NHS is “withering away” as result of government policies, open letter from 140 senior doctors says

More than 140 UK senior doctors have attacked the coalition government’s record on the NHS, claiming that the health service has been left weaker than at any point in history.

In an open letter to the Guardian newspaper the doctors delivered a damning verdict on the coalition’s tenure and urged voters to “consider carefully how the NHS has fared over the last five years” ahead of the general election on 7 May.1 The Conservative party accused the opposition Labour party of orchestrating the letter and of appealing to party members and supporters to sign it.

But Clare Gerada, the former chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, who organised the letter, said that it was not ordered by Labour and …