Why you should be in Balham this Tuesday night

KOSHH campaigner Colin Crilly writes about why everyone who cares about the NHS should attend a public meeting this Tuesday night (27 October) at 7.30pm in Balham: 

If you believe all that you read and see in the media, you would be forgiven for thinking that the NHS is on its last legs, and no longer fit for purpose. However, there is a much bigger story going on, one that is nearly all but being ignored by our news papers and television: The privatisation of our health service.

St George's Hospital (Tooting) is facing huge financial problems, mental health services in Queen Mary's (Roehampton) are being cut, and now St Helier (Carshalton) and Epsom Hospitals are facing the real threat of being demolished. These cases are just the latest in a pattern that has gone on for the last 30 years or so, regardless of what party happens to be in power.

The fact is that a state-run health service is the most efficient health service. All of the layers of bureaucracy that have been introduced, as well as companies coming in with a profit-before-care agenda, have left our health service in the poor state that we see today. 

We also have the legacy of the appalling debts from PFI (Private Finance Initiative) contracts. These contracts come with outrageous levels of interest that will take decades to pay back. In real terms, government investment in our NHS has been reduced for some time. Beware, we are heading towards a US-style health insurance system.

If you are concerned about these issues, want to find out more, and would like to help save our hospitals and health services, we urge you to attend our public meeting on Tuesday 27 October. The venue is the Balham Baptist Church, 21 Ramsden Rd, SW12 8QX and the meeting starts at 7.30pm.

Click here for more information. 

KOSHH campaigners stand with junior doctors

KOSHH campaigners joined the junior doctors who marched in London on Saturday.

Here is a video from the march:

And here are some junior doctors share their experiences and explain why they are demanding negotiations with Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, over the grossly unfair junior doctors' contract:

KOSHH fully supports junior doctors as they fight for a fairer deal. The proposals from the Health Secretary will endanger patient safety and lead to the UK losing more doctors as they seek better, safer working conditions in other countries.

KOSHH in the news! Featuring Tom Brake MP making curious statements...

KOSHH has made it to the front page of today's Sutton Guardian. It is always encouraging to get coverage in the media although we wish the future of our local health services was assured and we didn't have to keep waking people up to the real threats to St Helier Hospital, as well as other hospitals in south-west London and Sutton.

Click here for the link to the Sutton Guardian article.

It is curious that Tom Brake, Liberal Democrat MP for Carshalton and Wallington, is only now saying the £219m earmarked for St Helier Hospital's redevelopment is off the table. Has he been paying attention? This has been the case for quite some time now. Click here for a story on this from 2012 and click here for another story about the £219m from as far back as 2010.

The letter Brake received in August from Jeremy Hunt should surprise nobody.

Given that it is well known that local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) have been tasked with making "efficiency savings", it should come as no surprise to anybody who is paying attention that this money is not likely to be forthcoming. While it would certainly be more responsible to spend money properly upgrading St Helier Hospital instead of building a whole new hospital on the old Sutton Hospital site, at the expense of Epsom and St Helier Hospitals, as per the "traingate" leak, it is now apparent that we won't see a massively overhauled St Helier Hospital any time soon.

Yesterday was the closing date for public comments on the Epsom-St Helier Trust Estates Review document via the trust's website*. This document mentions £500m worth of investment is required. This would still work out cheaper than building a whole new hospital, along with the necessary road and public transport upgrades, for a new hospital on the Sutton site. That is a ridiculous plan which would mean at least 400 less beds for the local area and a hospital in a less convenient location than Epsom or St Helier.

It is also curious that Tom Brake described George Osborne's response to his question in the House of Commons about the future of St Helier Hospital as an "almost cast-iron guarantee". Leaving aside the metallic mystery as to what "almost cast-iron" is, a quick read of Hansard reveals that George Osborne simply gave a typical politician's answer in which no specific commitment was made and in which he was very careful to not actually mention the £219m sum.

Why did Tom Brake not make a bigger fuss about George Osborne's completely unsatisfactory non-answer at the time?

St Helier Hospital remains in limbo, with smaller upgrades taking place, but no overall plan in place to improve the site overall.

Furthermore, given that Tom Brake voted for the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which led to the creation of CCGs in the first place, why does he never attend CCG meetings to ask hard questions of the decision-makers who are spending our money? It would also be nice to see Tom Brake at Epsom-St Helier Trust board meetings too.

The CCGs, as well as the Epsom-St Helier Trust, need to be held publicly accountable for the way our tax pounds are spent and for their plans for the future of our essential local health services.

It is not just Tom Brake who should be doing this but all local MPs, regardless of political affiliation, and all local councilllors, especially those who campaigned on a platform of saving St Helier Hospital.

As we reported earlier this week, Merton CCG Chief Officer, Adam Doyle, was not prepared to make any public commitment to any of our local hospitals at last Thursday night's AGM. There are six CCGs, as part of South West London Collaborative Commissioning, involved in making decisions about our local health services. The lack of commitment to preserving our hospitals by Merton CCG is, most likely, the tip of the iceberg.

This story is far from over.

* A more detailed blog post on the Epsom-St Helier Trust Estates Review is coming soon.







Photography by Piotr Siedlecki

Update on personal health budgets in South-West London/Surrey

We received an excellent response to our blog post on personal health budgets, the poor media reporting of these budgets and what they may mean for health services in our area. Thank you to everyone who took the time to read the blog post and share it.

We have now put in freedom of information requests with all six Clinical Commissioning Groups responsible for our end of South-West London/Surrey.

These are the questions they have been asked:

1. How many patients in the CCGs which come under SWLCC's administration are on personal healthcare budgets?

2. What is the average amount spent per patient on these budgets?

3. Can you provide a demographic breakdown of who uses these budgets?

4. Without naming patients, is there information available on what sort of treatments these budgets are funding?

5. What happens to a patient if their personal budget runs out and their health has not improved?

The six CCGs have 20 working days to respond to the FOI request. As such, we will report back on September 29 on any responses we have received.

Diary date! Free TTIP film screening

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership - or TTIP - will have far-reaching implications on the NHS. To find out more, come along to a free screening of The Trouble With TTIP, a one-hour documentary.

Linda Kaucher from the Stop TTIP campaign will be on hand to answer your questions about what can be done to stop this secret US/EU trade deal.

Date: Thursday 3 September

Time: 7.30pm

Venue: Gorringe Park pub/cinema, 29 London Rd, Tooting, SW17 9HW. The pub is right next to Tooting Railway Station between Amen Corner and Figges Marsh.

Click here to find the event on Facebook.

Here is a short video to tell you more:

CCGs (or why campaigning to save the local hospitals is so hard...)

Campaigning to save your local health services often feels like being at the foot of a mountain. You start to climb, you feel like you've made some progress, and then someone at the top of the mountain drops a giant bucket of mud down the slope and you're pushed back where you started from. And you're covered in mud so you might feel a bit demoralised as well.

Additionally, it can be hard to know where to direct your complaints, demands and questions about threats to your local health services. And, even if you do know, it can be hard to then mobilise people en masse to join the fight.

It is all well and good to be angry at the government and the Health Secretary. But we also need to be aware of how NHS England now works as a result of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which was voted in by the Conservative and Liberal-Democrat MPs in the last parliament.

This act created the Clinical Commissioning Groups - the CCGs.

CCGs operated in every region of the country. They make the big decisions. They hold the pursestrings. They have been allocated budgets and it is they who make the decisions about what health services the NHS will fund in your local area.

When you see the phrase "postcode lottery" bandied about in the mainstream media about patients being denied treatment or patients receiving treatment that may be perceived as a poor use of public money, it is the CCGs that are making these decisions.

The postcode lottery situations we see today are a result of the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

Therefore, it is somewhat curious that when the media reports on postcode lottery NHS stories that this pernicious act of parliament is never mentioned. This week, the Daily Mail screamed at us about "Doughnuts and pizzas on the NHS"! This is the sort of journalism that relies on short attention spans and people not properly reading articles. This report, about patients with coeliac disease receiving gluten-free food on prescription, mentions how the system works but only in passing with a "NHS rules for prescribing food vary area by area" and the occasional "some NHS trusts" thrown in for good measure.

No mention of the role of CCGs in all this. That'd be the CCGs created by a government the Daily Mail supported then and, in its Tory outright majority form, supports now.

And it's not just the Daily Mail offering poor information on this story. Carole Malone writes a context-free opinion piece for the Mirror that seems to imply that the NHS has degenerated into a profligate cake shop for all. And the Daily Express fumes in a similar manner with no mention at all of how gluten-free food on prescription varies from region to region.

It also comes as no surprise that the Daily Telegraph, a long-time cheerleader for the Conservative Party, did not mention regional variations, CCGs or the Health and Social Care Act.

The Independent offers an opinion piece from a coeliac patient which at least calls out the reporting as "alarmist" but there is still no mention of CCGs or the Health and Social Care Act.

The BBC this morning, to its credit, did indeed mention CCGs when reporting on this story on the breakfast programme. But if you didn't happen to be tuned in to BBC1 at around 8.30am today, you probably missed the lesser-spotted CCG mention.

So what on Earth does all this have to do with saving Epsom and St Helier Hospitals?

Quite a lot, actually. The media hysteria over gluten-free food on prescription, while certainly a topic worthy of discussion, has become part of the NHS-bashing narrative of the mainstream media. As long as there is a drive to denigrate the NHS at every opportunity by a compliant media, the CCGs, and indeed the whole system that has created them in Westminster, will go unchallenged.

The mainstream media cannot be bothered to remind the public about how the NHS is now structured with CCGs or how that happened when they report on such stories, even though this is 100% relevant.

And here, in our end of South-West London/Surrey, we have been challenging the local CCGs, which are grouped under the umbrella of South West London Collaborative Commissioning, about their plans for Epsom and St Helier Hospitals as well as their declarations of interest.

If only the media would join us in this endeavour.






Photography by Maliz Ong

Asking questions of the Epsom-St Helier Trust: Part II

We are still asking questions about the Epsom-St Helier Estates Review document via Twitter. This is not a simple review of bricks and mortar, it is a review with far-reaching implications for our local hospitals.

Click here to download your copy of the Estates Review. It is essential reading for anyone who is concerned about the future of our local health services.

In our online discussions with the trust, we have asked about how they plan to publicise the review and the feedback period. One of the methods that was mentioned was leaflets. As a small campaigning group, we know how hard it can be to distribute leaflets widely to raise awareness.

However, we thought that a hospital trust might have a few more resources for widespread distribution of leaflets in the catchment areas for Epsom and St Helier Hospitals. A cursory Google search reveals that leaflets can be delivered from £25 per 1,000.

We asked the trust how the leaflets will be distributed. Will they be sent to every household, for example?

Here is the response:

If you see one of these leaflets, please let us know!



Photography by Piotr Siedlecki

The Epsom-St Helier Trust Estates Review: This is not a drill! This is the future of our hospitals!

The Epsom-St Helier Trust has released the Estates Review document. At first glance, it seems like a harmless enough report on the bricks and mortar of our local hospitals. It might even be a bit boring.

But the reality is that the Estates Review document is rather serious indeed. It is a report on the future of our local hospitals, Epsom and St Helier. We cannot underestimate the importance of this document or the need for people to read it carefully and respond to it.

Click here for the link to the report. You will have to download a PDF of the report to find out what the findings are and what this might mean for our vital health services.

At the end of the link is a questionnaire so members of the public can respond to the Estates Review. The Epsom-St Helier Trust has assured us this is not the official public consultation. We should hope not - this has been released with minimal publicity over the summer holiday period when many people are away. The closing date for submitting your comments via the online questionnaire is Wednesday 30 September.

We would be horrified if this was the official consultation period and the process was just an online questionnaire, given that the report could provide a road map for the future of our hospitals.

KOSHH campaigners will be reading the Estates Review document very carefully as we have serious concerns about what it contents mean for the future of our hospitals. Rest assured that as we go through this document, we will be asking hard questions of the Epsom-St Helier Trust and we will be making our questions and their responses public. 

KOSHH goes to the pub!

KOSHH campaigner, Colin Crilly writes about yesterday's stall at the Morden Brook:

On the afternoon of Sunday 26 July, KOSHH had a stall at the Morden Brook pub*, as part of their event to raise funds for the Great Ormond Street Hospital. I was joined by Sandra Ash, David Ash and Dave Ash - we nicknamed ourselves CASH!**

We leafleted most people in the pub about the screening of Sell-Off, which will be held this Wednesday night. Click here for more information about the screening - this will also be held at the Morden Brook. We also got a few more petition signatures, which are always welcome. Additionally, more badges were sold, and we gave out quite a few KOSHH window posters. Click here for more information about how to get your hands on one of these lovely posters. 

After more than three hours, we packed up, and posted the remaining leaflets about the Sell-Off screening through letterboxes of a nearby street. As I left the pub, I met a lady by the name of Sandra, and gave her a leaflet - it turned out that she is a leading figure at the nearby church. She has promised to attend the screening and inform other members of the congregation about it. We have also been invited to be part of the church's open day in September.

Any actions like these, no matter how small, are always worthwhile. Every leaflet given out, or discussion participated in could be of pivotal importance. It all helps to get the message out that not only are our local health services under threat but also the wider NHS.

* Many thanks to the Morden Brook for their ongoing support with meeting rooms and event-hosting. Click here to "like" them on Facebook.

** Many thanks to Philippa Zielfa Maslin and Chris Stanton for their assistance in dropping off some essentials to the stall as well.

KOSHH raises awareness at the Morden Family Fun Day

Dave Ash, Philippa Maslin and Colin Crilly spread the word about the threat to our hospital.

KOSHH campaigner Philippa Maslin writes about our presence on the weekend at the Morden Family Fun Day, an annual event held in Morden Park.

Sunday 19 July 2015 was the Morden Family Fun Day and KOSHH were extremely pleased to be a part of it. Thank you very much to Andy Butcher for his help in making this happen.

The KOSHH stall drew a lot of attention throughout the day, with many people interested to know the latest news regarding the hospital, and to sign a petition addressed to South West London Collaborative Commissioning (SWLCC). This petition asks that SWLCC protects, maintains and improves not only St Helier Hospital, but also Epsom Hospital, St George’s Hospital, Kingston Hospital and Croydon Hospital. 

In addition, quite a few people donated £1 in exchange for a lovely KOSHH badge, and ‘a regular’ at St Helier Hospital bought one of our equally lovely T-shirts.

People who were born at the hospital, people whose children were born at the hospital, people who have attended A&E, people whose life was saved by hospital staff, and people who are regular patients – we met them all and, by gosh, did some of them have some moving stories to tell. It was clear that the local community’s high regard for and loyalty to the hospital remains undiminished, and that ongoing threats to the hospital are perceived as deeply unjust.

It was particularly notable that a number of visitors to the stall recalled a BBC London news report, from April, which unearthed a secret plan to replace St Helier Hospital and Epsom Hospital with a new medical centre in Sutton – a centre which would not be built until at least 2020, but which would have just 800 beds, as opposed to the current 1,200 beds. 

What was especially striking was that no one seemed to be aware of the Estates Review being conducted by the Trust, or that the Review’s recommendation that £500m needs to be spent on rebuilding St Helier Hospital and St Epsom Hospital stands in direct contradiction to the massive ‘efficiency savings’ that both the Trust and SWLCC say that they are being asked to make. 

Visitors to the stall were completely shocked by this latest development, with several saying that it was bad enough when the £219m that was promised to St Helier Hospital was suddenly returned to the Treasury.

Of course, the uncertain future of St Helier Hospital is part of a wider picture of NHS cuts, closures and privatisation, and KOSHH exists to fight for the whole NHS, as well as our local hospital. It was, therefore, heartening to hear from the Mayor of Merton, David Chung, that he was going to try to help us arrange a screening of an extremely important and powerful documentary about the horrific destruction of the NHS, Sell-Off: The Abolition of Your NHS (2014), in Merton Civic Centre. His support is most welcome and we look forward to working with him. 

KOSHH would like to thank absolutely everybody who took the time to visit the stall. We really enjoyed meeting you all!

Another diary date! The Trouble With TTIP film screening

TTIP - the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership - is something that KOSHH campaigners are deeply concerned about. The potential TTIP has to destroy public services in the UK, such as the NHS, is immense. Yet negotiations are happening in secret for a deal that could open up all government contracts to the US market and entitle US companies to sue our government.

But don't just take our word for it. There is a film screening of The Trouble With TTIP on Thursday 30 July at 7pm in Balham. The venue is the Balham Baptist Church, 21 Ramsden Rd, SW12 8QX, opposite the library. It's a five-minute walk from Balham tube station and the 155, 355, 249 and 255 buses will all get you there.

The guest speaker will be Linda Kaucher, the Stop TTIP campaigner who features in this documentary. The screening is free and all are welcome.


Photography by Circe Denyer

Dates for the diary! Screenings of Sell-Off

Sell-Off is an important independent documentary about what is really happening to our NHS. It helps explain why St Helier Hospital - as well as many other hospitals across the country - are currently under threat of closure or downgrading.

KOSHH has held several successful public screenings of Sell-Off and now there are two more coming up this month.

Diaries at the ready! Here are the dates!

Thursday 23 July, 1.30pm: There will be a screening of Sell-Off for the Merton Centre for Independent Living. 328 London Road, Mitcham. CR4 3FA

Wednesday 29 July, 7.30pm: There will be a screening of Sell-Off in the function room of the Morden Brook pub. Lower Morden Lane, Morden. SM4 4SS. There will be a Q&A session after the screening and, naturally, the bar will be open! The pub is located at the roundabout that intersects with Grand Drive - the one known locally as the Beverley Roundabout.

We'd love to see you at either of these screenings. It is a powerful film and everyone needs to see it.

What are we celebrating on #NHS67?

Today the NHS turns 67. It should be a proud day of celebration. We should be able to go about our business today relaxed in the knowledge that the NHS is properly funded, properly managed and always there for us when we need it. But we are living in curious times where, across the nation, campaigners are fighting for local services.

This is not how is should be on such an auspicious day.

We should not have to organise meetings in our communities to work out how we can keep our vital services, such as A&E and maternity, open.

We should not have to make Freedom of Information requests to find out from CCGs and hospital trusts how are money is being spent.

We should not see a penny of our money going to private consultancy firms, such as Deloittes, most of whom have clients with NHS contracts.

We should not be fobbed off when we ask questions about the impact of private contractors on our health services, such as private cleaning contractors and infection rates.

We should not have to remind people over and over again that the Health and Social Care Act 2012 is destroying our NHS and that all MPs who voted for it need to be held to account.

We should not have to beg and plead with the major political parties to come up with policies for our NHS that does not involve moving to a US-style, insurance-based system.

We should not have to march on the streets to demand that big corporations, such as Google, Boots, Virgin and Amazon, pay their fair share of taxes on profits made in the UK so that the NHS can be properly funded.

We should not have to struggle to tell people that PFI deals and the massive cost of the internal marketplace are putting huge cost pressures on the NHS.

We should not have to remind people that while there may indeed be an argument for charging people for the NHS if they are not entitled to use it, that money will only cover 0.06% of the total budget, despite disproportionate media reports about "health tourism".

We should not have to read and watch endless NHS-bashing reports in the media that offer no balance and only serve to whet the public appetite for hospital closures.

We should not have a situation where too many good people are leaving the NHS because the conditions are becoming intolerable.

We should not have our hospitals relying heavily on agency staff instead of employing permanent staff.

We should not have to beg and plead with CCGs to hold meetings at times that are convenient for more people and to properly publicise their meeting times.

We should not have to constantly explain to people what CCGs are and how they hold the pursestrings for major decisions about our hospitals.

We should not have to hear about cuts being euphemistically described as "efficiency savings".

We should not feel so powerless nor feel like the closure of our local hospitals is inevitable.

We should not have to do any of these things. And yet we do. Because if we don't, we won't have our local hospital and we won't have an NHS either.




Photography by Alex Grichenko

The £219m promise for St Helier Hospital...

It was an intriguing exchange in the House of Commons when George Osborne filled in for David Cameron at Prime Minister's Question Time and Tom Brake asked him about funding for much-needed upgrades to St Helier Hospital.

Here is the exchange from Hansard:

Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): The Chancellor will be aware that under the coalition, £219 million was allocated to rebuilding St Helier hospital. Will he restate the commitment to that funding so that we can save St Helier?

Mr Osborne: We did commit to that hospital project, and provided that it continues to represent value for money, which I am pretty clear that it does, we will go on providing that support. What we have done is to commit to the Simon Stevens plan for the national health service—an additional £8 billion of NHS spending —which is something we can only do if we have our public finances in better order and we are growing our economy, which is precisely what we are doing.

In response to George Osborne's rather mealy-mouthed answer, Tom Brake put out the following press release:

Chancellor George Osborne promised that the new government would allocate £219 million to save St. Helier Hospital. He was challenged directly by Tom Brake, MP for Carshalton and Wallington, during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday. 

Mr. Osborne pledged to provide funding for St. Helier as long as the hospital “continues to represent value for money.” He said he thinks the hospital is performing well now.

Tom has led a campaign to save St. Helier hospital from harmful budget cuts for years. More than 21,000 local residents have signed his online petition to save the hospital, which can be found at http://www.saveoursthelier.co.uk/save_our_st_helier_petition.

Tom commented,

“I am pleased that Mr. Osborne has promised to stick with the coalition government’s plan to allocate £219 million to St. Helier Hospital. I intend to hold him to his promise. Our community deserves convenient access to essential healthcare services from a quality hospital like St. Helier. Osborne and the Conservative government must now deliver it.”

Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): The Chancellor will be aware that under the coalition, £219 million was allocated to rebuilding St Helier hospital. Will he restate the commitment to that funding so that we can save St Helier?

Mr Osborne: We did commit to that hospital project, and provided that it continues to represent value for money, which I am pretty clear that it does, we will go on providing that support. What we have done is to commit to the Simon Stevens plan for the national health service—an additional £8 billion of NHS spending —which is something we can only do if we have our public finances in better order and we are growing our economy, which is precisely what we are doing.

Hang on a moment, Tom. Where exactly in George Osborne's response does he actually say the £219m is back on the table? He doesn't. He gives a slippery politician's answer.

Tom, a few things...

1. The £219m was taken off the table in February 2014, as we are sure you are aware.

2. How does this claim that the £219m is promised for St Helier Hospital square up with the £360m in "efficiency savings" that the CCGs are making? The numbers simply do not add up.

3. The CCGs hold the pursestrings here and both you and Mr Osborne voted for the Health and Social Care Act 2012, the very act that created the CCGs. So why are neither of you mentioning the CCGs?

4. Are you putting pressure on the CCGs to rethink the need for the £360m in "efficiency savings"?

5. Given that the Health and Social Care Act 2012 takes responsibility for the NHS away from the Secretary of State for Health and places it in the hands of the CCGs, does George Osborne or Jeremy Hunt have the authority to make promises about funding for individual hospitals?

6. Why are you still linking to your e-petition about St Helier Hospital when it is still addressed to the wrong body, pre-dates the election and nobody seems to know when it will be handed in?

We eagerly await your response, Mr Brake.

Keep Our St Helier Hospital campaigners take to the streets of London!

KOSHH campaigner, Colin Crilly, reports on the peaceful anti-austerity march held in London on Saturday 20 June:

The anti-austerity march in Central London was huge. Estimates of the number of people marching were as high as 200,000 in the media. Amongst these people, there was a high number of NHS campaigners.

KOSHH campaigners, Brian Hennessy, Saleh Mamon and myself represented our campaign. We took turns holding up the KOSHH banner throughout the march. We were able to link up with other NHS campaigners, such as the Lambeth Keep Our NHS Public group. During the march, prominent campaigner and editor of NHS SOS, Dr Jacky Davis took my photo.

 When I arrived at Parliament Square, I saw a fire engine. Sure enough, Steve, who let us use the fire engine for a protest in Sutton last year, was at the wheel. He sent his regards to all KOSHH campaigners and gave me his number in case we want to use the fire engine in future actions.

The rally had high profile speakers, including: Charlotte Church, Owen Jones, Caroline Lucas, Jeremy Corbyn and Russell Brand. At the finale, the crowd was encouraged to go into their communities to continue working hard and spreading the word.

Here are some more photos from the march.

On Wednesday July 8, there will be a further protest against an emergency budget from George Osborne - that is sure to bring more worrying news for our health services. Click here for more information.

Click here to order a copy of Dr Jacky Davis and Raymond Tallis's book, NHS SOS.

Two screenings of the powerful Sell Off Film coming up!

Sell Off, an independent documentary will be screened twice in the next week at two south London locations.

Tonight - that's Wednesday 10 June - the film will be screened at 7.30pm at the Gorringe Park pub, which handily has its own cinema.

The address is 29 London Rd, Tooting, SW17 9HW. It's right next to Tooting Railway Station, between Amen Corner & Figges Marsh. After the film, there will be time for a discussion.

Click here for more information.

And next Monday, 15 June, Sell Off will be screened at 7pm sharp at Balham Baptist Church, 21 Ramsden Road, Balham, SW12 8QX. It is opposite the library and a five-minute walk from Balham Station. The buses 155, 355, 249, 255 will also get you there. Guest speakers will be on hand at this screening as well.

Click here for more information.

Here is some more information about the film.