Dr David Wrigley

On Sunday 24th Feb I was discussing with colleagues about the latest attempt by the coalition to force privatisation of NHS services on local commissioners. I had an idea to gather names for an open letter to publish in the press and exert further pressure on both Houses of Parliament. Little did I know that in 48 hours I would collect over 1000 names prepared to sign the letter (below) ranging from nurses, doctors, porters to Professors and senior consultants - staff from across the whole spectrum of the NHS. I wasn't surprised in a way because the NHS engenders such a feeling of support from the whole country and the wish to prevent it from being sold off to the commercial sector is huge. I hope the Department of Health, Jeremy Hunt, David Cameron and Nick Clegg take heed of this huge groundswell of opinion that we do not wish our NHS to be sold off to the commercial sector. We did NOT vote for this at the last General Election and democracy must be seen to prevail. The Da...

Urgent, immediate action required please Secondary legislation under Section 75 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 We have only learned this morning that the deadline for writing to the clerk mentioned below is  tomorrow  Monday 25th February so please write  NOW  if you can. We would be grateful if you also ask your friends and contacts to do the same. The essential message is at the foot of this e-mail • On 13th February 2013 the Government published the regulations (SI 257) under Section 75 of the  Health and Social Care Act 2012 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/257/contents/made • Assurances were given by ministers during the passage of the Bill through Parliament that it did not mean the privatisation of the NHS, that local people would have the final say in who provided their NHS. • The regulations just published break these promises by creating requirements for virtually all commissioning done by the National Commissioni...

CCGs are at the forefront of the huge NHS reorganisation that we were told by David Cameron would never happen under his watch . There are three letters on the lips of everyone closely associated with CCGs at the moment - these three letters are CSU. These letters stand for Commissioning Support Units and you would be forgiven for not having heard much about them as they are quietly getting on with the job they have been tasked to do by the huge behemoth that is the National Commissioning Board . CSUs have been set up and separate ones are running in every part of the English NHS. They were first described in late 2011 but not a great deal has been said about them, however it is vital we let more people know about them. CCGs have been tasked to provide healthcare for local communities on an absolute pittance of a budget compared to what PCTs used to have available to spend on patients. First mooted by the Dept of Health in late 2011 when the Health Bill was seeing more and m...