NHS Bill

[childrensdocmum]

As a mother and also a paediatrician, I am very worried about the effects the NHS Bill will have on children's health and health care. This Bill spells the end of the NHS as we know it. It's not that there aren't problems with the NHS for children - but this Bill will make things worse. Worse for children with serious and life-threatening illnesses, worse for children with chronic conditions and disabilities, worse for children with problems that are expensive and difficult to fix.

I wonder - what do other mumsnet mothers think about the NHS Bill?

Bump for this, haven't had a chance to do the research but will read a bit more & see what others think!

Could you summarise for us OP?

I agree. here are my predictions:

1. The government is pretending GPs will make decisions on what services to buy. they wont be able to - big private sector organisations will do this, GPs wont have any control at all
2. The government will bring in lots of private sector providers - this will break up the NHS, remove cooperation, and lose money in profits
3. The private sector will take profits but not pick up the tab when things go wrong - like the breast implants in the news
4. I don't think it will be long before people are asked to pay for part of their treatment - like we do with dentists

The NHS is something we are all proud of and all need, it does need to constantly improve, but privatising it through the back door will not do this - and in the end will be dreadful news for me, my kids, my family and the normal person on the street.

so you think what's happening with the faulty breast implants could happen for other medical treatments like cancer care? When do you think the changes will start to manifest for individuals? I have so many questions - If the predictions come true how will i know which company to go to? What do i do if i don't have enough money and my daughter becomes ill? Will insurance exclude some treatments? how will i judge who/which service provider will be able to perform? It's not difficult to criticise the NHS but my god surely it's worth improving - the alternative is too frightening to consider, and a major waste?

We are now witnessing the last and most condescending phase of a plan to keep the media and the public distracted by one fake NHS initiative after another until the Health and Social Care Bill legislation is passed.
It is all designed to soften up public opinion, along the lines "the NHS has all these terrible problems but it's safe in our hands because we really care, and we know how to put it right". I have lost count of the initially baffling stories in the media over the past few months about a new set of NHS failings and how a new policy will fix all that by the end of next week: choose the GP near the office, every contact counts, check the blood pressure, tell them to stop smoking, keep the wards clean, be nice to the patients ... . We are not told how the feeding frenzy of private health providers, still below the media radar, will help fix the latest problem, because that would frighten the public, but that is assuredly what the government have in mind.
The government is already selling the NHS, quietly, bit by bit, to the private sector ? to those same insurance companies who have already made such a mess of social care (remember the Southern Cross nursing homes?). It is grimly instructive to see just how hard and dirty the US health insurance industry fought - and how much money they spent - to prevent Obama's health care legislation being passed.
When the British public finally understands what this government has done to the NHS after this Bill is passed, it will be too late to turn back. We will be stuck with a US health insurance market - with all its failings, such as one in six of the population uninsured or under-insured.
What depresses me the most is just how many of our representatives in Parliament have double standards. Their register of interests show those have consultancies with these same health insurance companies and private healthcare firms waiting to take over profitable bits of the NHS.

At the moment we are still on the list of our GP, still getting free healthcare. But what happens when the GPs can choose their patients? When we are given personal healthcare budgets? What if the cost of our child?s medication exceeds their budget? Who pays? Who cares? We should all be caring now ? it is critical that we understand what the government is planning for the NHS, rather than believing their drip-feed of media stories that it is broken beyond repair. THIS IS THE POINT OF NO RETURN. It is a frightening experiment, that will cost real lives.

So ? what do WE do?

1. Please write to your MP - you can do this in two minutes through the website: www.theyworkforyou.com ? it will find your MP for you via your postcode and even open an email text box for you. Tell them your worries, that the Bill has no democratic mandate, that it will in effect allow profit to be made out of sickness, and on the back of a service that we pay through for our taxes.
2. Talk to your friends. Have they heard what is about to happen to the NHS? No? Then Cameron?s media strategy is working, and we need to expose it.
3. Sign up to any e-petitions you can ? perhaps Mumsnet could start one. Our children?s health is surely too important to not fight for.