15th November 2006

On Thursday night at Stroud district Council, Greens gave a welcome to the move to look at Social Enterprise to run local Health and Social Care services.

Cllr Martin Whiteside, Parliamentary spokesperson for Stroud District Green party, said: "In the face of repeated threatened cuts to our local services we need to explore the alternatives. We cannot let Weavers Croft close. Social Enterprise looks the best option at moment - but we need to move carefully: Social Enterprises require more sophisticated management skills than the average private businesses and we would also need to see proposals having the committed support of local health professionals."

Martin Whiteside added: "We want to keep health services local! People don't want to travel vast distances to either get treatment or to visit a family member in hospital. In Stroud we are extremely proud of our hospital, the Maternity hospital and facilities at Weavers Croft. We must find a way to keep these under local control and safe from repeated threats of cuts. We also need to keep our NHS safe from private profiteering. Social enterprise represents a way of doing both these things. Greens are the only main political party to support the national campaign backed by health professionals to Keep Our NHS public."