WE are writing in response to the letters featured in Points of View regarding the consequences of the Vale Royal Clinical Commissioning Group and its influence from April 1 of its procurement of NHS service for our area, Guardian, January 2.
The NHS will surely become an insurance scheme, with service provision contracted out to the cheapest, never mind the quality, service providers?
This will result in profit margins dictating the quality of patient care as a consequence. Large organisations as suppliers of services can introduce economies of scale, employing armies of ‘management consultants’ to streamline the process of healthcare onto a few pathways. Big business would be the winner, as exampled in all other areas of life like railways and energy suppliers. Will the privatisation agenda extend to GP surgeries and be replaced by companies which will cut services to the bone?
In a few years, we fear the NHS will simply be a brand of cut price basic health care, and there simply to provide nothing except the very minimum. If you wish for anything more, then private health insurance will be mandatory.
Is this to be the legacy of New Labour and accelerated by the Con-Dem coalition? The NHS as a state institution that protects all of our citizens has been irrevocably lost, but do let your MP know how you feel about the changes as soon as possible.
BARRIE and JO HODGSON Winsford
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