Readers' letters - September 9

STP changes to the NHS '“ slash, trash and privatise

I’m deeply concerned that, since the 2017 General Election, there has been little discussion about the disastrous changes to the NHS being forced through by the local Sustainability and Transformation Plans, now called Partnerships.

These plans have been made in a secretive manner with very little public information and are nothing more than plans to slash, trash and privatise our NHS.

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But most worrying is what Professor Stephen Hawking highlighted in a recent public statement to the press.

This is a move to an American-style model of healthcare management called the Accountable Care Organisation/System.

This system, with low fixed budgets that will not meet the public need, will turn the NHS into a two-tier health system where the rich will pay and the rest of us will be left with a very poor minimal NHS like the American Medicare system. I would urge all readers to contact their MPs and let them know that the public will not stand for the destruction of the NHS and all MPs must reject the STPs and a move to Accountable Care Organisations.

These new models of care will end the NHS as a comprehensive service that provides the full range of care to all who need it, free at the point of need.

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Readers can find their MPs on the website https://www.theyworkforyou.com/

Chris Robinson

Address supplied

Remainers, why accept Brexit?

If there is one group of people I cannot understand it is ‘accepting Remainers’, those who now seem to be backing Brexit, even though they didn’t vote for it and don’t believe in it.

While I might disagree with those who campaigned for Brexit, they have as much right to their opinions as I have to mine and they do, at least, have the strength of their convictions.

Why is the 2016 referendum result, which produced only a small simple majority win of less than four per cent for leave and was based upon a myth of about £350m a week (that never went to the EU) being invested in the NHS, being regarded as sacrosanct, in a way in which the outcome of a General Election would not be?

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Do these parties, and their supporters, who failed to attract sufficient votes in this summer’s national Parliamentary poll, have to “accept” Government policy as “the will of the people” and go along with it?

Of course they don’t.

Without any credible opposition to those in power, we would not have a functioning democratic system. And democracy in this nation did not end on June 23, 2016.

Since the referendum, the pound has declined significantly in value, increasing the price of imports and holidays, thereby making British families comparatively worse off.

The Governor of the Bank of England recently predicted lower living standards in the UK than would otherwise have been the case for the foreseeable future.

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This will mostly affect the younger generation, including those who were under 18 and therefore unable to vote in 2016.

So much for “taking back control”. There is nothing patriotic about imposing unnecessary hardship on your fellow countrymen, including your own kith and kin, in pursuit of some misplaced ideology.

Apparently, some 61 per cent of Brexit voters would be prepared to see the UK take a major economic hit, so long as it means leaving Europe. I am not so sure.

Will they be wrapping themselves in a Union Jack and singing Rule Britannia when the bailiffs come to evict them from their homes after they have lost their jobs?

I suspect not.

To quote Brexit Secretary David Davis in 2012: “If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.” Well said, Mr Davis.

NP Johnson

via email

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