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NHS attack
• WHY is the NHS being destroyed?
At the primary care trust meeting on March 10 it was clear that every person in the packed conference room, apart from the PCT board and the United Health Care representatives, was strongly (and angrily) against local medical practices being taken out of the control of the doctors themselves.
The PCT says there was an “extensive consultation process involving patients, all Camden GPs and other stakeholders”. True, there was a consultation, but it was one that listed the specifications for the services to be offered and did not make it clear that the real aim was to allow profit-making organisations, as well as the GPs, to bid for a contract to run three general practices in Camden. How many patients in fact saw this consultation? And of those who did see it, how many thought it worth responding to?
Given a vote now, as we should demand, most of us would probably prefer our own GPs to continue under the present system, even if we have to do without a few extra services and surgery hours.
The PCT is high-handedly refusing to listen to the real concerns of patients and the doctors themselves. Unless we can change its direction the path ahead will indeed become “a slippery slope to corporate takeovers of general practices across England” (John Lipetz, New Journal March 6).
The present plan is based on a government White Paper entitled Our Health, Our Care, Our Say, but we are not being allowed our say.
We need to be heard and we need a return to the original vision of the NHS.
MAEVE O'CONNOR
Rossendale Way, NW1
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