‘Under the Knife’ – a powerful documentary investigating the undermining and threat of privatisation within the NHS – is to be shown in Frome.
Narrated by award-winning Alison Steadman and endorsed by film director Ken Loach, the new documentary on NHS privatisation was launched with a wave of screenings around the country this October. More than 60 people, comprising a number of patients, nurses, politicians and frontline doctors, were interviewed for the film.
Casting an eye over the history of the NHS, the efforts towards privatisation of successive recent governments, and the grass-roots campaigners who are fighting back, the film is a powerful and penetrating 90-minute experience.
Dr Andrea Dexter, Green Party Parliamentary candidate said, “I have been an NHS doctor since 1984 and a GP since 1988. Over that time, while magnificent new treatments have been developed, the NHS has gradually been fragmented and in the last decade, I have seen a massive deterioration due to privatisation: access to GPs and practice and district nurses, long term understaffing of hospitals and hospices up and down the country and a huge drop in morale in one of the most self-motivated workforces imaginable.
“As a country we now have a static life expectancy compared to our European peers; increasing infant mortality rate, decreasing cancer survival, and increasing child suicides. It is no exaggeration to say that the NHS is in a crisis, and to me this film helps to explain why. Come along and judge for yourself. “
Somerton and Frome Green Party are hosting this free public event on Wednesday 13th November at 7pm at Frome Town Hall. There will be a 30-minute Q&A discussion session following the film. Donations welcome. For further information please contact contact@ eastmendip.greenparty.org.uk
