DOCTORS at two more Aylesbury surgeries have backed our Dear Patricia campaign after the team at Meadowcroft surgery took the unprecedented step of voicing their fears publicly last week.
Dr Val Smith, Dr Gill Beck, Dr Mike Alexander, Dr Kevin Suddes, Dr Colin Kennedy, Dr Paul Vogwell and Dr Zoe Rogers, of Elmhurst and Mandeville surgeries, have welcomed our efforts to inform the public of the proposals so that everybody has a chance
to express objections.
In a statement, the GPs say they are dismayed at proposals to dismantle the community nursing and health visitor teams and the significant cutbacks to essential services such as Florence Nightingale House – the Aylesbury hospice, speech and language therapy, chiropody and the complete loss of the linkworker service which helps patients who do not speak English to access healthcare.
The statement reads: "The proposed reduction in district nursing services will seriously compromise our ability to care for patients in their own homes."
Meanwhile Aylesbury MP David Lidington believes our campaign has served as a catalyst for communicating fears that have been building for some time.
He said: "It has brought together a number of serious worries from different groups who might not have known there was a more general problem. People have suddenly realised that the different problems are part of a much bigger crisis in local health services."
Mr Lidington said he was surprised doctors had spoken out publicly against the cuts and said he had not encountered anything similar in his 14 years as an MP.
At the time of going to press yesterday (Tuesday), nearly 400 readers had signed our petition.
He said: "They are increasingly worried about developments in the NHS because of the pressure on primary healthcare due to the lack of money we get from the NHS and the bureaucratic way doctors are told how to go about running their practices. All their worries have now come to a head."
Mr Lidington, who will be presenting our petition to the House of Commons at a later date, said he believed local health chiefs had been left facing completely thankless tasks and said he would be demanding answers from health secretary Patricia Hewitt and the Department of Health.
He said: "I want to know why, when spending has gone up so much, the cuts to local health services should be so devastating?
"They need to give some answers to local people. The 'best year ever' claim couldn't be further from the truth."
This article was first published on August 30, 2006
