I JOINED the march on Saturday to support the NHS.
Sadly, though I will do whatever I can to demonstrate my passion for this great, cost-effective, high performing institution (compare it with the healthcare in North America if you doubt it), I feel that the drum beats are falling on ears that have had the wool pulled over them for too long. 
The current government, following on from previous ones, is bent on turning this publicly-owned service into something that is driven by the need for profit extraction, siphoning off as much money as possible away from the delivery of care.
The incipient privatisation of the NHS started before 2000, and has been a well-planned and well-hidden project, involving toxic schemes such as PFI (Private Finance Initiative), UPR (Unsustainable Provider Regime) and STPs (Sustainability and Transformation Plan). 
Look them up – they sound rational and necessary when described by government mouthpieces such as Simon Stevens of NHS England. Each scheme is a step toward the destabilisation and handing over of the NHS to big companies like United Health Global, the US health insurance giant that Stevens ran before his job running NHS England which purports to support the NHS while selling it off piece by piece.
Until people wake up to what’s unfolding before their eyes, educate themselves and resist the distractions (blaming the old, the obese, the migrants and the junior doctors) that are thrown at them to muddy the real picture, then this government will complete their project and we won’t have seen their lips move.
KATH SHAW
High Street
Rowde