I RECENTLY contacted our MP, Harriett Baldwin, to ask her to support the National Health Service (Amended Duties and Powers) Bill, which is being debated by Parliament.

This Bill aims to reduce the pressure to privatise services by amending some of the most controversial parts of the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

In particular it seeks to end the compulsory tendering of NHS services and to exempt the NHS from EU procurement and competition law. Patients not profit should be the priority of everyone working in our NHS.

While I was pleased to receive a response from our MP, I feel duty bound to correct a number of inaccuracies that it contained.

She claimed that the recent Commonwealth Fund comparative report “concluded that the NHS, under this Government, is the best health service in the world” and that this was “a ringing endorsement of the Government’s decision to reform the NHS”.

In fact, the report, though published this year, was based on health expenditure and outcomes data from 2011 and so cannot be claimed as evidence of the success of the current government which only came to power in 2010 and enacted its competitive reforms in 2012.

Moreover, she expressed pride in her government spending £12.7 billion more on the health service. In reality, this represents a real increase of a meagre 0.7 per cent a year which has failed to keep pace with the needs of a growing and ageing population.

In contrast, according to the Kings Fund, the previous government achieved 10 times this amount between 1997 and 2010. This includes the investment in the staffing and excellent facilities of Malvern’s Community Hospital and other local health improvements.

The Bill was given its second reading in Parliament by a majority of 223 votes, with our MP being one of only 18 who voted against.

So whose interests does our MP put first – the health of West Worcestershire residents or private sector financiers?

Martin Willis

Malvern