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Gap-year scheme is ‘first step towards conscription’
At a recent conference for the Royal Society of Medicine in London, the famous physicist and Cambridge University professor said he feared the government was moving towards a US-style private insurance system.
The 75-year-old, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 1962, said he "would not be here today if it were not for the service."
Health Secretary Mr Hunt has dismissed Professor Hawking's concerns that new "accountable care organisation models" in the NHS were a step towards an insurance-based system.
Politicians who continue to welcome contracts with US companies without considering the risks and consequences of total dependency in the years to come are undermining the raison d’etre of the NHS, argues Dr JOHN PUNTIS
GEOFF BOTTOMS, who has worked in a palliative care hospice for 11 years, argues the postcode lottery for proper end-of-life care must be ended to give the terminally ill choice and agency
When privatisation is already so deeply embedded in the NHS, we can’t just blindly argue for ‘more funding’ to solve its problems, explain ESTHER GILES, NICO CSERGO, BRIAN GIBBONS and RATHI GUHADASAN