SIR – As public health doctors and specialists, we are concerned about the Health and Social Care Bill. The Bill will do irreparable harm to the NHS, to individual patients and to society as a whole.

It ushers in a degree of marketisation and commercialisation that will fragment patient care; aggravate risks to individual patient safety; erode medical ethics and trust within the health system; widen health inequalities; waste much money on attempts to regulate and manage competition; and undermine the ability of the health system to respond effectively to communicable disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies.

While we welcome the emphasis placed on establishing a closer working relationship between public health and local government, the proposed reforms will disrupt, fragment and weaken the country’s public health capabilities.

The Government claims that the reforms have the backing of the health professions. They do not. Neither do they have the public’s support. The Health and Social Care Bill will erode the NHS’s ethical and cooperative foundations and will not deliver efficiency, quality, fairness or choice. We ask the House of Lords to reject passage of the Health and Social Care Bill.

Jo Abbott
Consultant in Public Health, NHS Rotherham