Support our GP surgeries!

With the Government's plans for private companies taking over the running of NHS trusts in the limelight, it seems only right to highlight a campaign being run by local GPs and health centres up and down the country with the British Medical Association (BMA).

The campaign is opposing the replacement of local, family GP surgeries with large commercially-run and impersonal 'polyclinics'. The BMA, the Royal College of General Practitioners and GPs fear the new polyclinics could have a detrimental impact on the healthcare of millions, and in rural areas with poor public transport provision like Devon the impact could be even worse than in urban areas.


The campaign has a petition at: www.supportyoursurgery.org.uk

The RCGP has produced a more detailed factsheet analysing the Government's proposals here.

Needless to say, we support the campaign fully, and advocate an NHS run in the interests of patients, not private sector profiteers. This means private sector involvment in the NHS must end, and PFI projects and debts cancelled. Health services should be provided locally, with an expansion in the number of doctors and nurses. Improved NHS provision should be funded by savings provided by the nationalisation of the pharmaceutical and medical supplies industry, whose gigantic profits come at the expense of patients and taxpayers.

Most importantly, we need to replace a system which breeds inequality, poverty, illness and stress and replace it with a system, socialism, which will promote better health through drastically reducing inequality, reducing working hours and pressures at work, and improving people's lives, living conditions and environment.