Drop the Bill
Posted by Kate Green, MP for Stretford and Urmston, at 14:33, Fri 24 February 2012:
The government’s in real trouble with its NHS bill.
This week, in a desperate effort to get health professionals onside, David Cameron invited health organisations to meet him at Downing Street.
But he cold-shouldered the Royal College of Nurses, the Royal College of GPs, the Royal College of Midwives, and a host of other health professionals at the heart of the NHS. They weren’t invited to the meeting.
Cameron and Lansley don’t want any criticism of their NHS bill.
But it’s a disaster for patients, and for the NHS – and what’s more Cameron knows it.
This week, Labour MPs demanded the risk register that’s been prepared by civil servants on the impact of the NHS reforms should be made available to the public.
Cameron and Lansley refused because they know it would reveal the reckless gamble they’re taking with the future of the NHS.
They’re determined to see NHS services compete with each other, even if it puts patient care at risk.
We’re seeing the effects of this in Trafford now. Our community health services are being put out to tender piecemeal to the highest bidder.
Everyone knows it’s best for patients if community services are integrated with hospital care. That enables patients to get back home as quickly as possible, confident they’ll get the post-hospital care they need at home.
But our NHS managers also know the government wants to give private companies the chance to take over NHS services. So Trafford's being forced to run a competition for community health services, so that private organisations can pick and choose to bid for the services they want.
It makes a nonsense of integrated care, and it makes a nonsense of the promises the health minister Simon Burns gave to me and Paul Goggins MP last year that health care in Trafford would not be privatised.
That’s why Labour’s campaigning for the government to drop the health bill, which puts profits before patient care. We’ll be out and about in Streford this Saturday, so do come along to see us outside Stretford Mall to let us know your views.
No one wants this bill to go through. It’s bad for patents, and bad for the NHS. Let’s send a message to David Cameron that it’s time to Drop the Bill.
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