Save Our NHS - Who is worried?

It's not just the 100,000's of 38 Degrees members who are worried about the government's NHS plans. Lots of other groups are worried. Here's a selection. If you know of any other groups that are worried please add them to the comments below.

British Medical Association

• "Whatever your views of the privatisation of other services, it is certainly not the right model for the NHS. The consequenes of failure in healthcare are far more serious than in other industries. At best, providers of care will be distracted from their main responsibility of providing excellent services. At worst, hospitals will close - not necessarily for appropriate reasons - and large groups of patients will have greater difficulty in accessing the care they need." (source) Dr Hamish Meldrum, BMA Council Chair
• “The Secretary of State has repeatedly said he wants to listen to doctors. Doctors are telling him that whole rafts of these proposals will either not achieve the intended benefit to patients, or will be harmful. He particularly needs to act on the concerns about competition.” (source) Dr Hamish Meldrum, BMA Council Chair
• "Government is "creating an environment where individual doctors could in theory profit from NHS activity. I am not sure this can be made ethically sound." (source) Dr Laurence Buckman, Chairman of the BMA's GPs committee
• “It has been relentlessly presented to the public as a move to put NHS money into the hands of doctors to spend wisely for their patients. However, that is far from the whole truth. The truth is that this Bill aims to transform the NHS by making the development of a market in healthcare the most important priority in the NHS. And that truth is the reason the government has found itself having to ignore the advice of dozens of organisations, all saying that this is the wrong thing to do.” (source) Dr Mark Porter, BMA Consultants Chair
• “We are concerned that the Bill in its current form may allow for the acquisition of personally identifiable patient data from primary, secondary and social care for transfer into the Information Centre without patient consent,” (source) the BMA warned.
• "When we tell him [Andrew Lansley] his plans aren't working, he doesn't seem to want to hear what we're saying." (source) Dr Hamish Meldrum, BMA Council Chair

Royal College of General Practitioners

• “...our members are telling us that they are worried about the pace at which these reforms are being implemented, the danger of fragmentation of services, and the emphasis on competition, and they are not sure whether the proposals really will have the positive impact on patient care that is intended.” and “Our members are also worried that time which could be spent caring for patients will be taken away to deal with budgeting and administration and that this will impact negatively on the quality and continuity of care our patients receive". Clare Gerada, Royal College of General Practitioners Chair 
•  “The reforms promote competition without sufficient clarification of how services to patients will be safeguarded and improved." Clare Gerada, Royal College of General Practitioners Chair

Royal College of Nursing

• “We have long said that no single profession can have sole responsibility for commissioning healthcare, and without a mix of health care professionals – including nurses – we believe that the new model of commissioning will fail.”  (source) Dr Peter Carter, Chief Executive & General Secretary
•  “It will be very important that none of the recent improvements to the NHS are placed in jeopardy as a result of these reforms. Of particular concern is the sheer scale and pace of the change at the same time as the NHS is being tasked with saving £20 billion. The RCN is also concerned that fragmentation across the NHS could result in unexplained variations in service, a reduction in collaboration and less sharing of good practice – all of which impact on quality care.” (source) Dr Peter Carter, Chief Executive & General Secretary
• “...the proposed reforms will make matter much, much worse. Not least, they will force “any willing provider” of health services – private, social enterprise or NHS – to compete with each other on cost and so standard of care are bound to fall.”..."Radical change has clearly been under development for a long time, despite no mention in any election manifesto. The proposed reforms will be rapid, costly, and staggering in scale: they presage nothing less than the complete restructuring, if not privatisation of the NHS, so that healthcare becomes a commodity to be bought and sold by private companies.” (source) 200 Nurses sign letter to The Times

NHS Confederation

• “There is a recurring theme running through our analysis. We have often found a reality gap between ideas that are good in principle and the details of practical delivery, which have often looked opaque or too optimistic.” (source) Nigel Edwards, Chief Executive
• “It is also likely that competition law will increasingly apply to health services. The government has said that its legislation does not itself extend the applicability of current UK or European Union competition law to the healthcare sector. But, as NHS providers develop and begin to compete actively with other NHS providers, UK and EU competition law will increasingly become applicable” (source) Nigel Edwards, Chief Executive
• “We are also concerned about the risks of fragmentation and the dangers of driving specialists and GPs further apart - this is not what patients need.” (source) Nigel Edwards, Chief Executive
• "If you simply allow a market where patients choose and the money follows them to the hospital, then, says Farrar, there is a risk you "cannot populate the centres with the right quality and range of people". (source) New Chief Executive of NHS Confederation Mike Farrar has spoken out against Lansley's proposals.

Royal College of Midwives

• “We will be seeing again massive and profound changes in the way services are delivered. It will usher in a prolonged period of instability, coupled with the huge cost of the changes themselves, whilst soaking up the energy of the NHS and its staff. This comes at a time when the Government is requiring £20 billion of ‘efficiency savings’ from the NHS, and as maternity services face ever increasing demands. The two things seem profoundly incompatible.” (source) Cathy Warwick, General Secretary