Please sign the petition to stop goverment plans to let up to half of NHS beds etc be allowed for private patients. Unbelieveable what this Government is gettiing away with.
Rio Ferdinand backs 'Drop the Bill' campaign
[Manchester United and England footballer Rio Ferdinand has lent his backing to a prominent GP's petition to get the health bill scrapped.
Mr Ferdinand, vice-captain of the England national football team, has urged his 1.8 million followers on social networking site Twitter to sign an e-petition to get the health bill withdrawn, launched by Dr Kailash Chand, chair of NHS Tameside and Glossop, in November.
Writing on Twitter yesterday, Mr Ferdinand said: ?Please RT [retweet] and sign up to this petition to help against the NHS being privatised: epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22670 come on guys!'
Dr Chand is appealing for 100,000 signatures to force a ?Drop the Bill' debate in parliament. At time of writing 23,220 people had signed the petition, which closes in May 2012.
Other recent e-petitions against the health bill have had less success. Last week a Liberal Democrat councillor's e-petition against Government plans to allow NHS hospitals to use almost half their hospital beds and theatre time for private patients was pulled within a few hours of going online after party officials intervened.
Speaking to the Leicester Mercury, Councillor Matthew Hubert, who launched the petition, said: ?I tried to raise a serious political issue on a cross-party basis, but it became clear quite quickly that Labour councillors were just using it to bash the coalition.'
?Some people from the local party got in touch and I was told I might want to take it down,'he added.