|
|
10/10/2011 :Council to debate Tories’ NHS plans – the Bill should be scrapped, says Labour:
Labour is to take its campaign against Andrew Lansley’s plans to break up the NHS to the full Council meeting on 18 October, when Lead Councillor for Health Bet Tickner will call on the Council to ask that the Health & Social Care Bill be scrapped.
The Tory/LibDem Coalition forced the Bill through the House of Commons, and it is now in the House of Lords, where many parts are under attack, as its fundamentals were not changed by the “listening exercise” over the summer.
Cllr. Tickner says: “The Bill would mean the Secretary of State for Health would no longer have a legal responsibility to provide a health service free at the point of need. It would open the NHS to private healthcare companies using EU competition law. It is designed to produce a postcode lottery of care and would allow NHS trusts to treat as many private patients as they wish, so long waiting times would be back for the majority of patients.
“The Tories cut the NHS in real terms by £800m in 2010-11, despite Mr Cameron‘s promise of a real rise in funding every year: facing nurses at RBH with a £600 pay cut. Mr Cameron promised to end top-down reorganisation of the NHS too, but this is the most disruptive reorganisation ever and will cost £2Billion! And he told the Commons last month that doctors and nurses now supported the Bill, only to be shot down in flames within hours by the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Nursing neither of which do.
“When we had a vigil outside the Royal Berks, many people were wearing T-shirts saying ‘You can’t trust the Tories on the NHS’. Too right: this Bill represents a huge threat to something we all cherish and the fight against it is a fight for the NHS itself.”
|
Visit our News Archive
|
|
|
|
|
|
