Dear Mr. Clegg
- You have stated that the 1,000 plus amendments to the bill mean that it is a very different one, to that originally presented to Parliament. Why is it that the number of Royal colleges (of doctors, nurses and allied health professionals) who are in opposition to the bill has increased exponentially with the number of amendments?
- I have been told that never in the history of any country, have so many respected doctors, nurses and allied health professionals stood shoulder to shoulder, in opposition to political restructuring of a health care system. The public holds the NHS and those who work in it in high esteem – why do you feel that so many health professionals are wrong?
- Why did you and the conservative party state that you would not inflict a top down reorganization of the NHS in the manifesto, coalition agreement and last Queen’s speech and then do the complete opposite?
- Having not been open and honest with us about your intentions for the NHS, how do you expect us to believe that you are now telling us the truth about the Bill or anything else?
- Do you think that a successful company like Apple or Microsoft or Google would ever contemplate a reorganization on this scale, if their most prized work force warned them that the changes would result in poor quality products only available to a minority of the rich?
- Do you really think the people of this country will ever forgive you for undermining the core values that have been enshrined in the NHS for the last 60 years?
- Do you know what it feels like to be sick or have a sick child and not know if your health policy will pay for the best available treatment?
- Have you ever lived and worked in a country where health care is based on a market economy and people choose their jobs based on the healthcare package that is attached to the job?
- Your grass-roots party members have made their feelings clear at your recent Spring Conference. Do you plan to ignore them?
- Is it true that the Lib Dem party has recently received at least one very large donation from a company that stands to gain from the changes imposed by the Health and Social Care Bill?
- Have you personally ever received funding from a Heath Care organization?
- If GPs are to be empowered to make clinical and commissioning decisions by the bill why do they want the bill to be stopped?
- Why do you (still) show greater loyalty to Andrew Lansley (who has consitently ‘missold’ the HSC bill and concealed the ‘risk register’ from the public) than to both the NHS (valued by the nation and described independently by OECD as one of the most effective and efficient health services in the world) and your own party, that has voted against these radical ‘reforms’ at two annual conferences?
Questions courtesy of Dr Maggie Ireland MBBS MRCP MSc MD FFPH Public Health Geneticist and Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health
And Public Health For the NHS
Please add your own questions in the comments below
See also:
Lib Dems blow chance to save the NHS Mirror
A Better NHS 
(1) How is the claim that there will be no privatisation consistent with the 2012/13 NHS Outcomes Framework, which seems to suggest that there will be performance monitoring of an increase in private or independent/non-NHS sector provision?
(2) We keep being told that GPs will have control of commissioning most of the NHS – at present PCTs consume around 80% of the NHS budget, but CCGs will only have access to around 60% and if commissioning is contracted out, then GPs will have no more to do with commissioning on a day-to-day basis than they do at present, and a smaller proportion of the NHS budget (60% versus 80%) would be under their remit anyway. How much say will GPs have of the NHS Commissioning Board.
Are you LISTENING Nick Clegg?
Question 4 is very relevant. Cannot trust politicians now
Have you considered how support for this bill by your Scottish MP’s will affect, firstly your party in Scotland, and secondly support for independence by not only LibDem and Labour voting anti-Tory voters, but the many SNP voters who are currently unimpressed by the arguments for independence?
Is party political gain more important than the long term public interest
of what is considered best for the NHS- by a vast body of health
professionals?
Why has this not been a fully collaborative process that is also open and transparent from the start of planning?
Why are the most important voices and those with decades of direct experience in health and social care being effectively sidelined and shut out of debate? Thankyou.
Could I make a radical suggestion- that this process be put on hold until all relevant professional bodies and patient/public groups are around the table-and a public debate can be had in the open?
We all have a stake in the future of our most precious and valued public service; it should not be left in the hands of a selective few or possible vested interests- eg commercial companies.
It is a question of scale and extent also- and what precedents are being put in place.This should surely be an open democratic process and public discourse- completely within Lib Dem principles.
You should be on the side of public interest- not just acting within a political bubble or vacuum of power.This really matters to all of us!