Max Pemberton is a psychiatrist in the NHS. He is also an author of three books about his experiences as a doctor, and is a weekly columnist for the Daily Telegraph. He has announced his support for the Campaign for the NHS Reinstatement Bill
I wholeheartedly support the proposed NHS Reinstatement Bill. The NHS reforms brought in by the coalition government have been a costly, unnecessary disaster, as the government has now admitted. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 fundamentally undermined healthcare in this country and is bad for patients, especially those with complex or chronic conditions. As the market has been introduced into the NHS, the layers of bureaucracy have grown and swelled to levels of byzantine complexity and urgently need to be brought under control. Managers have proliferated in recent years with no clear benefit to the overall efficiency of services.
The NHS needs to be lean and efficient – I do not know of a single healthcare professional that would disagree with this. I had hoped the Health and Social Care Act would deftly dissect out these unwanted and unhelpful elements within the NHS, but instead the scalpel has been used to stab the NHS in the back. All the Act achieves is the atomising of the NHS. It is being spliced and diced into bite-sized portions to be thrown down the gullet of the corporate sector. And ultimately it is the weak and vulnerable who will suffer. We cannot stand by while this butchering of our health service goes on.
Max Pemberton, psychiatrist, author and Daily Telegraph columnist
If you agree please contact your local MP and prospective parliamentary candidates to ask if they support the NHS Reinstatement Bill.