Public must be warned of privatisation risks (From Haringey Independent)

Public must be warned of privatisation risks

12:56pm Wednesday 28th January 2009

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Supporters of the Better Local Healthcare Campaign (BLHC) are getting very frustrated. We think the public is unaware of changes that are being rolled out fast to concentrate local GP services on fewer sites.

In this part of London our GPs are not generally housed in purpose built surgeries; high land values prevent this. But patients are happy with that; they prefer to stay with their family doctor even if the premises are adapted private houses and not ‘state of the art’ clinics. In any case, most visits to GPs are for a consultation that requires no special facilities.

Patients do not want to travel a longer distance to one of the hyper clinics being set up by the Primary Care Trust (HtPCT), but they do want the HtPCT to provide NHS - not private - services in such clinics.

BLHC wants to alert people to those commercial companies that are gathering strength to make profits out of community health care.

Local residents had a foretaste of what might be to come; many received letters – addressed to them personally – inviting them to expensive (£138) health screening tests.

Their reaction has been ‘What a cheek! Who gave out my address? – anyway, we have a National Health Service!’.

If you want to safeguard comprehensive publicly provided health services, join us on St Valentine’s Day, February 14, on ‘We Love our NHS’ demonstrations across Haringey.

In west Haringey, BLHC Campaign plans to gather at Hornsey Central Hospital, Park Road, N8 at 11am. Then some will march and others will take a bus to join a rally at Ducketts Common at 1pm.

Janet Shapiro, Connaught Gardens, Muswell Hill, Better Local Healthcare Campaign

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