White paper

The NHS that we know and love is under threat. The government plans to massively shake-up the NHS, which has the potential to cause huge damage to patient care and waste vast sums of public money. The plans will turn the NHS into a business where our taxes will increasingly pay for profit-driven companies to provide our healthcare.

Since the coalition government came into power it seems there is no public service that is safe from their proposed cuts. So far we have seen councils, police and welfare subject to their reforms. The NHS is also not safe from these slashing reforms, in July the ConDems released a white paper "Liberating the NHS" which outlined radical reform which we believe is the start of the deconstruction of the NHS. The paper proposed a less centre led NHS which will be run by the clinicians and patients and paid for by GPs.

There is widespread fear that this will really mean more money going to private initiatives which will put profit before patient care, undermining the founding principles of our beloved health service. GP's are not all in agreement that this is the right thing to do as they value the relationship they have with their patients and don't want to see this undermined by being the purse holders.

The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) gave us a clearer idea of how this will affect ambulance services. It has been said throughout that front line services will be protected, but we already know £23m has to be saved by SWAST as highlighted by our Strategic Health Authority. This may not mean front line crews but it could affect back room services, fleet, finance, HR, admin, governance, audit to name a few, which would affect the ability to deliver the patient care we are so proud of.