David Cameron promised before the election that “...there would be no top-down re-organisation of the NHS”.  It is a promise which is being spectacularly broken.  The massive reorganisation being proposed threatens the whole future of the NHS. 

The British Medical Association has warned that: “...thousands of doctors and nurses face being made redundant, or not replaced if they leave, while many hospitals have cut treatments.” And yet Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, promised that NHS frontline services would be protected. 

Even Conservative MPs are worried.  Dr Sarah Wollaston, Tory MP for Totnes, herself a former GP, recently called the reforms “completely unrealistic” and told the Daily Telegraph that they were “...doomed to fail.”

Under the reforms, GPs will control most of the NHS budget from 2013.  Doctors working in consortia will take on responsibility for buying in the bulk of hospital and community services for their patients.  In the process, all 151 Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities will be abolished.  Dr Wollaston argues that these proposals would result in the NHS going "belly-up, not top-down.”  The more we find out about the changes, the more worried we become. 

Some spending cuts and organisation changes have been announced in Newham.  Newham University Hospital Trust is being merged with the Trusts for Homerton and Royal London and St Barts.  I can see the sense of this, and it has been on the cards for some time.  I am more worried that the three East London Primary Care Trusts – for Newham, Tower Hamlets and Hackney – are being merged, before being abolished altogether.  

The health service in Newham made huge progress in the past decade.  We are now going to have to fight hard to stop it going backwards.

To join Labour’s campaign for David Cameron to keep his promises, visit www.frontlinenhs.co.uk.