Forget all the trivial distractions.
Dr Hilary Jones on Good Morning Britain, summing up the opinions of thousands of doctors' messages: "If it doesn't change very quickly, the NHS is finished. It's not sustainable. It's going to collapse."
British Medical Association and doctors say it's "delusional" and "incompetent" of Rishi Sunak to say NHS isn't in crisis. 13 years of Conservative anti-NHS ideology, underfunding, neglect and mismanagement. A publicly funded universal healthcare institution that's been around since 1948, flushed down the toilet in the name of a hard-right market fundamentalist ideology. Can't be allowed to happen.
Hope people don't mind another NHS privatisation story. I guess you can take it or leave it, but it's an interesting one...
There have been public protests (and thousands of complaint letters) over plans for a large profit-making private company (SSP Health) to take over an NHS community surgery in Lancashire. To quote one of the people campaigning (Louise France), "our GP has spent over £35,000 of her own savings trying to stop the take-over of our independent local surgery by a profit based private company", and the "lack of any public consultation is against the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board’s own guidelines".
A piece in UK's 'i' newspaper says:
"Thousands of patients at a rural GP surgery in Lancashire are fighting to prevent its takeover by a large private health firm in a David v Goliath battle that doctors fear will have national implications for the NHS.
"The dispute over who runs Withnell Health Centre (WHC), in a village near Chorley, is being seen as a watershed moment in the future of primary care. Doctors’ Association UK told 'i' the row highlights a trend among health officials that “bigger is better” when it comes to general practice, to the detriment of patients..
“The patients were absolutely gobsmacked – and angry – at the result. They had no idea this was going on and had no real chance to give any feedback on the matter,” Dr Robinson told 'i'." (i link, free registration required).
(Other news: PM Rishi Sunak invited seven private health bosses to NHS crisis meeting).