Southwark NHS petition

[jim_the_chin]

Not asking you to agree or disagree on this but 38 degrees have a petition going for signatures to go to the new Clinical Commissioning Group in Southwark that will be deciding who provides treatment in the area.

It's just an attempt to counter-lobby for quality services rather than those that spend more on marketing than clinical governance.

See linky for details if interested.

http://action.38degrees.org.uk/ccg_found_o?postcode=SE2+29PH&email=harryfreeze%40yahoo.com&c=f6770bb7c9a4271a#petition

[Huguenot]

Isn't a bit vague? The NHS will say it's trying to do all of those things anyway, and will also say that the proposed new system will improve on that.

You need to be more specific surely? Nebulous ideas about generally spending less on marketing are part of that - unless you have specific issues then you can't really campaign.

[Marmora Man]

38 Degrees is a left leaning political activist group - nothing wrong in that but they do have form in distorting facts, using emotional rather than rational arguments and generally opposing change proposed by this coalition government.

This petition is not got together by a disinterested group - much of it reflects Unison & Unite rhetoric about "privatising" of the NHS. Something that is patently untrue - and, in any case, irrelevant. What counts is the quality of service received by individual patients. While the NHS can be magnificent it can also be truly awful. Any campaign to improve the quality of patient care has my support, but vague and insubstantial appeals to "protect our NHS" is a waste of time.

[Loz]

The petition text:

Dear Southwark CCG,

Our NHS is precious, and we're relying on you to protect it. Please do all you can to stop local health services being broken up or taken over by irresponsible private companies.

- Protect local NHS services and consult patients properly before making changes

- Spend money wisely and don?t do deals with irresponsible private companies

- Adopt policies and a constitution which reflect these values

Hugo's right. Doesn't really say much, does it? Who actually signed up to this guff? It's terribly worded - the government could claim that the key point of the NHS reforms is to spend money wisely by dealing with responsible companies, thereby meeting the key demand. I reckon 38 Degrees would be horrified if this was formulated into a 'constitution', yet the government could claim it met their demands to the letter!

So, according the the 38 Degrees site, today over 2300 fools actually signed a petition that inadvertently supports the coalitions NHS reforms.