Health-reform plea to PM

FORMER Oldham doctors leader Dr Kailash Chand OBE has joined forces with 400 GPs and health professionals urging David Cameron to withdraw NHS reforms.

Dr Chand, currently chairman of NHS Tameside and Glossop, and Dr J S Bamrah, consultant at North Manchester General Hospital, have written a personal plea to the Prime Minister.

The letter is a last-ditch attempt urging him to scrap the NHS reforms and the Health and Social Care Bill which they said will “damage the health and wealth of the nation”.

More than 400 professionals from across the country have signed the letter to scrap the controversial changes. The letter reads: “While GPs and other clinicians support the concept of clinically-led commissioning, we do not believe that this expensive upheaval of the health service will even deliver that.

“If you really want to put clinicians in control you should listen to what they are saying and put this increasingly confused legislation out of its misery.”

They said the cost of reforms, such as winding down primary care trusts and increasing waiting lists, were adding a financial and health burden on the state.

They listed other bodies, including the British Medical Association, Royal College of Nursing and Royal College of GPs, which had asked for the bill to be reformed.