Health reform protesters to target Hove Conservatives office

Campaigners are to stage a protest in Hove against the coalition government’s health reforms on Saturday (17 March).

Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition and Brighton Keep Our NHS Public intend to demonstrate outside the Conservative Party office in Church Road, close to Hove Town Hall.

The protest is being held at 3.30pm on Saturday with the Health and Social Care Bill due to go back to the House of Commons for the final time early next week.

The campaigners said: “This bill is overwhelmingly opposed by health workers’ unions and professional associations.

“There is no genuine support for this bill outside of the government, except from the private healthcare companies who are set to gain from a move towards an American-style private system.”

They said that the people of Brighton and Hove opposed the bill with thousands signing a petition against it in just a few hours on a rainy Saturday.

They also urged the city’s MPs to vote against the bill and said that all three had been invited to speak to protesters on Saturday.

They added: “We will be asking the Tory MPs to simply honour their election pledge – ‘No more top-down reorganisations of the NHS’.

“Reorganisations do not get much more top-down or destructive than this!”