Pembury Tavern, junction of Dalston Lane and Amhurst Road.

The new issue of our campaigning newspaper will be available for distribution.

NHS problems continue. Homerton Hospital managers want to privatise patient transport, and drive through further cuts in maternity services, with midwives facing redundancy. At the Primary Care Trust, staff were made redundant on 30th June. The Primary Care Trust has also decided to go ahead with the privatisation of Stoke Newington Church Street GP Practice.

Patricia Hewitt’s gone as Secretary of State for Health – but will Alan Johnson be any better? A lot will depend on how hard we campaign and lobby in defence of the NHS.

Stop press news: City and Hackney Primary Care Trust issued seven compulsory redundancies yesterday, with more expected over the next couple of weeks.

Meet outside 100 Stoke Newington Church Street to leaflet and petition against the local GP surgery being handed over to the private sector.

We’ve had a small but significant victory locally, holding up an attempt to transfer yet another local GP surgery to the private sector. We will need to discuss how to build on this success.

The demonstration on Saturday was a tremendous success, attracting around 300 in Hackney, and joined for a joint rally by a further 200 from Tower Hamlets. The march was representative of the full range of health workers, with doctors, nurses, therapists, advocates, and support workers of all kinds.

In Hackney, NHS cuts are beginning to cause real harm to patient care. Cuts at the Homerton Hospital are escalating, with maternity beds axed, midwives facing redundancy, the specialist breast cancer nurse service cut, redundancy of nurses and therapists, cuts to rehabilitation care for patients who have had a stroke… Rationing of food and milk is so severe that women who have just given birth find themselves unable to have a cup of tea because the hospital can’t afford milk!