Hi Parliament will vote on the bill for the NHS reforms in 2 days time. There have been a lot of amendments made to the bill, however independent legal advice has shown that there are still significant failings with the bill, such as removing the duty of the Secretary of State to provide or secure the provision of health services and opening the NHS up to EU competition law, allowing privatisation and meaning hospitals will be able to go for making money from private patients rather than providing essential health care services. Labour will be opposing the bill, but if you have an MP from any other party then you can use this link to lobby them and make sure they know how you feel - http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/speakout/email-your-mp-now Dan
Thanks for that Dan… And done. I get little response from my MP in the past and he even refused to allow me to lobby him during the march in London a few weeks ago when so many MP’s did. Try try again… P
Done 
Have done and hope every one else will. S 
Thanks Dan, have just done it. Hmm, wonder if I will get a reply! Eve
Signed and forwarded to contacts earlier
Ok quite surprised by this but pigs have flown before… My MP wrote me quite a nice letter today. He says that he has received a number of enquiries from his constituents and therefore has written to Andrew Lansley Highlighting our Concerns and will write back in due course. To be fair I have written/emailed him a number of times and been fobbed off with the usual MP reply fodder. however he has signed this one with a pen!!! I shall report back!
strudders wrote:
Ok quite surprised by this but pigs have flown before… My MP wrote me quite a nice letter today. He says that he has received a number of enquiries from his constituents and therefore has written to Andrew Lansley Highlighting our Concerns and will write back in due course. To be fair I have written/emailed him a number of times and been fobbed off with the usual MP reply fodder. however he has signed this one with a pen!!! I shall report back!
I just had a reply from my MP today. He’s Labour, so it was preaching tothe converted, but nice that he got back to me: “Thank you for contacting me about the Health and Social Care Bill. Like you I am extremely concerned about the Government’s proposals for the NHS. I have very recent personal experience which has confirmed my concern. Four weeks ago I was unexpectedly diagnosed with a benign brain tumour, which was removed immediately and successfully. As well as paying tribute to the surgical and nursing teams at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, who were fantastic, the whole episode underlined to me what is so special about the NHS and what is at risk in the Government’s proposals. The quick referral and diagnosis, extraordinary surgery and attentive aftercare that I received, and is available to all on the basis of need, is what makes the NHS respected throughout the world. We need only to look at the US healthcare system to see the danger of the Government’s proposals. Thanks to the NHS, I am now making a good recovery following the operation, however I have not yet been able to return to Parliament yet. As you can imagine, I am particularly disappointed that I will be unable to vote against the NHS Bill tonight. However I can assure you that my Labour colleagues in Parliament will be voting to scrap or significantly amend this bureaucratic and wasteful reorganisation of the NHS. Due to the investment in the NHS by the Labour government the standard of healthcare provided has never been better, but the Government is recklessly putting this at risk. I have received a very large number of e-mails and letters from constituents on this important issue so I know how concerned people are about the Government’s proposals. The major flaws identified by the 38 Degrees legal opinions are serious concerns, and reflect the arguments that Labour have been making in Parliament and in public since last autumn (if you haven’t seen their legal advice you can read it at NHS legal advice: email your MP - 38 Degrees) The Bill removes a key protection of the 1946 Act that set up the NHS – that the Secretary of State for Health should be directly accountable for providing the health service. The Government’s plans will break up the NHS as a national public service and fundamentally weaken the Health Secretary’s responsibilities. Furthermore, the Government have not acted upon the recommendations of the independent group of NHS experts, the Future Forum. The Bill still contains the essential elements of the Tories’ long-term plan to set the NHS up as a full-scale market based on the model of the privatised utilities. This reflects the Government’s overall ideology of opening up the public sector to private companies. Under their plans a new economic regulator will enforce competition law on the NHS for the first time, and have the power to fine hospitals 10% of their turnover for working together. Private auditing companies like KPMG could also be contracted to take over service commissioning. Thank you again for contacting me. I and my Labour colleagues will continue to fight to save the NHS from this Tory-led Government. Best wishes, Paul”
I received this reply from my MP
Dear Chris
Many thanks for your e-mail. I did visit the stand at the Conference - twice - but both times those manning the stand were busy talking to other people and didn't seem to be able to break away to be able to talk to me and I didn't want to interrupt.
I fully understand that these issues affect those with MS and also with many other conditions, including mental health which is really the area I am focussing on in Parliament at the moment. I am not sure I will be able to get along on the 21st as I have a regular Monday meeting at that time but if you would like us to meet in Loughborough to discuss these issues further I would be delighted to do so.
With very best wishes
Nicky
Nicky Morgan MP
MP for Loughborough, Shepshed, Quorn, Barrow, Sileby, Hathern, Mountsorrel Castle and the Wolds villages
Parliamentary Private Secretary to Rt Hon David Willetts MP
Tel: 020 7219 7224 (Westminster)/01509 262723 (Constituency)
nicky.morgan.mp@parliament.uk
No point, MP’s are not interested in you or me, except at election time.
They are all there in a cosy, little club. Which costs us the tax payers a fortune.
Bless their little cotton socks.
Chris R.
I. El. (Eng). (Rtd).
I know its going to be a bad day when I get out of bed and miss the floor, today is such a day.
Done.
Whilst I can understand everyone’s concerns about the NHS reforms, I do think that some people look at it through rose tinted spectacles.
I had to change my GP earlier this year because my old GP was unable to offer me an appoitntment within the next three weeks. They suggested I call every day at 8am for an emergency appointment, but of course when I did the phone was permanently engaged. Fortunately I had the choice to register with a new GP, an no-one sees this choice as a threat to the future of the NHS. So why shouldn’t patients have this choice in other areas.
The Labour MP earlier in this thread quotes the example of his excellent treatment for a benign brain tumour, but he might also care to ask himself why the UK has some of the worst cancer survival rates in Europe, or why it is not unknown for people who have been diagnosed with cancer to wait two months for their treatment to begin. He might also like to comment on the following cases, all of which took place when his party was in power, and whilst the government which he supported poured billions of taxpayers money into the NHS.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/654184.stm
There has to be something wrong with the system when cases like these occur.
You also have to ask yourself why most other countries in Western Europe have not adopted a system like the NHS, and why their cancer survival rates are better, and why there are none of the long delays for diagnostic tests and treatment that you can experience in the UK. (I have been recently referred for an MRI scan, and told I must wait 6 weeks)
The article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_France describes how the Healthcare system operates in France, and people might like to compare this with the system in the UK and ask themselves which system they would prefer, or whether they would prefer elements of the French system to be introduced in the UK.
I think there are far too many vested interests within the NHS at the moment, and the patient is often the last person to be considered. Consultants have a vested interest in keeping NHS waiting lists long, in order to give their patients an incentive to go private. It was Nye Bevan who, to use his own words, had to “stuff their mouths with gold” in order to get doctors to co-operate with the NHS when it was established in 1948.
As someone who has PPMS and is likely to rely on the NHS increasingly in future, I want to see it continue. What ulimately matters is that people have access to the healthcare that they need, when they need it, and that low income is not a barrier to receiving healthcare. Not whether the NHS as an institution survives in its present form because the government (of what ever party) is afraid to tackle the real issues.
done