Doctors from around the country are descending on Eastleigh this Sunday to support the by-election candidate for the National Health Action Party. The NHA Party was founded last year by doctors and other health care professionals to stop the increasing privatisation and commercialisation of the NHS and put patient care before profit. One of its leaders is the former MP Dr Richard Taylor. The NHA Party is also planning to field 50 candidates at the General Election.
The NHA Party’s candidate in Eastleigh is 55 year old Dr Iain Maclennan, a retired GP, public health consultant and ex-Navy medical officer. Last Sunday, a prominent ex-Lib Dem local party chairman and former NHS chief defected to the NHA Party. Dr Graham Winyard, former Chair of Winchester & Chandlers Ford Lib Dems and the ex-Deputy Chief Medical Officer of England & Wales, said all the main parties were guilty of letting down the NHS:“Politicians of all parties have betrayed the NHS. The scandal of mid-Staffs is the direct result of 20 years of top-down meddling and bullying by both Labour and Conservative Governments. Endless reorganisation distracts the NHS from improving patient care. We all know this and the Coalition promised an end to top-down change, when seeking our support at the last election. They then steamrollered the most radical and expensive set of changes the NHS had ever seen, ignoring all advice.”
Earlier this week, bestselling author Mark Haddon accused the government of dismantling the NHS and publicly backed the newly formed National Health Action Party. Mark Haddon, who shot to fame with his best-selling book “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time”, about a math genius with Aspergers Syndrome, said: “The present government is dismantling the NHS and quietly removing our universal right to free health care. Astonishingly, none of the main political parties seem bothered. The National Health Action party is the only party genuinely committed to standing up for the NHS”.
