​There have been four deaths at Morton Hall in a year, the most recent were a 38-year-old Jamaican man Carlinton Spencer who died on 2nd October and a 27-year-old Iraqi Kurdish man Shadad Zraw Aziz who died on 19 November. Since 2000, the death toll of those who have died in immigration detention or shortly after release stands at 43 (source: Medical Justice). 


Morton Hall Immigration Removal Centre is in Lincolnshire. It is run by the Prison Service for the Home Office and holds up to 392 detainees. The Prisons Inspectors on 21st March last year reported on Morton Hall: “Nearly half the detainees told the inspectors they felt depressed or suicidal on arriving at Morton Hall.”


 Assemble outside Morton Hall IRC
 Saturday 20th January 2018 – 12:00 Noon to 3:00pm
 Source: Stuart Crosthwaite
Secretary, South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group (SYMAAG)
[email protected]
 

RAPAR is to team up with film-maker Jason Wingard and producer Hannah Stevenson to screen In Another Life, an acclaimed feature film which tells the story of refugees who lived in the Calais camp known as "The Jungle".
Screenings are currently taking place around the country. Details can be found here along with a trailer of the film. 

We wanted people in the UK to think differently about refugees and the refugee crisis. In the British press, we were being shown pictures of people clambering on to trucks and journalists were using words like swarm that de-humanised individuals and created fear and mistrust. It turned thousands of individual stories in to one mass problem and promoting inequality and inciting racism.

Jason Wingard, the director, did not believe what he was being told and wanted to find out the truth. He had seen documentaries about the jungle encampment, but due to the amount of news coverage, they seemed to be washing over people. He felt a story where the audience was forced to stay with one person’s journey for 90 minutes might resonate better with an audience.

We wanted people to put themselves in a refugee’s shoes and consider what would they do if they were forced to leave their home. What would they expect if the tables were turned?

The film was shot in 3 stages. The first stage was to take 2 actors out to Calais and to film them in the Calais jungle. Whilst there, we made friends with refugees in the camp and listened to their stories. We filmed as much as we could but we had to film in more of a documentary fashion.

The second stage was to build a set on an anti fracking camp so we had more time to cover longer scenes and the third stage was to complete the film back in Calais just before the camp was demolished.

During the time between the first and second shoot, Mima, a refugee from Ethiopia that we had filmed with, managed to cross to the UK and was granted asylum. Mima risked his life boarding a train, clinging to the undercarriage in the station to remain undetected by police then as the whistle blew, quickly scrambled on to the roof, avoiding the live electrical wires overhead and accessing through an over head safety door. Mima joined us on the second leg of the shoot and became one of our central characters.

Mima’s story is just one of the many we heard while on the camp. We were committed to producing a film with integrity and to tell a truthful account of people’s experiences. The central characters are fictional but everything that happens to them in the film can be tracked back to the true accounts we either witnessed or were told while in the camp.

Mima was a journalist in his own country. He was arrested and tortured by the authorities. He experienced enormous emotional trauma on his journey to the UK and has since started to get his life back on track.

Having undergone unfathomable emotional distress; refugees or displaced people then have to start all over again in a new country. Starting over can be as much of a trauma as the journey itself.

The work that RAPAR do is essential to enable people to begin again.

Basic human rights, such as bank accounts, legal advice, housing information and access to work are essential to enable displaced people to contribute equally in a reciprocal way to UK society.

In Another Life shows the first stage of the Adnan’s journey. The second, equally challenging stage is embracing and enhancing a new culture once asylum has been granted. People need to be empowered so they can start their life again.

Thank you to everyone who came to RAPAR's Annual General Meeting at the Friends' Meeting House in December. Special thanks to Manjeet for chairing the meeting and to everyone who gave presentations. 


Shazana from the human rights organisation CAGE spoke about "The Confession: The Story of Moazzam Begg", a documentary which tells the story of a Birmingham man who was wrongly accused of "terrorism" and detained without trial in Guantanamo Bay. After three years in the infamous detention camp, Moazzam was finally released by the US government following an international outcry. RAPAR and CAGE will jointly host a screening of the documentary. More details to follow soon.


RAPAR members Nestor, Maurice and Barly spoke about their experiences of the UK's detention process - and the ways in which the system can lead to people being unlawfully detained. Another RAPAR member Henrietta described the difficulties with housing for people seeking asylum and how these difficulties continue even after people have won their cases.


Evelyne talked about the work of Young RAPAR and Farheen ended the meeting by reading from the collection of poems she has written. Afterwards there was food made by Zeinab and music organised by Jamil in the RAPAR office.

 ​Thank to everyone for making it such a success.

Here is a selection of photos from the AGM:

​

Charities issue urgent call for reform of housing arrangements as £600m government contract goes to tender

Frances Perraudin

Asylum seekers arriving in the UK are forced to live in “squalid, unsafe, slum housing conditions” and the public is largely unaware of the conditions into which “traumatised people are routinely dumped”, charities have said.

The £600m government contract to provide shelter for those seeking sanctuary in the UK goes up for tender next month as calls mount for urgent reforms.

Testimonies from asylum seekers and frontline workers detail accommodation that is infested with vermin, insecure, damp and dirty. One woman in Greater Manchester described how she was forced to stay in the same house even after her newborn baby was covered with bites from bed bugs.

Another asylum seeker in Greater Manchester told of a sink pedestal that crashed though the ceiling into the area where she was living with her three children. Another in Merseyside shared images of her bedroom after the ceiling had collapsed for the second time in six months.

Charities also told the Guardian that women who had been trafficked had been put in housing with internal and external doors that did not lock securely. “You’re talking about people who have potentially been raped, sexually assaulted, tortured, not being able to lock their front door,” said Christina Bodenes from MRANG, a Merseyside charity that provides support to women their children seeking asylum. “It’s just a completely unacceptable situation.”

Responsibility for housing people seeking asylum in the UK was taken away from local authorities in 2012 and given to the companies Serco, G4S and Clearsprings, through contracts known as Compass.

The vast majority of asylum seekers are housed by G4S and Serco in the poorest parts of the country where housing is comparatively cheap. G4S holds Compass contracts for the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber, the Midlands and the east of England, where 45% of the UK’s asylum seekers live.

Serco holds contracts for Scotland, Northern Ireland and the north-west, where just over a third of the asylum seekers live. Clearsprings had contracts for Wales, the south-west, and London and the south-east.

Maurice Wren, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “All too often, people seeking asylum in the UK are forced to live in squalid, unsafe, slum housing conditions, at exorbitant cost to the public purse.

“Though the general public is largely unaware of the appalling conditions into which traumatised people are routinely dumped, ministers and officials are not, yet this scandal continues unchecked. The time has come to end this shameful practice and allow people seeking asylum to live in dignity.”

David Simmonds, the chair of the Local Government Association’s asylum, refugee and migration taskforce, said councils regularly complained that they had little power to tackle the “generally unacceptable” standard of accommodation for asylum seekers in their areas, because the private contractors’ contracts are with the Home Office.


“The accommodation will always be at the lowest end of the market, because to win the contract the providers bid at the lowest possible price,” he said. “But vermin infestations and damp are things that would stop a local authority from considering that accommodation for placing UK homeless families. That same minimum standard should apply consistently.”

Graham O’Neill of the Scottish Refugee Council said asylum-seeker housing was a vital public service, “housing for a group of people who really need the stability and the privacy that a safe home and a safe space can bring”. It is “publicly funded and yet local authorities and devolved governments have no ability to hold these providers to account”, he said.


Asylum seekers do not have permission to work while awaiting a decision on their claim. Under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 they are able to apply for accommodation and financial help from the Home Office if they have no other means of supporting themselves.

Armed conflict and political instability in the Middle East and Africa have caused the number of people housed under the act to jump sharply during the life of the Compass contracts, from about 25,000 to 40,000 at the end of last year.

MPs on the home affairs select committee heard evidence last year that G4S and Serco were losing money on the Compass contracts, in part because of the increase in the number of asylum seekers and the rising cost of rents. Serco’s average monthly income per service user was about £300 in February 2016, compared with an average cost of around £450.
The committee published a report in January that said the government should act immediately to improve conditions. Ten months later, charities say there has been little improvement and the government is yet to respond to the findings.
It has said the previous month that the current Compass contracts would be extended for two years until August 2019. Contracts to provide asylum seeker accommodation from September 2019 until 2024 will be put out to tender in November.
A Home Office spokesperson said the ministry worked closely with contractors to ensure they provided accommodation that was “safe, habitable, fit for purpose and adequately equipped”, and that it investigated all complaints relating to sub-standard accommodation.
John Whitwam, G4S’s head of immigration and borders, said the standard of accommodation provided to asylum seekers was “subject to prescriptive criteria”, and that any failure to meet those criteria would result in a contract penalty.
“Since November 2013, we have not been subject to any performance penalties on the basis that we rectify many tens of thousands of defects each year to meet the required standard,” he said. “We continue to invest in our provision, despite heavy commercial losses.”

Scott Ross, Serco’s operations director, said the company was committed to ensuring they provided “decent and safe accommodation” for the 16,000 asylum seekers in its care, and that they met all of their contractual obligations.


“We are absolutely confident that the asylum seekers we look after are in housing of a decent standard, and where repairs are required to the 5,000 properties that we manage, these are completed in accordance with the strict timescales of our contract with the Home Office,” he said.

‘This house is awful’When Maria - not her real name - fled her home in South America because she faced imprisonment without trial for protesting against the government, she was pregnant and homeless. Now her daughter is eight and they have been living in her current home for five years, but the property is still is barely habitable.

Maria says the accommodation in Leeds has got worse since G4S took over the contract. Her house is so riddled with mice that she and her daughter are forced to sleep with the lights on to stop them coming into their bedrooms.
“It’s not just the quality of the house I’m in, but the service has got worse,” she says. “I’m excited to move out of this house, but I already feel so sorry for the next family they are going to bring here. This house is awful.”
Another asylum seeker living in Greater Manchester said she was scared for the safety of her children, all under ten, after a sink pedestal fell through the ceiling of her living room in mid-July. “My daughter and son played in the same place [where the pedestal fell]. I was really scared,” she said. “When I go to sleep I think what could have happened.”

See original article [with images] here.

This Guardian article by Rebecca Yeo is a tribute to Kamil, a disabled man seeking asylum who was murdered last year. Kamil was a friend of RAPAR members, in particular Manjeet Kaur and Mary Adenugba who, in 2012, worked with him on a mural in the centre of Bristol. It was created by a group of disabled people seeking asylum who used the mural - sited in a public space in Bristol - to tell their own stories.

"Kamil was both an asylum seeker and disabled. That combination would prove fatal as he was let down by the Home Office and the police

Kamil Ahmad was murdered in Bristol on the night of 7 July 2016. He had fled his home in Kurdistan, Iraq, after two years of brutal treatment in prison and years of conflict and violent repression following the occupation. He arrived in Bristol five years ago, at the age of 44, hoping to find peace and safety.

Kamil could be labelled a refused asylum seeker. Like so many his application had been refused. The suffering he had been through was not enough to persuade the Home Office that he deserved sanctuary. Being disabled and an asylum seeker and having your application refused are not just labels. As Kamil put it: “Everywhere is closed for me.”
I met Kamil in 2012 when working on a project with disabled asylum seekers in Bristol. At that time, Kamil was working on a fresh claim. His mental health conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder, made it difficult for him to concentrate, remember and provide the necessary evidence of the minute details of his experiences. Kamil had no secure place to live, no source of money, no knowing where he would get his next meal. What he did have was vast quantities of medication. He told me the doctors asked why he was taking his tablets on an empty stomach. He explained: “I don’t have any money, I don’t have any food.” He asked me why doctors could prescribe tablets but not food.

Comparing his experiences in the UK with those in Iraq, he told me, “When I was in Iraq the people smashed my head by stones, they laughed at me, they hit me, abused me … here in this country they don’t hit you … but they do mentally … is it the human right if somebody is a disabled person to be treated in this way?” But he was wrong. In this country, they hit you, too. In his case, they killed him.

Kamil drew a picture of what he wanted other people to understand about his life. He explained to me: “This is my heart that has been stabbed with a dagger. The Home Office did to me this, I am bleeding and no one can stop it.” This was four years before Kamil was killed.

Bristol has a fantastic network of people offering space in their homes to destitute asylum seekers. But the network found it hard to provide the support Kamil needed. He spoke of his sense of isolation when sharing a house: “I can’t see anybody to talk to … There are some people, they don’t have my illnesses, they don’t have my problems.” Volunteers lobbied to get Kamil a care assessment from social services. He was assessed as having significant and ongoing physical, psychological and mental health needs. He was provided with space in a hostel for people with mental health issues. It felt like some small success. Some of his basic needs were being recognised.
But soon after he moved in, another resident, Jeffrey Barry, took a dislike to Kamil and beat him up. He racially abused him and told support services of his plan to kill Kamil.
Kamil had what his friend described as a naive trust in the police. Each time he was abused or attacked, he went to the police. He believed the authorities in Britain would protect him.

On 9 June 2016 Kamil received a letter from social services informing him that his support was to end. He would have to move out. This would have meant being street homeless with no financial support, knowing the impact this would have had on his mental and physical health. With help from friends, mental health support and his solicitor, Kamil fought to stay. But he also needed the threats and abuse to stop.
On 7 July 2016, just before killing Kamil, Jeffrey Barry rang a mental health helpline saying he was out of control and would hurt someone. He had informed many people, many times, who was to be top of his list. The police were called but it was already too late.
Last year, the UN accused the government of “systematic” violations of disabled people’s rights. In August this year, a UN representative described the situation as a “human catastrophe”. Kamil’s death is one horrific part of this bigger picture.

In 1999, under paragraph 115 of the Immigration and Asylum Act, asylum seekers lost the right to any acknowledgment of the extra costs associated with disability in the UK. Asylum seekers also became subject to forced dispersal to areas of low-cost accommodation around the country. This was more than a decade before similar measures were introduced in the Welfare Reform Act 2012, including the bedroom tax, and the reduction in benefits for disabled citizens. In 2009, when the UK government ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People, it added a reservation, excluding the Convention’s article on Liberty of Movement from the enshrined obligations. This would facilitate the exclusion of disabled people at the border if the government of the day so chose.
More recently, in apparent contrast, the UK Visas and Immigration department set up a ‘Safeguarding Hub’. This aim is to ensure that ‘vulnerable’ or ‘at-risk’ individuals are offered protection within the asylum system. Leaving aside for the moment the obvious failure to implement this aim, I suggest that the labelling of people as ‘vulnerable’ takes us back to before the disability rights movement began. Kamil died not because of his personal vulnerabilities, but because the system gave him no protection from his killer. His death highlights the need for systemic change such that he would not have been forced into a vulnerable position.

Had Kamil not been both an asylum seeker and disabled, perhaps he would still be alive. Perhaps the police would have taken his needs more seriously. Perhaps social services would have offered him alternative accommodation. Perhaps he would have had the option of moving out.

This is all speculation, but the one thing that is clear is that Kamil was failed. Never has the term “failed asylum seeker” been more appropriate. He was failed, terribly. By the system. He came to the UK to seek safety, but found the opposite. He escaped violence in Iraq and was brutally killed in a hostel set up to provide protection. Here. In Britain.

(This article was corrected on 19 October. A previous version stated that the police had been called but did not come. In fact, the police were called by a mental health helpline worker at 02.07 before being contacted by Jeffrey Barry himself at 02.16 confessing to the murder, after which they attended the scene)

See the original article here.



This Disability Murals link tells the story of the mural and it also contains  a link to a YouTube film, featuring Kamil, Manjeet and Mary, called "I'm An Asylum Seeker. It Changes Everything":

Barly Koyangbwa
Deputy Representative of APARECO North West UK

In this article I wish to bring to the attention of the international community, particularly to the people of UK, the countless violations of human rights occurring in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Ever since my home country was assaulted by a Rwandan-Ugandan coalition 21 years ago, with the support of the international community and global corporations alike, these violations have been taking place day and night.

It is indeed the case that the media’s silence on the matter, as well as the complicity of the international community, hinders the chance for the British public to learn what exactly is going on in DRC.

Points to consider

It is no longer a secret to anyone; most of the world media are either financed or owned by global corporations1. The silence from the mass media on the massacres and violations in DRC is due to the great interest these corporations have in the region’s natural resources, such as coltan - used in the production of smartphones and laptops - gold, cobalt, gas and diamonds among others. These companies, engaged in large-scale business with genocidal criminals such as Joseph Kabila, Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni, know that if the British public were aware of these crimes they would then put pressure on their government to intervene, thus complicating matters for the multinational companies.

At the start of the 20th century Britain supported DRC in its fight against genocide at the hands of the Belgian King Leopold II during the rubber tapping campaign2. Millions of Congolese were mutilated, amputated and killed simply when they were not able to carry the heavy loads of rubber that was demanded3. With the help of APARECO, ‘L’Alliance des patriotes pour la refondation du Congo’ (The Patriotic Alliance for the Restoration of Congo), the Congolese can now call upon Britain’s help once again.

I take this opportunity to urge human rights organisations, independent journalists and humanitarians in the UK to speak out, just as Edmund Dene Morel, Roger Casement, John Harris and Arthur Conan Doyle (author of Sherlock Holmes) did. They put pressure on Leopold II and wrote about the crimes being committed under his watch, and in 1908 the independent state of Congo was removed from the private ownership of Leopold II and became a Belgian colony.

The British people now have a moral duty in the face history; it is your turn to put pressure on the government and on the UN, and to support APARECO in its fight to free DRC, so that the Congolese are no longer massacred because of the natural resources that they happen to live among.

Key moments in DRC

- 1996: the Rwandan-Ugandan army attacks DRC with the financial, logistical and political backing of USA, Canada and South Africa along with support from multinationals. At the head of the rebellion is a Congolese man named Laurent Désiré Kabila, a puppet put in place to portray the situation as in-fighting between the Congolese, consequently leading the outside world to believe that this was the case4.

- 1997: May 17th - President Mobutu is removed from power and Laurent Désiré Kabila becomes President of the Republic5.

- 1998: Kabila realises that much control of the country is now in the hands of the Ugandan-Rwandan coalition, control that he himself signed away in the legal agreements before becoming president. With this realisation, Kabila refuses to recognise these agreements and the alliance between him and the Rwandan-Ugandan aggressors come to an end. Rwandan and Ugandan ministers, advisers, officers and soldiers leave DRC and retreat to Rwanda. The Rwandan and Ugandan armies mount a new war of aggression in DRC, this time with more rebel groups and other figureheads such as Jean Pierre Bemba.

- 2001: The conflict ends with the assassination of President Laurent Désiré Kabila, completing the coup lead by Paul Kagame. A Rwandan citizen called Hyppolite Kanambe, also known as Joseph Kabila, is appointed president of DRC6. The war of aggression against DRC by its neighbours in the East concludes with Joseph Kabila’s appointment as head of state. It is in this moment that the occupation of DRC is complete. The success of the occupation is evident by the fact that all the Rwandan officials and politicians who had fled DRC, having been expelled by Laurent Désiré Kabila, then return to DRC. (Only one official of note remained in Rwanda - general James Kabarebe who, under Laurent Désiré Kabila, was the Chief of Staff of the Congolese army, but then took up the same position with the Rwanda army).

What are the interests at stake?

DRC is a rich country that attracts the interest of its geographical neighbours and of big businesses. A stable DRC is of no interest to them. The big powers believe DRC is too vast and therefore must be ‘Balkanised’, ie, divided up to facilitate the exploitation of its natural resources. While multinational companies extract DRC’s natural resources they would prefer not to negotiate with a government made up of Congolese patriots. To keep this potential inconvenience at arm’s length they finance and arm militia with the aim of creating instability and chaos in the region to profit further from the selling-off of its resources.

The Rwandan-Ugandan point of view

Rwanda and Uganda profit from their intermediary status by carrying out fraudulent business in DRC and staging fake rebellions in collaboration with Joseph Kabila and his generals. They create insecure environments, stealing from, murdering and raping Congolese.
While Paul Kagame’s Rwanda not only steals resources from DRC it is also his intention to colonise the East side of the country7.

Strategies that Kagame’s Rwanda uses in DRC

Many might ask how it is possible that such a small nation (Rwanda) could bring its giant neighbour to its knees. It becomes clear when one considers that Rwanda is the active accomplice of an international plot to ‘Balkanise’ DRC, and behind that plot lies the world’s big businesses. Their strategy can be summarised in two words: lies and chaos.

1) The lie:

The occupants of DRC entered the country on a lie, claiming that they had arrived to liberate the country from the Mobutu dictatorship. They had established an identity thief as leader, Joseph Kabila. They arrested and kill patriotic Congolese politicians and have fabricated a false government opposition in the form of corrupt and greedy Congolese officials who allow them to stay in DRC and further the region’s ‘Balkanisation’. That is why APARECO does not only oppose Joseph Kabila as an individual but is also against the whole system of occupation of DRC. Its occupants can simply replace Kabila with another Rwandan or Congolese puppet at any time in order to portray a change of system. APARECO does not believe in elections in an occupied DRC or in the results from conversations between its occupants and their collaborators. APARECO is instead preparing the Congolese for an awakening that will result in a grass-roots uprising.

2) The chaos:

The occupants persistently stir up rebellions to create insecurity and intimidate the Congolese with mass rape and burning down natives’ homes to oust them from the East. They gradually spur on the Rwandan colonialists to infiltrate the region so that one day, when they become a majority in East DRC, the new Rwandan population can request a referendum on independence. Women in DRC, including the elderly and infants, are victims of systematic rape as the occupants try to eliminate Congolese nationals in the East. DRC has become “the rape capital of the world”8. Where important minerals are found, killings begin. In the case of Kasai, 80 mass graves have been discovered since September 2016, 38 of which were found by MONUSCO.9 According to UNHCR, more than 1.3 million Congolese have been displaced as a result of the conflict in Kasai.

I do not believe that revenge, hatred or division are the credible answers to bring about stability in the region of the Great Lakes. The Congolese, Ugandan, Rwandan and Burundi people are already destined to be eternal neighbours.

When looking at Europe’s history one can see that its countries have endured many invasions and wars amongst them throughout the centuries, most recently in the 20th century two world wars and the Balkan atrocities the were preceded by genocide. Fortunately however the Europeans did not let themselves succumb to the disaster of division. They condemned the guilty parties and put systems in place to ensure their living together in harmony, respect and dignity. Who would have thought that France and Germany would now be working together for the progression of the European Union?

For the case of DRC and the region of the Great Lakes, I encourage the United Nations to officially recognise the genocide taking place and repair the damages committed. The Congolese, Ugandans and Rwandans must forgive each other and accept, tolerate and continue to live together in mutual respect, while also respecting the borders inherited from the period of colonialisation.

With regards to the sponsors of crime against humanity, the genocidal leaders that are Joseph Kabila, Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame should be brought to court and feel the full force of the law.

The leaders of the world’s corporations who buy coltan, gold and so many other natural resources in DRC, obtained at the price of Congolese bloodshed, should be put before the country’s special court. Charles Taylor and the big buyers of blood diamonds were responsible for the massacres in Sierra Leone and rightfully faced trial. Their actions don’t compare to the level of genocide that has occurred in DRC. Paul Kagame, Joseph Kabila, Yoweri Museveni and their accomplices from multinationals are responsible for these atrocities, and they too should be brought to justice.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1 ‘Tous les gouvernements mentent: 1001 Vies TV Canada’ - Oliver Stone Documentary
2 ‘King Leopold Rule in Africa’ Edmund Dene Morel. ‘The Crime of Congo’ Conan.
3 ‘Red Rubber’ - Edmund Dene Morel
4 ‘L’Afrique en morceaux. La tragédie des grands Lacs’
5 ‘Ainsi a sonné le glas: Les derniers jours du Marechal Mobutu’. Honoré Ngbanda Nzambo
6 ‘Les origines cachées de Joseph Kabila jusqu’à son ascension au sommet de L’état Congolais’ - www.abidjantv.net
7 ‘Crimes organisés en Afrique Centrale : Enquêtes sur les Réseaux Rwandais et Occidentaux’ Auteur: Honoré Ngbanda Nzambo
8 Margot Wallstrom, UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict, 2010
9 ‘Strategies du chaos et du mensonge : Poker menteur en Afrique des Lacs’ Honore Ngbanda Nzambo et Patrick Mbek

By Lorna Gledhill
Imminent changes are being made to health services in England that will negatively affect refugees, people seeking asylum and other vulnerable groups.
 I am asking you to take urgent action to challenge these damaging and unworkable proposals which will cause unnecessary human suffering, and add additional pressure to our over-stretched NHS; these changes will almost certainly worsen health inequalities and prevent vulnerable people getting the care they need. Please see the briefing below about the changes, prepared by Asylum Matters - you can find a full briefing on the regulations here.

 What can you do?
We have very limited time to halt these regulations and need your help. The aim is to get the government to withdraw the regulations and to this end, Asylum Matters, together with Doctors of the World, NAT, ILPA, and others have started an open letter to the Secretary of State for Health.

 1.       Please sign the open letter to Jeremy Hunt Secretary of State for Health, and invite any health organisation or health professionals you know to do the same by Mon 2nd Oct: https://goo.gl/forms/0rBkQHy4H9fRmEMt2
 MPs of all parties can influence what happens next.
 2.       Please write to your MP asking them to raise the issue with the leader of their party, using the template email. To find your MP and contact details click here.
-          Not got enough time? Tweet your MP with a link to the briefing (here).
 On 30th September Docs Not Cops along with a coalition of organisations are marching on a London location to protest the introduction of immigration checks and upfront charging for all NHS patients and to share stories highlighting the human impact of these changes. More details will be released here
 3.       Join the action in person, or on Social Media using #PatientsnotPassports .This social media packagecontains suggested tweets and images.
Press Coverage
This issue is getting media coverage. Recent publications to date include:  
·         The Independant: Sick schoolchildren and women seeking abortions could be denied healthcare under new immigration charging rules
·         Doctors of the World: the UKs charity workers should not be forced to be proxy border guards
·         Politics.co.uk: School nurses could be forced to deny migrant children treatment under new rules
·         Royal College of Physicians Commentary magazine: Show me the Money: Patient Charges
 What are the changes?

In August, the Government proposed to amend the ‘NHS Charging Regulations’, which govern how people access healthcare in England and when they have to pay for it. While there are already processes in place for hospitals to identify and bill ‘chargeable’ patients for their care, these regulations introduce two significant changes.
 1.    Firstly, under the regulations, charges have been introduced for services provided by all community health organisations in England, except GP surgeries. A wide range of health services will be affected, such as school nursing, community midwifery, community mental health services, termination of pregnancy services, advocacy services, and specialist services for homeless people and asylum seekers.Community-interest companies and charities will also now be expected to check whether the people using their services are eligible for free care, and charge accordingly. Public health services commissioned through Local Authorities, which include mental health and drug and alcohol services, are also likely to be affected.
 2.    Secondly, the regulations introduce up-front charging which means that every hospital department in England will be legally required to check every patient’s paperwork before treating them. If a patient cannot prove that they are entitled to free care (and if they do not qualify for free care under a treatment based exemption), they will receive an estimated bill for their treatment and will have to pay it in full before they receive any treatment other than that which is ‘urgent’ or ‘immediately necessary’, as defined by doctors on a case-by-case basis. The regulations require trusts to record that a patient is not entitled to free NHS secondary care against that patient’s NHS number. This measure, and up-front charging, were not included in Department of Health’s 2016 consultation on NHS cost recovery and as such have not received public scrutiny.

 Why be worried?
These regulations  have been laid without evaluation of their impact on health outcomes and health inequalities and without sufficient Parliamentary scrutiny. Refugees and asylum seekers, although eligible for free care, will likely be deterred from accessing healthcare, due to widespread confusion over who is chargeable, and because they  will be asked to provide identity documents that they cannot easily access. This already happens under the current system and will be made worse by the regulations. Refused asylum seekers not in receipt of Home Office or Local Authority support will have to pay up-front before accessing parts of secondary healthcare.
 Others will be deterred from even approaching health services because they fear they will be charged. We also believe that the regulations will prove unworkable and costly to the NHS.
 Please let us know if you take action on any of the above issues. I look forward to hearing from you soon!