Save the NHS for our children

[RuthHill]

This petition is being given to Nick Clegg on Friday. If you haven't already, please sign it to save the NHS for our children.

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The NHS has killed someone who I was very close to, nearly killed my brother, has seriously failed many others in my family and circle of friends but has saved the life of my son. I support the principle of free health-care at the point of need but I think the track record of the service in terms of care quality and organisational efficiency is not so outstanding that is should be preserved in aspic and no chances made whatsoever.

I want a better NHS for my children and expect the Coalition to provide it.

no 'changes' rather than 'chances'... sadly, I think there are too many 'chances' being taken with our wellbeing as it is.

The NHS is failing the UK - there's no way it should be preserved!

What would you have instead? We are lucky to have a free healthcare system that benefits everyone. It isn't perfect and standards need to be raised, but unfortunately, that is not what the proposed reforms are about. They are not for the good of the many, nor are they about improving the NHS. They are ideological decisons made by those who have no social conscience.

Nobody said the NHS was perfect, but the alternatives being suggested by the coalition are privatisation by the back door. The idea that this would be better is ridiculous. The changes being proposed would create a profit driven system where the lives of individuals matter much less than they do today.

Look at the awful state of healthcare in the USA if you want to see the direction we are headed in. Those with money may be OK, but anyone else is stuffed.

I agree that there need to be changes made, but introduction of pricing competition, with everyone looking to make the biggest profit margin, is likely to drive standards down not up.

Sorry Chil1234 and vesela, but I think you are being naive if you think the coalition policy will be better than what we have today.

can they not just leave fucking up the nhs until they've fucked up other industries??

The NHS was never intended to provide the breadth of services it does nor to such a huge population. Private investment and competition is the only way to ensure that we can continue to provide health care free at the point of delivery.

I find it somewhat offensive that left tedes think the moral high ground is their natural territory. How dare you say the entire coalition has no social conscience.

Having a state run and controlled health system isn't the only way of providing universal health care. The NHS in its current form flies in the face of many of the principles that in most other markets we consider to stop it functioning properly and then we are bewildered as to why it produces disappointing results.

Georimama, please don't decide which way I vote. You may well be wrong. Also, I didn't say that the entire coalition has no social conscience, there is a lot of discussion at present about whether or not these reforms will improve things. However, as I said above, take a look at the States if you want to see an example of rampent Capitalism running a healt service.

I do not say that there don't need to be improvements in the NHS, nor do I have rose tinted glasses about it (I myself wrote to my local MP about our hospital after their care of my daughter) however I passionately believe that privatisation of services is not the way to go for the NHS.

These new reforms mean that for the first time since 1948, the Secretary of State will not be responsible for the NHS. Instead, this will be decided by the new commissioning consortia who will be able to meet and take decisions in private, and to outsource commissioning to private companies. They will not need to have a GP on their board, nor will they need to have a board at all which means there will be no clear recourse for redress if required.

It is privatisation by any other name and once we allow this to happens, we will no longer have control over our NHS.

is it true that most students train in the nhs then go abroad to work?

What is wrong with privatisation? Would you like to go back to the days when you had to make a written application at the Post Office to get a telephone line?

in a civillized world surely some things should be services and others businesses the tories never understand that being rich knob ends usually

Privatisation that creates a profit driven system with no care for the individual is not the way that I would like to see my health care system run.

You're sounding an awful lot like a leftie tbh OP. Nothing to do with how you vote.

"Profit driven systems with no care for the individual" don't tend to stay very profitable. People don't purchase services from organisations that don't show them adequate care.

Why is it assumed that involving private companies in health provision will lead to a decline in quality of their healthcare. Many other countries integrate them into their system and have superior healthcare standards than we do.

but surely private companies supply the nhs with equipment and other stuff

What if they don't have the cash to 'buy services'? Also, with this back door privatisation, we wont be paying for it, or deciding who we pay...that will all be down to a postcode lottery (something I believe most people want to improve about the NHS currently). It will be consortia, who's goal is the cheapest possible providers, chosing who carries out our medical procedures. Just what we want from health care, the lowest bidder...

Why the mention of the US, just because I said the NHS was failing? No one wants to follow the US system. Luckily there are more than two health systems in the world.

The UK has a useless health system, so does the US.

"Why the mention of the US, just because I said the NHS was failing? No one wants to follow the US system. Luckily there are more than two health systems in the world."

Because people are lazy and prefer to engage in ridiculous hyperbole

If the plans go ahead as they are, the government will have no statutory obligation to provide health care to anyone, as I understand it. This is definitely their intention; this is what 'shrinking the state' means.

That will mean that if you need an expensive operation you will be totally at the mercy of for-profit companies to provide it. If it's not going to be profitable, they won't provide it, and you won't get it. Unless you pay.

Clearly, in a situation like that, every sensible person will feel obliged to take out health insurance. So we will be paying health insurance plus the same amount of taxes. Eventually, the government will make it compulsory to buy insurance. Insurance companies will be laughing all the way to the bank. The rest of us will be a lot worse off.

You are being deliberately obtuse OP. No one needs to have the cash. The government will purchase services on behalf of the tax payer from a range of providers. These will be free at the point of delivery, as they are now.

I'm also not suggesting that the Lansley bill is perfect - far from it - but I refuse to go along with Labour's stranglehold on the healthcare debate. There is no reason why the UK has to stick with the monolithic system Bevan decided was best in 1945 - it's no way to run a decent universal health service.

There was a beautiful simplicity about the NHS for 60 years. We paid our taxes, we got free health care. Everyone got the same.

Now society has changed and the NHS is under pressure. There are very few organisations that can't make efficiency savings. Maybe the NHS needs to look into that. But a wholescale reorganisation on this scale and in this way is designed to get rid of the NHS as we know it - and we will rue the day!

As I said in that post, we wont even have to control that we would have were the system fully privatised. We will not make the decisions about who we purchase our care from. These decisions will be made based on financial restraints, purely.

And, this is foot in the door politics, so who's to say that our choices now wont mean in the future we do have to pay?

As noted by Mellowfruitfulness, this is about the Governement relinquishing the responsibilities for Healthcare. As I said earlier, the Secretary of State will no longer be responsible.