#NHS #NHSBill #dropthebill This is my reply to @nick_clegg: "Thank you for your reply. Two inalienable facts remain however, which you have not addressed. One is that a key pre-election promise by the Tories was that they would not undertake any top-down reorganisation of the NHS, which was reflected in the Coalition Agreement. This has turned out to be quite simply a barefaced lie to the electorate, because that is precisely what is happening. The Lib Dems have thus been party to this lie (apart from the few peers and MPs whose consciences were stronger than their party allegiances and voted against the Bill). This will not be forgotten. The Tories at least are reverting to type, and no-one is really surprised. The popular perception of the Lib Dems is that, in your desperation to stay in power, you have bent over backwards to betray all your principles of Liberalism and betray the 6.8 million people who voted for you in 2010 (myself included).

Secondly, speaking as an A&E doctor myself, working in one of David Cameron’s much-vaunted “front-line services”, it is very clear, despite what Mr Lansley tries to say to the contrary, that the overwhelming majority of healthcare workers – Royal Colleges, BMA, unions, nursing colleges – are in favour of dropping the bill altogether. The scale of the opposition from people have devoted their lives to working within the NHS, who know it inside-out should surely in itself send out a powerful message that the inherent nature of the Bill will dismantle the NHS and produce a service where the profit motive trumps patient safety, patient comfort and evidence-based best practice as espoused by doctors and nurses. The voice of the greatest asset in the NHS – the people who work for it – is being flagrantly ignored, so much so that the recent ‘NHS Summit’ excluded some of the most influential stakeholders such as the RCGP, RCN and BMA: a frankly disgraceful and childish way for a Prime Minister to behave.

It is disingenuous to protest to us that the NHS will continue to be free at the point of use: we KNOW that, it’s the fact that money will be spent and services provided based on profit margins and maximising shareholder value instead of the needs of the patient (which aren’t cost-effective and therefore will be of less importance). This from your party which in the past had the honesty and integrity to admit that they would raise extra billions in revenue for public services by charging an extra penny in income tax, and tell us how it intended to spend it. This in a week where the public school and Oxford-educated Chancellor of the Exchequer is poised to abolish the top rate of tax for high earners, and further declared war on the public sector with his intention to abolish national pay scales.

It’s also incredibly patronising for people like Nick Clegg and Shirley Williams to try and sell the HSC Bill on the basis that “we don’t understand it” well enough – to people who have spent long hours every week, and the best part of their lives in the NHS, being told this by politicians who have no experience in it (Shirley Williams was never even a Health Minister while a Labour MP!). We DO understand it. Furthermore, to suggest that Lib Dem politicians understand the implications of the Bill better than people like Alyson Pollock, Clare Gerada and Clive Peedell is breathtakingly arrogant.

Finally, Shirley Williams’ claim that this is a party-political battle being fought by Labour supporters is false. If this had been a bill brought by a Labour government I can guarantee that the opposition to it would be the same. The opposition by voices such as the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph demonstrates how far above party political lines this issue is. As I mentioned before, I was one of the deluded fools who voted Lib Dem in 2010 because I was disillusioned with the direction New Labour had taken the country and the Labour movement. Never again will I make that mistake, as I’m sure will hundreds of thousands of other voters. The sense of betrayal I have felt over the last 20 months at the Lib Dem support for divisive right-wing Tory policies has been multiplied ten-fold by the passage of the HSC Bill, aided and abetted by Lib Dem MPs and peers. At the next election not only will I not support the Lib Dems but I will also assist in the campaigns to unseat Lib Dem MPs and try and persuade others to do the same. I am afraid that you and your party have signed your electoral suicide note.

Yours, in Disgust

Dr G_O_M_E_R, SpR, Emergency Medicine"

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