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What chance for GPs in bidding?
• I FEEL increasingly anxious about many of the changes that are going on, in secret, in our local health services.
I thought Camden residents were going to be consulted, particularly about the possibility of GP practices being handed over to private companies to manage.
It is alarming to think of huge companies like UnitedHealth taking over more of our personal doctor services and running them to make money.
I believe the service at the Camden Road Surgery is collapsing, mainly because of the way in which UnitedHealth has managed it, with little regard for its patients or history (for example, the closure of its baby clinic) which presumably did not make enough profit.
You report (Secret shortlist for ‘super-sized’ clinic, June 4) that the unelected representatives on the PCT/NHS Camden are about to award contracts to run a huge new clinic in the Euston area.
They have shortlisted four “preferred bidders”, three of which are private firms, but do not give details or publicly-discussed reasons why this quango prefers the listed bidders.
This area is very densely populated and I am sure its residents would have a lot to say about their local health services, if given the chance.
Only the public meeting in the Cumberland Market area, on Wednesday (yesterday) evening, run by local campaigning group Camden Keep Our NHS Public has given people the chance to voice their opinions and learn what is likely to be imposed upon them.
What chance do local GPs have in a bidding process that is weighted so heavily against them?
Three preferred private bidders out of a shortlist of four!
There has always been a strong tradition of public service in the health service.
Turning the health service into a private market is a sure way to kill that, which is why there is so much secrecy, I suspect.
A Patton, Spencer Rise, NW5
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