Dear Gordon,

Keep Our NHS Public Oxfordshire is a group representing a wide cross section of the community who campaign to keep the NHS public. We work to explain to the general public the effects of current government policies. In order to do this more effectively we need to know your views on the issues below. We welcome you as our new Prime Minister and feel this is a golden opportunity to invite you to answer a number of specific questions about the future of  the National Health Service under your government. 

1. The more that we understand about the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) the more we believe it has had a central importance in the drive to privatise the NHS during the Tony Blair era.  Can you reassure us that in working to secure the future of the NHS that it will be exempt from the pressures that arise from this agreement?

2. What do you see as the future of the Private Finance Initiative?  In the Oxford Radcliffe Hospital Trust alone £36 million a year for the next 30 years, index linked, will be paid to OCHRE, a consortium made up of Barclays Private Equity, GSL (previously Group 4) and an Italian company, IMPREGILO. 

We are also concerned at the ability of the DOH and local NHS commissioners to negotiate effectively with the private sector given experience to date! 

The Blair Government has spent millions of pounds on management consultants who have developed policies that award contracts to private sector companies and foundation trusts.   In turn these are regulated by MONITOR, which in turn has contracted out two thirds of its work to McKinsey Management Consultants.  We believe this is money that should be available to the NHS directly and not going into the pockets of private investors.

3. What do you see as the future of Foundation Trusts? We believe that by April 2008 most of our hospitals in England will have become Foundation Trusts.  These financially independent organisations will have to make decisions based on financial viability.  Our concerns are that they will stop providing necessary services that they see as unprofitable and will sell off assets.  Those that do not remain financially profitable will be taken over by other more predatory organisations or make the move to become completely private e.g. Moorfields Eye Hospital.

4. What do you see as the future of the Independent Sector Treatment Centres (ISTCs)?  Our local experience has been that these private organisations have been awarded guaranteed contracts so that they are paid whether work is undertaken or not resulting in the NHS paying twice when patients have not chosen this option.  The contracts for these organisations were negotiated nationally but imposed locally without discussion.

5. What do you see as the future of NICE?  We believe that discussion needs to take place at a national level, with consultation, to determine which services and treatments will be provided within the NHS.  The current system is deeply flawed because the implementation and funding is devolved to local levels resulting in a post code lottery.  

Choice has been a central plank of Tony Blair’s policies.  Surveys have now clearly shown that patients want good services in their local hospitals rather than the choice to travel elsewhere.  We believe that this policy has wasted millions and call on you to listen to the views of the general public.  In the light of this recent research will you be revising government policy on Choice?  Choose and Book, which gives doctors the ability to book appointments in consultation with the patient is, on the other hand, an excellent development. 

Our vision for the  future NHS is for long term planning and a strong emphasis on public health.  This would require integrated policies on the environment, increasing exercise and food.  In order to develop and implement these wide ranging policies we believe that local community structures must be developed and integrated into the NHS.  We also believe that integration between community hospital services and between health and social care services are essential to an efficient and effective provision of service. 

As a group that seeks to represent a wide variety of community interests we believe that the electorate want to see an NHS that is free at the point of need and funded from general taxation.  This should again include dentistry, optical services, podiatry and the many other services that patients in many parts of the country now have to pay for.

We look forward to hearing your views on each of these points, particular given the support and extra resources you have given the NHS in your time as Chancellor.                                                                 Yours sincerely,