A Petition Regarding Changes to the NHS

Thanks for that, Mark. The reason I raised this was out of concern for the NHS - not any political reason.

I've just come across this. Agree that politics should be off the forum but this bill is relevant to us all here and it would be right to discuss it. I do not know the details but one thing I would be strongly against is give responsibility to GPs. GPs cannot cope with their own surgery let alone have more responsibility. May be it is the right LONG TERM aim but there would be a lot of pain on the way. If it does go ahead I can see years later will probably have different tiers (just like trusts) and there will be the good clinics (like Foundation Trusts) and the laggers behind and in time - a very long time - things might turn round. Not in our lifetime. Anyway - the e-petition would need a lot of visibility - with under 200,000 signatories it won't stand a chance - not on its own. The government see all this just as resistance to change and we all know that it is human nature to resist change.

I wonder who the GPs would expect to tell them how many BG test strips one is allowed to have on prescription a day when the hospitals are not controlling our care.

The NHS does need to change and you do need proper controls and measures and measures refined all the time so as to stop them being got round and to always give a true reflection of patient care. But giving it to GPs to control is wrong and if it is the right long term strategy then we can transition to it a little bit at a time.

I

I work in the "public sector", and have a fair amount to do with both practitioners and commissioners in various parts of my local NHS. I'm also a member of my GP practice's Patient Participation Group. Locally, the consortium which my practice is a member of is a pathfinder for GP Commissioning. So, I feel that I ought to have some kind of handle on both the nature and implications of the proposals.. Sadly (but far from surprisingly), things seem to be characterised by confusion and a very significant lack of detail. The Health Secretary's pause and reflection does not seem to have changed things or shone much light onto the exact nature of how priorities will be set or how services might be commissioned once the bill becomes an act. So it seems that at the moment the only judgements that can be made are political ones - on whether or not you agree with (what I see as) politically driven principles behind the proposed legislation. At the moment we have to take it on trust that the coalition's espoused aims to give more commissioning power to GPs can be delivered - there is no detail that shows how this will happen.

My own (perhaps ill-informed) anxiety is that GP Commissioning will lead to more post-code lotteries for people with diabetes (and other conditions of course). Budgets will be limited, commissioners will have to prioritise - with the risk that one commissioning group will see diabetes as a higher priority than its neighbour, leading to different levels of service depending on the area that you live (although I suppose it might be possible to "choose" a GP practise in an area where diabetes is a high priority).

I must stress that this is speculation on my part - I am sure that there are better informed people able to reassure me that I'm worrying unnecessarily.

Stew