Need Not Greed: Save the NHS

This campaigner for the NHS was at a demonstration outside the Houses of Parliament on April 24, 2013, the day that the House of Lords was debating a motion to block the passage of regulations relating to Section 75 of the Health and Social Care Act (the Tories' wretched legislation for NHS reform, passed last year). The regulations enforce competition on almost all NHS business, paving the way for private companies to swiftly and effectively dismantle the NHS, cherry-picking services they can easily make profits out of, and cowing the newly appointed Clinical Commissioning Groups (the GPs responsible for 80 percent of the NHS budget), who will be afraid of ruinously expensive legal challenges if they dare to take on the private sector.

Unfortunately, despite a sustained campaign of opposition, involving a 38 Degrees petition signed by over 360,000 people, furious lobbying of peers, and some great speeches in support of the NHS on the night (by Lords Hunt and Owen in particular), the Lords ended up voting against the motion to dismiss the regulations by 254 votes to 146 -- a particular betrayal by the Lib Dem peers, not one of whom voted to save the NHS. New strategies will soon be forthcoming -- in particular, I suspect, focusing on the Clinical Commissioning Groups.

For my archive of articles on saving the NHS, see: www.andyworthington.co.uk/category/save-the-nhs/

For all my NHS protest photos, see: www.flickr.com/photos/andyworthington/tags/nhs/

For the 38 Degrees petition, see: secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/nhs-section-75

For more on Andy Worthington, see: www.andyworthington.co.uk/

For my most interesting photos, see: www.flickriver.com/photos/andyworthington/popular-interes...

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