NHS reform bill 'threatens its long-term survival'

The NHS is facing "an uncertain, potentially very unstable future" because of the coalition's health shakeup, the leader of Britain's family doctors has warned. The government should drop the health and social care bill because it is threatening the NHS's long-term survival, according to Dr Clare Gerada, chair of the Royal College of GPs. In a strongly worded letter to her 42,000 members she criticises ministers for reneging on previous promises to put GPs in charge of commissioning treatment for patients in England from 2013. Instead, she says, new GP-led clinical commissioning groups face having "responsibility without power" as commissioning support to CCGs will be dominated by a few big private firms, thus "undermining the principle that commissioning should be clinician-led".