http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/your-reforms-could-destroy-the-nhs-mps-tell-cameron-2187037.html

Above is one of many links in the news recently.

I have to say I am in favour of GPs having more say and more budget to get patients treatment and test etc...

But nowhere have I seen any mention of long term care and NHS funded care.

Like many on this site, I too have had to do battle with SHA/PCTs etc

BUT

I cannot support in any way their demolition.

A large number of GPs are up in arms concerning these "reforms" as it is letting in private healthcare by the back door. Most of these GPs will hand over financial responsibility to the waiting spivs, and this is a step back to 1948 when you turned up at your doctors, and paid him or her, for pills, illness etc. The present proposed measures are only a halfway house, but have no delusions about the final destination.

Do not think that this coalition mob are NOT pushing things this way. Most of the Conservatives - especially on the far right - hate the NHS and have felt this way more or less since 1948.

If you cannot afford to pay to keep alive, then it is better you kicked the bucket anyway - that is how many of these people think. PLUS it keeps down the population figures and we cannot afford to finance the elderly. Look at how much they are costing in Freedom passes.

And this is only the beginning.

I agree, FM, with everything you have said. I deplore what is going on at present - from a cobbled-together government that has no mandate whatsoever to destroy everything that has been built up. It's the speed of these changes, without debate, without consultation that will do the damage.

But that's the way the Tories work. (They did it with the railway network system - and look at it now, it's in chaos and almost 'unaffordable' by the average person.) I saw a shot of Cameron the other day, with his right arm stretched out at right angles, and he was speaking in a very shouting high-pitched voice. He reminded me of a thug from a lifetime away now!! No names mentioned, but you can work it out without too much trouble.

Before the ConDemOlition have finished, there will be no NHS. There may also be no GPs as we know them now - and the GPs are far from happy about what's going on.

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=35&storycode=4128254&c=2

I recommend a book by Charles Webster, called The National Health Service - A Political History. This ConDemOlition mob are about to destroy everything - the good, the bad and the ugly - in one fell swoop.

That's not Democracy at work. That's Dictatorship. And I don't like it. So, no, I don't support what Cameron is doing. I have no wish to see a return to the Workhouse - which is where some of my ancestors spent their last days. And that's what the privatisation of every single health and welfare service will bring with it.

This is only the beginning.

VM

NO NO NO Leave the NHS ALONE Mr C - WHY TRY TO FIX IT WHEN IT AIN'T BROKE ??? This monumental stupid idea should be put to the people in a referendum - and not left to these young un's who have no idea at all what it was like before 1948

And did I just read this right ?????? " * Some hospitals to be encouraged to become John Lewis-style partnerships,
with staff running the ship" Preposterous !!

I cannot agree more with FinnMickey and VM.

Don't be hoodwinked by the idea of "GPs controlling budgets", which sounds entirely reasonable and sensible of course, especially when you sprinkle in Cameron's favourite words, like "choice" and "empowerment" etc.

Most GPs don't have the time - let alone the training or experience - to commission care. GP consortia will be hiring outside companies (or spivs, as FM puts it! :-) ) to do the job the PCTs are already doing now, but in a far more fragmented (and probably expensive) way. Much of this expertise looks likely to come from the American private healthcare background.

No system of accountability is in place to police the myriad of private health care operators which the NHS will have to compete with for commissions. And as the NHS struggles to compete on price, less profitable treatments/operations will suffer.

Think about the way unprofitable bus or rail routes disappeared under privatisation. The same will happen with the NHS.

As FM says, that's just the very beginning.

This gives an interesting perspective:-

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/dismantling-the-nhs/

Just a little food for thought!

Annie

Interesting piece from Lord Robert Winston in the Mirror today:-

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/01/18/lord-robert-winston-the-last-thing-the-nhs-needs-is-more-reform-115875-22856932/

Best wishes,

Annie