Guess what I’m back on my soapbox again which is quite unsurprising considering what the ConDems have been up to. Quite recently they brought out another white paper, this particular one detailing their plans for our beloved NHS which is admired throughout the globe. It wasn’t long ago I attended a conference where these plans were discussed at length, I just came away with some post-it notes, some pencils and feeling a tad annoyed that when I put my concerns to Paul Burstow MP (after having my hand in the air for a long time) that he just answered me by saying “Don’t you want a dynamic and efficient NHS….blah..blah..(Reiterates word for word from the white paper in front of me)” thus making me feel like I’m a stick in the mud!
It came to my attention yesterday whilst wasting my time on Facebook via a message that my cousin sent me, a link to this news article (bbc.co.uk/news/health-11838687 ) as you can imagine I was horrified to read that the ConDem’s plans are coming to fruition and that an NHS hospital is now been run as a social enterprise. Now piece by piece we will see the NHS disappear. When I initially read the NHS White paper I had grave concerns, first of all that the government were planning to entrust around 90% of the NHS budget into the hands of GPs who sadly aren’t experts on TS and from talking to many others with TS haven’t been very knowledgeable about TS at all which has lead to people not getting the referrals that they needed. My second concern and this is a major concern, this one leapt out at me from the page is that they were planning to privatise the hospitals, “WHAT?” I hear you cry, that’s true they’re planning to hand the running of hospitals to social enterprise companies just like at Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire which is now run by a company called Circle. What worries me about these social enterprise hospitals is that they can make extra money to help with the running costs of these hospitals by treating private patients, in my opinion this would create a two tier NHS, a tier for those who can pay and a tier for those who can’t and I wonder which group the majority of us people with TS would fall into considering that 2 out of 3 of us adult ticcers are currently unemployed?
So far, I can’t seem to see any improvements to the NHS, yet all I can think that might happen is that after battling with your GP to get a referral (who thinks that “only men and boys get Tourette’s” - kid ye not this is what a female ticcer friend told me) you spend an inconceivable amount of time waiting (whilst your mental health plummets) whilst someone with a bit more cash than yourself gets to see a specialist sooner. This is not “fair” (a favourite word for the ConDems). To me as a bit of a leftie, it seems immoral to break up the NHS like this, I’m a fair believer that we should have a fair society where everyone gets the care that they need regardless of how rich or poor they are.
Next week in my role of Policy Officer I’ll be attending a parliamentary reception and the main topic of discussion will be the NHS reforms so if anybody has a message or question they would like to put to Mr Burstow and company please let me know.
