THERE ARE SEVEN REASONS THAT CAN BE PUT INTO PLAIN ENGLISH THAT WAVERING MP:S, JOBBING JOURNALISTS AND THE PUBLIC WILL UNDERSTAND RELATING TO THE NHS

Think Yourself Lucky, Here is some further ammunition for use on the NHS Bill.

1. The Bill replaces three levels of management (DH, SHA, PCT) with Seven; (DH, NCB, 4 Clustered SHA, 50 Commissioning Support Groups, 300-ish CCG's, Clinical Senates and Health Watch).
2. GP's cannot "do commissioning"; it is to complex, they can not fit it in part-time and also look after patients. They can and should influence local commissioning decisions.
3. The complexity of buying health care is recognised by the DH who have invented "Commissioning Support Organisations" (not in the Bill), to help. They are intended to be private companies who have to decide what health care we can have on behalf of the GP's.
4. The Coalition Government has not saved millions in bureaucracy; they have shifted costs by sacking really experienced people who are now being re-hired to commission care on behalf of GP's.
5. No one is really worried about the "Private Sector" per-se. But, if you spend £100 on health care in the NHS you get one hundred quid's worth of health care less about 5% management costs. In the private sector you will get a hundred quid's worth less 3% management costs, 5% profit, 12% to pay bank loans and charges, plus a chunk for bonus's, dividends and a return for investors. And no provision for what happens if they go broke or get fed up.
6. There is no increase in patient choice; we are all stuck with our local GP who is stuck with his local CCG who are stuffed into CSO's who will decide what we can have and when we can have it. All the decisions about us are being made without us.
7. The NHS could have functioned Perfectly well without the passing of this Bill; it is performing pretty well now and could coalesce around what it is doing. but, waiting times are on the way up and we are getting fatter and older. The Bill that has now passed into law will do nothing about any of this and the service should be allowed to concentrate its efforts to meet those challenges.

Keith C