I have written many times to the Standard to raise my concerns about the privatisation of the NHS.

Decades of reforms by successive governments have attacked the principles enshrined in the creation of the NHS that of a publicly funded, managed, delivered and accountable service.

The passing of the Health and Social Care Act in 2012 which allowed NHS contracts to be put out to tender in the private sector was just another nail in the coffin of the NHS.

Since that time further reforms implemented by the ‘at arm’s length’ organisation NHS England under the direction of Simon Stevens, a former employee of the US healthcare company United Health, have aimed at moving the NHS towards a US-style integrated care system.

Those reforms have created a fragmented NHS behind whose logo exist myriad private or voluntary sector companies both managing back office operations and providing clinical services.

In addition, a decade of severe cuts to funding have left the NHS on its knees as a result of bogus claims that the Conservatives had no option but to implement cuts to public spending to get its finances back in order. We have paid a heavy price for those cuts.

This week following the leaked draft of the Government NHS White paper making a big show that Boris Johnson was ‘taking back control’ of the NHS, journalists in the mainstream media have misled the public by claiming that it would bring about the scrapping of privatisation and competition introduced by Andrew Lansley’s reforms.

The reality is something quite different.

The White Paper makes it clear instead that it will not lead to a reduction in the role of the private sector. It will increase it and indeed make it easier for the private sector to function within the NHS without all the bother of tendering for contracts.

The deliberate drive to fragment the NHS has left it a shadow of its former self and is just the next step in the stage of creating a two-tier US-style Medicare health service.

Prue Plumridge

London Road,

Maldon