A leading GP is appealing for 100,000 people who love the National Health Service to help him force the Conservative-led coalition to drop its controversial NHS Health and Social Care Bill.
Kailash Chand, who is chair of Tameside and Glossop NHS, and has also served on the BMA Council and General Practitioners Committee, is campaigning to force a parliamentary debate by using the Government’s own e-petitions website. Recent campaigns on this site led to debates on fuel prices and the release of the findings of the Hillsborough inquiry.
Dr Chand, who was a GP in Ashton-under-Lyne for many years, and who received an OBE for services to the NHS last year, hopes re-opening the parliamentary debate will delay the Bill’s progress or persuade beleaguered Health Secretary Andrew Lansley to drop it altogether.
He said: “This bill is a disaster which will mark the end of the NHS as we know it. It is designed to privatise the NHS at all levels – primary care, secondary care, community health services and commissioning – all of it concealed behind the publicly trusted NHS logo.
“The reforms – dubbed ‘Lansley’s monster’ by the British Medical Journal – will increase the stake of private companies in the NHS so that instead of GP-led primary care and consultant-delivered hospital services we will witness ?any willing providers? picking up the most lucrative operations, with the NHS left to provide complex, and costly, care.
“In the market-led health economy this will create, the chronically and terminally ill, the mentally ill, those from lower socio-economic groups and the elderly are likely to lose out.”
Dr Chand, who writes regularly for Tribune, already has the support of Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham, former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and TV chef Jamie Oliver. He said: “People who want to stop this Bill can still make a difference. If we get 100,000 signatures, Parliament will be forced to act.”
Those wishing to sign the petition should visit http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22670
