The New Dark Age

30 August, 2010 — williambowles.info

NHS Direct, perhaps the only effective addition to the Health Service the Labour government contributed, is to be axed under new proposals being put forward by the Tory/Lib-Dem government in spite of all the pre-election promises to ‘ring-fence’ the NHS.

NHS Direct saves the NHS £213 million a year by directing patients to the correct treatment, but now the service is to be ‘outsourced’ to private and non-nursing staff, allegedly to make the service more ‘accessible’ and ‘simpler to use’.

But if it ain’t broke, why fix it? In the grand tradition of what passes for British politics, once again the Tories pick up where Labour left off, who picked up where the Tories left off…and so it goes…

10,000 people have already signed a petition calling on the government to halt the privatization deal. Add your name at:

www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-nhs-direct.html

Apparently, Cameron promised a Commons debate on issues if he gets more than 100,000 signatures. We’ll see.

The unions involved are taking to the streets on 23 October.

See the full story in the Morning Star.