‘Thank you everybody! Let’s save the NHS and kill this Bill!’ declared consultant Clive Peedell as he an David Wilson arrived to cheers outside the Department of Health in Whitehall yesterday afternoon.
The two doctors were greeted by a crowd of some two hundred on the completion of their ‘Bevan’s Run’ from Cardiff against the Health and Social Care Bill.
Among those to greet them was the secretary of the Bevan Society as well as members of the BMA Council David Wrigley and Jacky Davis, and Chair of the Royal College of GPs, Clare Gerada.
Dr Peedell told the crowd outside Richmond House: ‘This is a privatisation Bill.
‘They want the private sector to deliver the vast majority of care and leave the unprofitable part to the public.
‘The Tories and Lib Dems are a disgrace. The coalition is fighting for their political lives instead of fighting for patients.
‘The NHS is the fabric of the nation.
‘If this Bill goes through, it will rip this country apart.
‘Get together and stop this awful Bill.’
Dr Wilson declared: ‘Nobody wants this Bill.
‘Ninety-eight per cent of GPs want the Bill dropped.
‘How can the government enact a Bill that is so unpopular?
‘We have to stop it.’
He told News Line: ‘We’ve had to take extreme measures to make people listen.
‘This is the government’s Poll Tax. The unions should stop the Bill. We should have concerted action to stop the Bill.’
Clare Gerada told the impromptu rally: ‘Bevan said the NHS will survive as long as one person is left to fight for it.
‘The NHS is too precious to let it wither through this Bill.’
Health expert Allyson Pollock said: ‘We have to fight, and encourage every peer to vote down this Bill.
‘The Bill will remove the entitlement to health care.
‘Take to the streets with the campaign.’
BMA Council member Dr Wrigley said: ‘This Bill is about privatisation, for private companies to make profits out of your illness.
‘What happened under the French implant scandal will happen under this Bill.
‘Doctors do not support the Bill. The BMA Council voted to oppose it.’
Wrigley was the doctor who moved the motion to oppose the Bill on the BMA Council.