Simon Harrison, president of The College of Health Care Chaplains, was on Radio Shropshire on Sunday 1 July and Simon Nightingale, Chair of Shropshire Humanists, was asked for his thoughts.
Here is the link to listen again (for a month only): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06b1xg5
Simon Harrison is on from 9.00 to 12.30 and Simon is on from 15.30 to 21.30 on the time line.
Gill George, Chair of the campaign to defend our local NHS, will talk about the issues and what can be done to combat the threat to our much valued and needed health services.
Tuesday 18 April 2017, 7.30pm, at The Friends Meeting House, St Mary’s Lane, Ludlow SY8 1DZ. All welcome. For more information call 01568 770282 or email: rocheforts@tiscali.co.uk.
![John Firth [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARoyal_Shrewsbury_Hospital_from_Car_Park_-_geograph.org.uk_-_793005.jpg)
Dr Charles West gave us an extremely lucid and informative overview of what has been happening to our NHS since its inception in 1948, chronicling with examples the slow destruction of an amazing organisation by politicians from all the major parties.
In the early 2000s, figures from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) showed that the NHS was among the best-performing health services in the world by most criteria, while costing less than most.
Market rules really do not apply to such an organisation, yet they are constantly forced upon the NHS. Adjustments and interference from the time of Margaret Thatcher have led to increased bureaucracy, competition between hospitals and are leading to escalating costs. There is a steady trend towards outsourcing contracts, and to sections being taken over by the private sector.
Among a huge list of concerns is fragmentation of services, which is damaging to integrated health care, serious conflicts of interest, cherry-picking of profitable services and asset-stripping. This is a depressing scenario which could soon be irreversible.
Dr West thinks there is still room for hope that if we keep reminding the politicians as we approach the next election, we can deter them from destroying our NHS. To get them to accept that the whole internal market is wasteful, destructive and unnecessary will be a more difficult task.
Why has the NHS been the envy of health service providers around the world?
Why do politicians constantly try to change it?
What is happening to the NHS now and what will be the effect of the latest changes?
What can you do about it?
On Thursday 20 March Dr Charles West will be addressing these issues at the meeting of Shrewsbury Humanist Group, 7.30 pm at The Lantern, Meadow Farm Drive, Shrewsbury SY1 4NG.
Dr West has had a long career of service in the NHS both locally and nationally, having worked as a GP, an NHS manager and a specialist in Information and IT.
We have had some updates to our programme, and these are reflected on the Meetings and Events page.
We shall now start the speaker meetings with local GP and politician Dr Charles West, who will talk about the current political issues surrounding and risk to the NHS.
Charles West was the candidate for the Liberal Democrats in Shrewsbury and Atcham constituency at the last general election. Dr West has worked as a GP in Shropshire, as well as at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and now works as a part-time GP in Shrewsbury. As well as serving as a senior councillor for the LibDems, Dr West has managed health services in Shropshire and also advised the NHS nationally.
Charles West was a member of South Shropshire District Council, a member of the Joint Health and Overview and Scrutiny Panel, Chair of Churches Together in the Strettons and a Governor of the Retreat Hospital in York.
Shropshire Humanists 