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Time to come off the fence over GPs working for multinationals
• READERS of your Letters pages (March 26) might have been heartened to read John Carrier, chair of NHS Camden, saying he will listen to the concerns of patients about their local doctors.
What a shame that he can state the importance of local GPs to a National Health Service free at the point of need at the same time as drawing up plans that threaten further privatisation!
If he is listening he must have heard the outcry across the board in Camden at the takeover of local doctors by a US private company.
At a time of global market meltdown it is even greater madness to force more family doctors to work for multinational companies that put the interest of profits above everything else.
These companies will try to save money by providing a service with fewer highly-skilled and long-standing doctors that are at the heart of high-quality family practice.
The plans for a new super clinic or so called “GP-led health centre” could also threaten the very existence of local surgeries forced to compete with them.
If NHS Camden has been listening to these concerns then why haven’t these plans been dropped? That is why we have called on Camden Council to organise a referendum on the issue.
It is time to come off the fence. The government has told primary care trusts to put GP services out to private tender and are insisting on these new super centres.
If John Carrier and NHS Camden are opposed to these plans they should refuse to implement them.
They would then win almost unanimous backing from Camden residents for the stand that they would be taking.
If they insist on going ahead with them, then anyone who cares about the future of our National Health Service will have no choice but to fight them with every means available.
CANDY UDWIN
Chair,
Camden Keep our NHS Public, NW1
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