You don’t know what you’ve lost until it’s gone….

It may sound dramatic, but the NHS is in mortal danger because it’s an immutable truth that public provision once lost will never be regained.  The Coalition appear deaf to every entreaty, careless of the destiny of an institution the British people hold dear and impervious to the massed ranks of the health service who oppose the latest reorganisation with unparalleled unity.  Remember the election campaign, Cameron assuring us that there would be no further top down reorganisation of the NHS?  I’ve seen some fibs in my time but that one was a beauty.  Within months, a plan that had obviously been years in the planning emerged to radically transform the Health Service.  Ever since, in the face of howls of protest from all quarters, they have blundered on, introducing some minor revisions yet still encountering stiff resistance from those champions of the poor and oppressed, the House of Lords.  In a bizarre echo of Nye Bevan’s promise to “stuff the doctors mouths with gold” in order to overcome their opposition to the nascent NHS, the tory’s blatant attempt to bribe GP’s into acquiescence has failed and the BMA remains implacably opposed.

The Coalition’s reforms are a transparent attempt to introduce greater competition and private provision but when cost not clinical outcome becomes the standard by which the effectiveness of the Health Service is measured, you know we’re in trouble.  But where’s the evidence that the private sector is more efficient?  America’s health provision is predominantly private and, increasingly, a basket case.  As a proportion of GDP, it costs more than it does in Britain.  Outcomes are in many case worse, particularly for the poor.  Panorama recently highlighted the plight of the poor in the USA, and illustrated the problem by filming a British charity providing health care for those who can’t afford it.  Yet the Coalition would have us believe that introducing the profit motive is the way to unleash the hidden potential of the NHS.  In America, private health care has resulted in prodigiously wealthy doctors and an unhealthy underclass.  Shareholders expect a return on their investment, tax payers simply expect an efficient health service.  Labour are partly responsible for the pseudo-privatisation of elements of the NHS but they also invested heavily during their time in government, an investment that is beginning to pay dividends according to most health professionals.

The NHS is an institution of which Britain should be immensely proud.  We should also be proud of the principal that health care should be available regardless of the ability to pay.  It is the mark of a civilised society, a clear indication that we care about our fellow man, that health is an inalienable right.  These reforms present a clear and present danger to that principal and should be resisted and this might be a good place to start –

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/Protect_our_NHS_Petition