This week, Parliament will be back in session and the focus will be on the Health and Social Care Bill – including the NHS – which was introduced to Parliament in January of this year. The Bill faces the Report Stage and Third Reading. The Bill, amongst other things, plans to “liberate” the provision of the NHS to “any willing provider”, language which anyone with half a brain cell will recognise as privitization. The Bill and frequently asked questions can be read here.
John Healey has referred to the NHS as David Cameron’s “biggest broken promise to date”, as Cameron claimed before the General Election that there would be “no more NHS ‘top-down’ reorganisation”. The British Medical Association voted overwhelmingly for the Bill to be withdrawn, with 99% of nurses passed a vote of no confidence in Andrew Lansley. Thousands upon thousands of people have signed the petition against the plans.
The NHS is a wonderful service which has provided quality healthcare to billions of people for over 60 years. Billions of people, without discrimination. Universal, comprehensive, equitable and free at the point of delivery healthcare, just as when the NHS was introduced in 1948. It is an invaluable asset to the UK, and one we cannot afford to lose – one that we simply don’t want to lose.
In 2009, in response to attacks from US critics aimed at the NHS and its practise, David Cameron said “Just look at all the support which the NHS has received on Twitter over the last couple of days. It is a reminder – if one were needed – of how proud we in Britain are of the NHS.” Prove you’re proud of it, Dave.
The British public are proud of the NHS, and the message is loud and clear to the Government: we don’t want you to break it up.
Sign the petition to Save the NHS here.
tea and solidarity 
Whoa, whoa, whoa, you mean our Labour messiah (Tony Blair) DIDN’T start these reforms when labour was in power? Shit man, I’m losing track of history.
“Messiah”. Cringe. I’m about as far away from a Blairite as you could possibly get. Funnily enough, I didn’t join the Labour Party because of Tony Blair. I joined the Labour Party because I believe in a fair and equal society – breaking up the NHS will be a step in the wrong direction for that vision. It doesn’t matter to be who started it, what matters to me is that it is ended.
I see, then why are you in our party and not the SWP?
Because I felt the Labour Party was more suited than the SWP, simply.
I agree with the sentiment but you gotta learn the difference between millions and billions – it’s kinda important. The NHS has not provided healthcare for billions of people. That math just doesn’t add up.
60million or so live in the UK – even if you say over the past 60 years 60m have died and another 60m have been born that’s 120m so to get to billions then you’d need over one seventh of the World’s population to have come to the UK *and* needed NHS care in that time. Obviously that is not the case.
So good sentiment but kinda let down by either getting your numbers wrong or over exaggerating to the nth degree.
Point taken, but I based it on this – “The number of patients using the NHS is equally huge. On average, it deals with 1m patients every 36 hours. That’s 463 people a minute or almost eight a second.” I think if you work on 1m every day and a half, you’re talking pretty big numbers. Billions perhaps was a tad exagerated, but not completely unjustified. Although, if you’re really wanting to criticise, why not write your name? We can have a proper discussion then! :)
To be really picky, if you multiply the millions who have used the NHS by the number of times they have INDIVIDUALLY used NHS services the sum of billions would be reached. But hey – what does it matter against the awful and real possibility that whilst we are nit-picking [another defunct NHS service] the government is quietly and not so quietyl systematically destroying what used to be the envy of the world? And still is amongst the many [daren’t give a number in case someone picks me up on it] of those in, say, the US who cannot ‘buy’ Health Insurance due to reasons beyond their control: Poverty; Mental Health Issues; redundancies resulting in loss of Health Care Provisions and then due to existing health issues being unable to purchase ‘new’ provision; birth defects meaning that a baby will not be added to parents health care – the list goes on……………
Couldn’t have put it better myself.