­PRIVATISATION of the NHS is not the ultimate aim behind the Health and Social Care Bill, West Devon and Torridge MP Geoffrey Cox insists.

But GPs and health care professionals meeting the MP at the Bedford Hotel in Tavistock last Friday shared little of his conviction. The bill would see the end of health authorities and primary care trusts, and put GPs and other clinicians in charge of healthcare budgets.

Consultant paediatrician Professor Peter Fleming said he had 'real concerns' about the bill, particularly relating to children's care services. 'This bill will destroy integrated services for children, because it specifically unpicks uniformed responsibility for this particular patient group,' he said.

Prof Fleming said that currently, agencies working within childcare worked very closely together, but under the terms of the bill, new providers bidding for services would fragment the system. He also had great concern for children with lifelong, complicated conditions who would be placed at a 'serious disadvantage' under the new system.

Prof Fleming said health professionals were infuriated by the 'arrogance' shown by politicians regarding a bill which had such far-reaching implications.

'Around three-quarters of those who work in the NHS are fundamentally opposed to this bill. I have worked in the NHS for 40 years and am completely committed to it — why is it that politicians are collectively completely ignoring the views of the huge majority?' he asked.

Prof Fleming said under the new bill, the responsibilities of the secretary of state for health were 'very much less'. I see it as an attempt to privatise the NHS,' he said.

Lifton GP Dr Michael Sparrow said the part of the bill which concerned him most was the introduction of alternative providers.

'If you take something simple like podiatry, effectively you could have dozens of people providing care — as a GP, how on earth can you know which one is best? 'And if they are all to be monitored, the amount of bureaucracy would surely greatly exceed what we have at the moment with a single provider. The potential for things going wrong and getting lost in bureaucracy is very big,' he said.

Dr Sparrow said the swelling of opposition to the bill among the medical professions was because it was so complicated, no-one had understood it initially. It was only now that the implications were becoming clearer that people felt they could make their views known.

'We need something more than "We will have to hope it works out okay" — that's not terribly reassuring for a group of professionals who have already been through several re-organisations — there just isn't enough to make us confident that it's going to work.'

Dr Peter Smith, of Yelverton, said there was a real danger that private companies would 'cherry-pick' areas where they sensed money could be made — any 'wooliness' in policy would be discovered by profit-driven organisations who would 'manoeuvre their way around the rules'.

Dr Smith was also concerned about the 'de-stabilising' of Derriford Hospital.

'One of the worries about radical change is their ability to adapt. They are a very large juggernaut — it feels to me like an organisation that needs help, rather than putting it under additional stress.'

Other doctors felt politicians were providing themselves with 'a nice little cop out clause' and if the system fell down, GPs would be blamed.

The view was also put that rural areas would suffer because the care commissioning groups would be 'Plymouth-centric'.

Mr Cox said the NHS in its current form was 'unsustainable'. Faced with a 'ticking time-bomb' in that the number of 85-year-olds in the population was set to double, a more rational way of designing health care was needed.

He said: 'There is a genuine desire to preserve the NHS, not privatise it, and to ensure services are much closer to what is actually needed, and by entrusting it to you, the belief is it will be designed in a much more cost-effective, targeted way.

'I have questioned Lansley again and again on this. Speaking for myself, I would have preferred to see a period of stabilisation, but the genuine feeling is that this isn't a reform for the next two or three years, this is a reform that will have an impact over the next decade. We need to instil change in the NHS, if we don't we will have a system that will collapse under its own weight financially. The judgement has been taken, if we don't intervene now, we will be neglecting our responsibility to address this time-bomb. The feeling isn't one of arrogance — people are wincing under the bombardment, but the conviction that sustains them is the desperate need to re-wire the engine for the long term.'

Mr Cox said everyone was going to have to get used to 'using the NHS more sparingly'. That's why we are trying to involve patients in decision making — that's why they will be on the care commissioning group boards.'

Mr Cox said he would be taking up the points raised by the GPs when he meets health secretary Andrew Lansley this week.