DOCTORS in the Tavistock area have spoken out about what has been described as the biggest ever proposed shake-up of the NHS ahead of meeting with West Devon MP Geoffrey Cox in the town next Friday (March 16).

There are fears that the new Health and Social Care Bill, which essentially scraps primary care trusts and health authorities and puts GPs and other clinicians in charge of healthcare budgets, will open the floodgates for private companies to come in and run the NHS.

The bill by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has been making its way through the final stages in the House of Lords before returning to the Commons for MPs to debate again.?It is opposed by the British Medical Association, Unison and other organisations representing health professionals.

Regional protests and public meetings are being held, with unions asking people to join in the campaign against radical NHS change. The Government has been accused of making so many amendments to the bill that it is not clear what it contains.

Dr Colin Bannon from Crapstone, a GP in Plymouth, said the bill would make bureaucrats out of GPs and create a top-down reorganisation and fragmented NHS, something the Government had promised would not happen when it came into power.

He said:?'Public service is one of the few things in which Britain is a world leader.

'It's the whole ethos of public service which is under threat here. GPs themselves will have insufficient resources to run the NHS which will leave the door open to other larger organisations to come in and run the NHS which, I believe, would be a disaster.'

But Lifton GP of 25 years Michael Sparrow said he was in favour of more input from GPs, although other aspects of the bill were 'hopeless'.

'This is the first time in my career that I have ever had an input into how the service being provided could be improved,' he said.

'GPs have been moaning for years about their conditions of work and the way in which the health service is organised.

'They cannot really complain when they have a chance to do something about it. Under the Labour Government we have been turned into a group of box-tickers, which a lot of professionals do not like.

'There are good things and bad things about this bill and it's all too complicated and too piecemeal for me. If we knew what the Government's intentions were when it came into power, it could have hit the ground running and we would all have a clear idea of what was in store.

'There is so much uncertainty and the PR has been terrible.'

Dr Graham Johnson from Tavyside Health Centre said personally he would like to see a lot more devolution from Central Government: 'If the practices could hold true commissioning budgets and be accountable I am sure the taxpayer would get excellent value for money and services would be designed for local needs.

'The proposed solutions seem too unwieldy to me — there are too many layers preventing "grassroots" ideas getting through and ultimately we shall still need middle management to put everything into effect.'

MP Geoffrey Cox said the private meeting, which was for health professionals only, was initiated by him due to the number of letters he had received from community health workers over the last 18 months.

He said he had so far supported the bill, principally because he believed that clinicians, GPs and nurses should be in charge of decisions over services in their area, particularly in a rural area like Tavistock.

He added that he was satisfied that there were enough safeguards in place in this bill to ensure that the NHS did not become privatised from within but he understood the confusion, apprehension and opposition over the bill.

Mr Cox said he was due to meet Andrew Lansley shortly after the meeting where the views aired at the meeting would be passed on.