Stand up for the NHS
Labour's Bert Bremner
With major reforms planned for the NHS, one local councillor is calling for his MP to defend the NHS.
Bert Bremner (University, Labour) argues two fundamental principles must be maintained, which he put in a letter to his MP, Simon Wright.
David Cameron and your leader Nick Clegg will be making vital decisions about the NHS over the next few days. There are two central issues which I urge you as my MP to bring to their attention.
The first is about a Comprehensive Health service and the NHS. The legal duty of the government to provide a “comprehensive health service” is still under threat. It is vital that the government retain its legal duty to provide a “comprehensive health service”. This is a founding principle of the NHS and means access to health care could vary much more between different areas of the country. Scrapping this would make postcode lotteries even worse, and it’s a core principle that’s vital to the NHS. I cannot believe that any Lib-Dem MP or its leader could vote to get rid of this.
The second vital decision is about competition and privatisation. Quality of care must come first and the NHS must not become subject to EU competition law. The regulator called Monitor must promote collaboration not competition to ensure that quality of care is what matters, is the top priority. The NHS needs to focus on collaboration to produce the best possible care rather than the silly assumption that competition will produce the best result. We only have to look at the failures of the US health care system to see that competition fails.
My mother, an 87 year old pensioner has benefited so much from our free health service, and as an example, our son now 14, born 3 months early, spent the first two and half months of his life in the Special Care Unit at the Norfolk and Norwich. That’s only small examples of a free health service that focuses on high-quality care not price and has been so important to my family.
Please get in touch with David Cameron and Nick Clegg, and your fellow Lib-Dem MP’s to ask them to stand up for the NHS, by making these two vital changes – make sure the government retains the legal duty to provide a comprehensive health service, and that quality of care not competition is the top priority.
Bert Bremner, Labour councillor, Norwich City Council.
Further detail on Government changes to reforms is available here.
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