated"

According to Bob Bradley "It was usually somebody doing sometihng worng that caused 99% of accidents - it was very rare you got a true accident in the pit. It was usually somebody taking a short cut or something. Invariably when it comes out it's put down as an "act of God" so that people get compensation"

The 1957 Sutton Colliery Disaster
Bob Bradley was part of the rescue team at the Sutton Colliery disaster of 21st Feb 1957 and describes what happened ". . the panzer motor had got an electric cable going through it, a great thick cable. This great big piece of rock dropped out, hit this cable and chopped it off. The rock had brought gas with it. There was a flash. Bang! It cleared the deck, killling 5 people and injured numerous others. . . The part that I remember was the smell. It must have been burning flesh. The smell was slightly different to a rotten egg, slightly different to a dead rat, slightly different to a gob fire, but it was the smell of burning.

"The other thing that fascinated me was when I picked up a "bacca" tin, I opened it to look inside and there was a silver file, usually containing a twist of pigtail, but inside there was only a wisp of ash. The force hadn't melted the tin, but it had burnt what was inside. That's incredible, isn't it?"

The 1950 Creswell Colliery Disaster
One of the worst mining disasters of recent times, this occurred on 26th Feb 1950 and was caused by a fire started by a worn conveyor belt. Ninety-Nine men were trapped beyond the wall of flames and, of these, only 19 escaped and 3 bodies recovered before the order to seal off the area was given. The seals were broken after 12hours and 44 bodies recovered but the area had be be resealed and it was not until a year later that the remaining bodies could be recovered. A memorial garden in Creswell village cemetery lists the names of the men who list their lives in the disaster.


Related Posts
See the Projects Tab above for links to other mining related posts.

92nd Nottingham Scout Group

BFTF has been dead impressed by the volunteers who make the weekly scouts events happen and who organise all the trips that they make. No3 Son is a member of this Scout group (as a Cub). He thinks Scouting is great!
Liiter Picking and the Global Challenge(26 Apr 2012)
Today the 92nd Scout Group embarked on their "Global Challenge" badge. The Beavers were taking part in a quiz about countries and their capitals (did you know that the capital of Angola is Luanda?), while the Cubs and Scouts were litter picking in Forest Park.

Gloved hands and carrier bags all set for litter picking !

St George's Day March (21 Apr 2012)
The weather held off just long enough for a great St Georges Day parade in Nottingham City Centre. The 92nd Scout group were able to put their marching practice into. . .er. . .practice. The Scouts undertook a circular march from the Castle, around the market square and back to the Castle for a group promise. Good effort small people!

Some of the 92nd Scout Group marching together (ish) at the St George's Day Parade

Preparing for St Georges Day parade(19 Apr 2012)
Today the 92nd Scout group, including the younger beavers and cubs, spent time preparing for the St Georges Day march on Saturday 21st April as they will be marching alongside all the other scout groups in Nottingham before participating in a scout event at Nottingham Castle. But to march alongside others, you first need to learn to march - and teaching this skill was the task that the volunteer scout leaders had set themselves.

Yaseen, one of the Scout leaders, started with the basics by asking the Scouts to stand side by side in a line and then to walk across the hall while staying in formation.

How hard can that be? Surprisingly hard, as it turns out.

Between the differences in stride length amongst the Scouts and the hard-wired urge of the youngest ones to run instead of walking, it was a surprisingly tough task. Once the Scouts had started to make progress, it was time to take things to the next level and soon Yaseen had the Scouts responding well to “By the left quick march!”, “Group Halt!” and even “Atten…SHUN” (at which the Scouts were to stamp their left foot in unison).

The Scouts also spend some time preparing “St Georges Shields” for the march.

BFTF wishes them well for Saturday !

"By the left quick march. . . . . group Halt !"

Visit to the Theatre Royal, Nottingham (12 Apr 2012)

The Easter break saw the 92nd Scout group taking a really interesting trip around the innards of the Theatre Royal in Nottingham. Guided by David Longford and Caroline Pope from the theatre's education department, the scouts were taken on trip through time and space as David and Caroline described the history of the theatre and also took the youngster, literally, behind the scenes.

David and Caroline had a very interactive style and asked lots of questions of the youngsters, whose responses were fascinating. Aware that a "back-up" actor was called an "understudy", they quizzed David on what would happen if all the actors and all the understudys were ill, to which David had to admit that the play would probably be cancelled.

On the other hand, when asked which Queen was on the throne when the theatre was built in 1865, it took the clue that the monarch was known for wearing black before the wee ones chirped up "Victoria".

Some of the 92nd Scouts Group at the Theatre Royal

Queen Victoria, apparently best known for looking a bit like a goth. . .

Rounders in the Park (29th Mar 2012)

Taking advantage of the gorgeous weather, the 92nd Scout group were playing rounders on Forest Park today. It proved to be a really noisy event! The cubs, scouts and beavers really enjouyed themselves and there was plenty of "audience participation" from the scout leaders as they gave advice on whether the youngsters should stay or run to the next base. Indeed, it was almost like a surreal version of "Have you got your cards right" with "get back" and "run" replacing the "higher" and "lower" that the audience called out on Brucies famous show.

Rounders - its like cricket but without the boring bits. . .

The Spring 2012 Programme

Thought it might be nice to show just how varied their programme of activities is by listing what the Cubs managed to get through in the Spring2012 term :
Rucksack packing for camping - getting ready for the Summer Camp
Visit from Nottinghamshire Constabulary (they liked the Police's armour!)
Making a Bird Feeder
Making Jacket Potatoes
Talent Show Night (No3 son was, apparently, a rapper!!)
Design and Decorate a Biscuit
Learn two knots - getting ready for Summer Camp
Visit a Fire Station (they got to use the Firehose!!)
Visit to a Synagogue
Labelling parts of a Mosque
Themes around the Scout Promise

Entertainer Badge

The 92nd Scout Group NEEDS MORE VOLUNTEERS

At the time of writing (Mar2012) the 92nd Scout Group has 6 volunteers leaders, each giving perhaps 1 to 3hrs per week of their time - but the 92nd really needs 4 more volunteers to meet its needs, including a full Scout group for the "graduates" of the Cub Scouts. This really is a fantastic opportunity for so many different types of people. .

If you are a young person, this is something great for your CV.
If you are doing the DoE, this is a great way to fulfil your volunteering section.
If you work in the youth or social work fields, this is a great opportunity to get training related to your area.
If you are a parent, you probably already have the skills required.
If you are scared, no not worry, the National Scouts Association trains all the volunteers.
If you want to help make the next generation all they can be, this is your chance.
To find out more, contact Yaseen or Perwaise at Bobbers Mill Community Centre on 0115 841 5806. Or just turn up at the Fig Tree School on Bentick Road on term time Thursdays at 6pm to see what goes on and talk to the scout leaders.

Image Sources:
Queen Victoria

Dress Code at at the BBVA Awards

BFTF heard on Twitter that the dress code for the recent BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Awards was "men: dark suit, women: short dress" - which seemed a little sexist. So sent an email to them as shown below :

Dear BBVA

I've heard that the dress code for your recent awards event was "men: dark suit, women: short dress"

Is this true?

Do you really insist that all female attendees have to wear a SHORT SKIRT?

What message do you think this sends out?

Can you confirm that a more sensible dress code will be used for your next awards ceremony?

Encouraging activity not passivity at events

Imagine you are trying to encourage a community to be proactive, to be participative and to be innovative. What kind of events would you hold?

Would they be ones where the audience sits passively and listens to speakers or artists?

Or would they be ones where the audience actively participates in innovative activities that capture the imagination?

Something of a no-brainer, don't you think?

Soooooo, what kind things might qualify as being "innovative". To consider this question, BFTF has metaphorically let its imagination out of the stable to gallop freely in the field of possibilities and come up with a few starting suggestions. . .

The Big Line Of Coins
Somewhat embarrasingly, the first item in the list has been shamelessly nicked from an event that a local primary school held a year or two ago. Very simply, they asked the children to bring spare change and see how long a line of coins they could collectively make. And the results were impressive, with a line of coins snaking back and forth across the hall - and all the money going towards school funds!

BFTF imagines that it would be great fun to do something similar at a Muslim community event. One can imagine the sense of participation and of actually DOING something that it would create. And it would make a great news story too!

Imagine a line of coins snaking back and forth - how cool would that be !

The Big Campaign
Ok, we all know that there are bad things going on in the world - but practically, what we do?

On way of increasing awareness of how people can lobby against injustices is to give examples and suggest the people pick one (or something similar of their own choosing) to lobby on.

Perhaps a range of choices could be given from local (e.g. council efficiency) national (e.g. NHS cutbacks and privatisation) or international (lobbying against oppression in countries such as Syria)

The Big Survey
In the experience of BFTF, mosques and community centres do not generally ask the opinions of those who use their facilities - if they did, we would not be in the situation where, for the last 20 years, the younger generation have been crying out for sermons to be delivered in English while many mosques resolutely continue to give their sermons in Urdu.

But anyway, wouldn't it be great if the Muslim community was actually given the opportunity to say what they thought, and for these views to be visible for all to see.

For example, an event could have a thumping big board with a set of options, and the people at the event could slap a post-it on the options to say how important they thought they were. People could be asked what they thought mosques should be focussing on, or whether they think mosques and community centres are doing a good job in various areas, or what kind of campaigns, if any, people wanted to see mosques getting involved in . .

An example of a big board with questions that people could answer by slapping on a post-it

The Big Art
There are, of course, lots of options when it comes to art - but it is a bit harder if you want to choose something that can be undertaken collaboratively, is inclusive of children, can be spread out over a day and is not messy.

One possibility that fulfils these criteria is to have a big map of the area around the event and ask people and children to find the road that they live on an draw a picture of their houses on it - could turn out to be a genuinely interesting piece of artwork once a few dozen people / children have added their input.

The Big Award
It's easy to whinge an whine - but much harder to take the time out to give recognition to those who are doing a good job or giving a lot of their time to voluntary activities - so perhaps people could be asked who should get an award for "service of the year" - Police, Ambulances, Fire etc.

Or people could vote for the media outliet that they think gives the most unbiased news.

Or for the school they think is the best in the city.

BFTF thinks this would be a great talking point, and the results of the excersise something that people could use to challenge (or congratulate) their local mosque or community centre. Potentially, it would also give the community the beginnings of a sense of genuinely being stakeholders in the policies of community organisatiosn

Himmah Family Festival May2012

Himmah, a Muslim organisation working to provide assistance to Nottingham’s homeless, held a Fundraising Family Festival at Djanogly Academy on Saturday 19th May to provide a great family day out as well as to increase awareness of some of the issues faced by the vulnerable in society.

Some of the stalls at the Family Festival

The Great Day Out component was provided by children’s attractions including a trio of circus clowns who spent the day riding unicycles, juggling batons and making some very impressive balloon models - whilst still finding time to show children how to spin plates, learn poi-poi and juggle. The day also saw bouts of swordfighting between what seemed to be Zorro and a Pirate, which added a swashbuckling element to the day.

Bring on the Clowns !

Security at the event didn't mess about. .  .

The obligatory Bouncy Castle, somewhat inevitably, got a very serious workout.

The Bouncy Castle got a thorough bouncing.

An interactive Capoiera demonstation by Capoeira Nottingham was fascinating. Seeing their acrobatic moves, it is no surprise that they needed some time to limber-up beforehand.

Capoiera - a fusion of dance and martial arts.

Stalls, some kicking ethnic food and African Drummers provided further entertainment for the hundreds who attended the event.

Bridging the gap between entertainment and social justice were a number of performance artists including Shaam, poets and other nasheed artists.

Shaam - a group who were very approachable and happy to answer questions,
sign autographs and provide the lyrics to their nasheeds

In terms of increasing awareness of the social issues faced by some of the most vulnerable in society, the keynote event was a talk by writer and journalist Myriam Francois Cerrah discussed how issues are rarely black and white but rather shades of grey and that Muslim communities need to adopt an attitude of compassion, understanding and empathy when dealing with the troubled and destitute in society.

Myrian Francois Cerrah (left)

Backing this up was a stall by UNISON who were able to provide information on the campaigns that they run such as those on protecting the NHS, equal pay for equal work and defending public libraries.

And completing the picture where Himmah themselves, who were able to provide information of their work with organisations such as Nottingham Refugee Forum, Citizens for Sanctuary and Nottingham Arimathea Trust.

The event was sponsored by Pak Foods, Djanogly City Academy and Muslim Hands. TakbeerTV were the media partner.

Talk : Animal Testing

The latest in the Café Scientifique series of talks was presented by a member of the University of Nottingham’s animal ethics committee and was entitled "Exploring some myths on animal testing".

The speaker felt uneasy about publishing their name online, due to potential attacks by animal rights protestors, so let use call him “John Smith” for the purposes of this post.

John explained that he was a lay member of the committee, there to ask questions as a non-scientist His personal view was there was a need for a limited amount of animal testing.

At the outset of the talk, John stated that, for the most part, he had seen a lot of care of animals used in animal experiments. He added that that, at the University of Nottingham, there was a large team caring for the animals and that many scientists felt that “happy animals” resulted in “better data”.

Indeed, as soon as an animal showed signs of stress, such as going off their food or staying in a corner of their cage, some kind of action was immediately taken. This might range from removing the animal from the experiment to stopping the experiment to putting the animal down.

Indeed, there was an overall aim to reduce the level of animal testing in biological research, an aim that was encompassed in the “3 R’s”:

Reduce - the amount of animal testing required
Refine - animal experiments to reduce suffering
Replace - animal experiments with other forms of testing

John emphasised that animal testing was a time consuming and expensive process - certainly not something that researchers would embark on unless they felt they had to.

The animal testing at the University of Nottingham could proudly be broken down into testing involving small animals, such as mice, at the Science Park Campus - and testing involving larger animals such as sheep and pigs at the Sutton Bonnington Campus.

Small animals such as mice were generally used in medical research (e.g. cancer, hearing loss and alzheimers) whilst the larger animals were often used in farming related research (e.g. feeding trials and fertility testing)

It was pointed out that after the first animal ethics committee was set up at the University in 1998, the number of animals used in experiments started to decrease, but has now started to increase again. This is partly because of the increase in genetically modified mice in medical research and, surprisingly, partly because the breeding of these mice is itself classed as an animal experiment, with each bred mouse being counted in the statistics.

A measure the seriousness with which animal welfare is taken can be seen in the fact that the Home Office is copied into all meeting notes and can attend any meeting they wish.

John described how he would read each application and form his own view on whether the application was acceptable or not - he commented that, in his experience, if he had an issue with a particular application it was a concern that the rest of the committee usually shared.

Part way through his time on the University of Nottingham ethics committee, John took a sabbatical and spent some time in the US, visiting many University laboratories there.

In contrast to their reputation for having poor standards of animal welfare, John found that the US Universities had standards that were similar to those of the UK, with the possible exception that the physical environment of caged animals (such as mice) lacked the “natural” elements such as straw bedding and toys such as running wheels and cardboards tubes that were routinely provided at Nottingham. There was a feeling in the US that having very plain cages somehow made the experiment more “equal” and free from variability.

One other observation that John made was that, whilst the US is a single country, the costs of travelling around it mean that universities will sometimes only visit institutions within their own state, in order to minimise costs.

John also visited Huntingdon Life Sciences(HLS) in the UK, an organisation that had come close to collapse in 1997 after undercover footage shows dogs being treated very badly there. New management was brought in which stated an aim to make HLS a world leader in the humane treatment of animals. John commented that they have certainly made a lot of progress and a number of their initiatives (such as techniques to give injections to animals with minimal pain) have been adopted widely in the rest of the research community.

The broad animal rights movement has managed to make a real difference to the attitudes towards animal testing and has also caused companies to improve their standards dramatically.

One example of where the animal rights movement has caused problems to medical researchers, however, occurred recently in the case of a successful boycott of a US airline that was transporting laboratory mice. If transport of these animals (especially mice) by air becomes widespread, it will have a significant effect on research as scientists often wish to use mice from some specific breeding colony (to ensure their research is comparable to others in their field). If they are unable to obtain these easily, they may have to resort of less suitable animals or to breeding their own colonies - which takes time.

Moving on to explain the way in which animal tests were graded, John explained that there were three categories:

Mild : e.g. blood samples, minor surgery under anaesthetic

Moderate : e.g. small surgical procedures under anaesthetic, with post operative care, non-lethal toxicity tests

Substantial : e.g. major surgery, disease states

Whereas “substantive” testing was rare at the University of Nottingham, it might be much more common at other laboratories, especially those in the pharmaceutical sector.

In answer to a question about the trends there at play in this area of research, John commented that increased globalisation and increased focus on genetic therapies and research were the two biggest trends that were likely to shape the way animal testing is performed in the future.

He added that forthcoming European legislation was likely to less strict than current UK legislation, which is some of the strongest in the world and that globalisation is already resulting in animal testing on larger animals and primates being undertaken in countries with laxer legislation such as India or China.

On the other hand, scientist want any animal testing to be performed in labs that are clean and well organised, and are aware that happy animals make better data, so some kind of balance has to be found.

In answer to another question about the way the animal keepers interacted with the animals, John said that whilst this was not such a big issue with small animals, it was certainly the case that dogs (for example) were profoundly affected by the degree of interaction they had with their keepers. As an example of good practice, John mentioned a (now closed) AstraZeneca lab in Loughborough where a a small army of handlers would arrive every day to walk the dogs and play with them and where the dogs had a large, feature filled, play area to enjoy.

Interview : Prof Ian Shaw (short version)

An extra-short version of recent interview wwith Prof Ian Shaw for the time poor / attention span challenged out there (long version here). Prof Ian Shaw is the Professor of Health Policy at the University of Nottingham’s School of Sociology and Social Policy, and is also (amongst other things) a Non-Executive Director of NHS Nottingham City Primary Care Trust.

BFTF: How can people find out more about what the directors of the NHS are doing?

Ian Shaw : The best thing to do at the moment, because we are in a period of transition, moving from PCTs being in charge of the buying and selling of health services. . .to the clinical commissioning groups doing it. If you google “NHS Nottingham City” you’ll get the website with both the CCG and the PCT and all the board papers are on there, published at least a week in advance and the public is welcome to ask questions which are read out in board and to attend the board meetings as well.

BFTF: You have a very interesting blog and one of the posts was about the “Kidderminster Effect” and how competition doesn’t always pan out to be a good thing. Can you give a little more information on this?

Ian Shaw : Kidderminster was a district general hospital, a bit like the QMC only a lot smaller, in Worcestershire. And Worcestershire had [but didn't really need] three district general hospitals serving around 526,000 people. . .so they decided to beef up two and close Kidderminster.And they did it BADLY. They didn’t tell people WHY they needed to close Kidderminster. . . it wasn’t explained to the doctors in the communities, they just decided to do it. And it was a misunderstanding about who owns the NHS. The managers thought they owned it. They don’t - the people own it.

BFTF: Moving on a little to talk about competition. On the one hand superficially you can understand it, people are competing, they’ll try harder. But then you think about within an organisation - suppose you have an engineering company with five engineers - if they are all each keeping their good practice to themselves, they are hoarding their secrets, they don’t want to co-operate with the other engineers - that company isn’t going to last very long. How do those two drivers relate to the NHS?

Ian Shaw : There is what’s happened historically and there is what is going to happen in the future - so I’ll handle those separately.

What has happened in the past is that going back to 1997 . . . at that time there were people waiting for nine months on waiting lists - and that wasn’t uncommon so what the NHS did was say, here are some more resources, we want more facilities but also, if you can use the private sector sensibly where there are large queues to take the pressure until this new money in the NHS can build capacity then that is a sensible way to do it.

A&E Department, QMC, Nottingham

So that was the situation before the introduction of the NHS and Community Care Bill. The situation after its introduction, which is now, is that all significant contracts are going to have to be put on open tender. That means that the private sector can compete with your local community NHS service for example or your out-of-hours doctors service to compete for that service. They will compete on costs and on quality and it is up to the primary care trust at the moment, CCG’s soon, to procure those services through a contracting procedure and monitor them once the contract has been done.

BFTF: How does European competition law and the wish to balance cost and quality affect how decisions might be made?

Ian Shaw : If - IF - the contract continues to be based on quality so that it is the same quality going across and what you are doing is competing on quality then that is not necessarily a bad thing. . . It’s get into difficult waters if you start competing price, if you compete on price you are goinf to be driving the quality levels down. Competition has got to be done on quality and at the moment the safeguard is still there for competition to be done on quality but it’s literally a very small safeguard. . .

BFTF: You have mentioned a House of Commons report that stated that transaction costs were 14% of NHS total costs, but that there was no evidence that these transactions delivered 14% more productivity. Could you just elaborate on that a little bit?

Ian Shaw : This was the House of Commons select committee report in 2009, which showed 14% of the total budget going transaction costs - they buying and selling of goods and services in the market, the contracting and the monitoring of these contracts . . .and there was no evidence at all that this was creating 14% of added value in terms of productivity or quality. . . . A big worry for me is that the level of management costs in these new commissioning groups is capped so it is going to be challenging to do all of the monitoring of the contracts, the quality assurance that they are going to have to do with increased numbers of providers.

BFTF: Can ordinary citizens challenge their local Conservative or Lib Dem parties or the Dept of Health and say “Can you assure me, as a Citizen, that these contacts are going to be monitored adequately?”

Ian Shaw : . . The big thing is the Health and Wellbeing boards which are set up by local authority area and decide the health and social care strategy for the communities which they serve. The elected representatives, councillors, form a large group on that board so that the attitudes of the councillors are REALLY important for how this is going to role out within a locality.

Harltey Road Medical Centre, Nottingham

BFTF: Why am I hearing these clearly defined points from you? Why didn’t I hear it on the news? Why didn’t I hear it from the MPs?

Ian Shaw : That is a long argument. Twitter has been alive with criticism over the BBC particularly on their reporting of the NHS reforms and particularly the protests against the NHS reforms. There is not one single Royal College or Union which has not stood up to these reforms. They are trying to impose reforms on the NHS when all the Royal Colleges and unions are against it. . . Al Jazeera covered the NHS protests far better than the BBC. . .

BFTF: One other point about the Bill, perhaps a bit of a technical point, but one that is often mentioned is that the Bill allows Trusts to take up to 49% of private work [compared to a 3% cap before]. What is the concern here?

Ian Shaw : The concern is two fold. Firstly, most of the big NHS Trusts are working at full capacity anyway, so where are they going to get 49% of free space to bring in private patients. . . And the second thing is, why on earth would someone want to go privately when they can have things done free, to a good quality, in a timely manner within the NHS where they also have choice.

BFTF: Before we wind up the interview, is there any key message you want to get across to the public.?

Ian Shaw : There is concern about the direction of travel of the NHS. . . I am concerned that the “free at the point of use” bit - which is there now, it’s there with these new reforms but I think it might be under threat in the future. Bevan said that the NHS would be there so long as people defend it and I think that people need to be aware that it needs defending.

BFTF: Do you think it might go the way of dentistry has gone?

Ian Shaw : Well that is one of the scenarios on under this direction of travel. You might get the basic service free but they might say, “well, you’re in a bed, we’re changing your sheets, we are going to charge you hotel fees and we’re feeding you so we are going to charge you for food”. You can see the ways in which a cash starved service might keep to the letter of free-at-the-point-of-use but actually the add-ons become very expensive and in the US almost half of all bankruptcies are because they cannot afford to pay their medical bills and I would hate to see Britain move to that situation - nobody is suggesting that they are moving to that situation at the moment but I think that really we need to be alert to the possibilities that the direction of travel is moving.

NHS Flag, QMC, Nottingham

Notes:

You may also be interested in this post : "This is what is what is wrong with the NHS Bill"

Prof Shaw was interviewed on the Buidling for the Future show (Wednesdays at 5.15pm ish) on Radio Dawn 107.6FM, one of Nottinghams community radio stations.

Image Sources: All BFTF's own.