Government reforms will do 'irreparable harm' to NHS
04 October 2011
The Government’s controversial health reforms will do “irreparable harm” to the NHS, according to almost 400 public health experts who have signed an open letter to The Daily Telegraph today.
The letter, co-ordinated by Dr David McCoy, a senior clinical research fellow at University College London and a public health consultant in the NHS, said the Health and Social Care Bill would "usher in a degree of marketisation and commercialisation that will fragment patient care; aggravate risks to individual patient safety; erode medical ethics and trust within the health system; widen health inequalities; waste much money on attempts to regulate and manage competition; and undermine the ability of the health system to respond effectively to communicable disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies."
The letter urges the House of Lords – scheduled to debate the Bill next Tuesday – to reject it. The Lords Constitution Committee has already published a report warning that the legislation risks watering down the Government’s responsibility for the NHS by delegating it, to some degree, to a new NHS Commissioning Board and clinical commissioning groups.
In response to the letter a Department of Health spokesperson said: "Our plans to modernise the NHS will give patients more choice, root out waste and give trusted NHS staff more power to improve care.
"A group of the country’s top doctors and NHS experts have already analysed the Health Bill and we have accepted all their recommendations to improve it. Many GPs and other doctors have also already spoken out in support."