A local campaign against the privatisation of the NHS issued an urgent call last week to Lambeth GPs, demanding that they rewrite a draft constitution to protect local NHS services against privatisation.
The Lambeth Keep Our NHS Public group presented a letter and petition with 2,446 signatures to a meeting of the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) in Brixton last week. CCGs are groups of GPs which will be responsible for designing local health care services from April 2013 onwards. They are currently drawing up draft constitutions which will define the running of these services in local areas.
The campaign demanded at the meeting that the CCG amend their consitution to “make clear that the CCG will resist the privatisation, fragmentation and commercialisation of Lambeth’s NHS services.”
Dr Adrian McLachlan, chair of the CCG and GP at Hetherington Group Practice, agreed to consider the letter and said that many of the demands were met in the procurement strategy rather than the constitution.
Gay Lee, a nurse and secretary of Lambeth Keep Our NHS Public, said that the current Lambeth draft “is going to mean putting out to tender various services currently provided by the NHS. In that case, it is likely that price will be a more important factor than quality.
“It will have a detrimental effect on the whole business of integrating care, particularly for older people. Adult audiology and incontinence services are already out for tender. If private companies outside of the NHS are running these, how will you give joined-up care to people?”
The group also pointed out at the meeting that there was no public consultation on the draft constitution.
As a member of the group (Lambeth Keep our NHS PUBLIC lambethkonp@gmail.com) which organised this demonstration I would like to thank Brixton Blog for highlighting the problems the NHS is going through. They will eventually destroy this beloved institution. Lambeth KONP is trying to publicise and prevent what is happening to the NHS.
You will all know about the cuts to services eg the probable closure of Lewisham A and E which will also affect already-overcrowded services in Lambeth.
As well as this, the government is out to destroy the NHS by spending our taxes on private companies which will provide inferior, more expensive health services – because profits to shareholders have to be their first consideration.
The money to fund these services will shrink and shrink and so what is defined as ‘NHS services’ will shrink and shrink too. In the next few years – just as in the USA – if you want anything other than emergency treatment you will have to pay for it. Insurance companies too will have a field day – which is what this government wants of course.
The alarming thing is that most people don’t realise what is happening – and before we all wake up and smell the end of the NHS – it will have gone from under our very noses. Please do join our group.