NHS reorganisations: who's kicking whom, who's protesting?: Where are the medical voices raised in protest: fit for the future?

doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7571.752-c

BMJ 2006;333:752-753 (7 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7571.752-c

Letter

NHS reorganisations: who's kicking whom, who's protesting?

Where are the medical voices raised in protest: fit for the future?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Greener asks whether the medical profession approvesof the government's reforms.¹ We are consultants in acute medicinein West Sussex, a part of the Kent, Surrey, and Sussex StrategicHealth Authority, which has recently attracted considerableinterest about the possible restructuring of services. Not leastare proposals to reduce the workload from primary care, whichwe are assured are supported by general practitioners. We conducteda simple survey to gauge the degree to which they thought thatthe proposed changes made by the previous primary care trustcould be instigated.

We sent 130 questionnaires on emergency and elective medicalcare to all general practitioners registered in the Arun, Adur,and Worthing district; 86 replies were returned (66%), of whichtwo were not completed and one practice of six partners didnot comment. This left a sample size of 78 (60%).

Firstly, we asked if a proposed 20% reduction . . . [Full text of this article]

Lui G Forni, consultant intensivist, Mark Signy, consultant cardiologist

Worthing General Hospital, Worthing, West Sussex BN11 2DH mark.signy@wash.nhs.uk

Richard M Venn, consultant intensivist

Worthing General Hospital, Worthing, West Sussex BN11 2DH