If the current amendments to the Health And Social Care Act 2012 go through, it will mean the total privatisation of the NHS as ALL healthcare services will have to be put out to tender if there is more than one healthcare provider in the area. Under 'any qualified provider' the likes of Virgincare, Circle Health, Serco and American companies, will be running your local healthcare services which will include; your GP surgery, out of hours surgery, and clinics such as physiotherapy, mental health services, childrens healthcare services; to name just a few.
The TUC have joined forces with 38 Degrees campaigning group and are asking, via their Going To Work website; for you to support the NHS and write to your local House of Lords Peer to vote with the Labour peers in the House to support a motion that will kill off the amendments, (SI275) to the Health And Social Care Act 2012.
The TUC campaign website says:
After a huge public outcry forced Jeremy Hunt to withdraw and rewrite his controversial new NHS competition regulations earlier this month, the government have come back with a new suggestion to put this part of last year’s Health And Social Care Act into practice.
Peers have good reason to examine these regulations closely, as the Act only narrowly passed last year after the government gave Peers considerable assurances that competition and marketisation would not be made compulsory, where local people and their commissioning groups decided they do not want it for their services.
However, expert legal opinion suggests that the new regulations do in effect make competition almost impossible to avoid. Local groups will be pressured into opening nearly all services out to private markets by a combination of over-strict guidelines and the real threat of legal action from private healthcare companies. Services will become further fragmented, and scarce NHS funds wasted in complex tendering processes and legal fees.
A motion has been laid in the House of Lords to oppose the regulations, and represents the last chance for Parliament to amend or reject them. Members of the House of Lords have a chance to give the regulations the scrutiny the government have been so keen to avoid, and hold the government to the promises they made in the House last year.
You can help raise concerns about the threat to NHS services by writing to a member of the House of Lords. They aren't as used to individual lobbying as MPs, so receiving personal contacts from members of the public should really get their attention.
Of course, one of the reasons they don't get much contact is that they don't have a direct group of constituents. We can help get around this, using this tool to adopt a Peer. We'll match you at random to a member of the House of Lords and help you to contact them, either directly with a posted letter, or by email.
If you have previously written to a Peer, our site will be able to identify who it was and offer you the chance to write to the same Peer again, or choose another.
To get started, add your email address here
Source: TUC
