On Monday 12 September, Radio 4 You & Yours programme at 12.00 will be discussing the question: Should GPs ask patients if they can afford to pay for their own treatment in order to save the NHS money?
Please email them and tell them they are asking the wrong question and it would be much better to ask the right one. youandyours@bbc.co.uk
The wording of the question implies those who pay help to take pressure off the NHS. This is misleading. It doesn’t. It just normalises the premise of paying for treatment – allowing NHS services to be further reduced in scope and capacity.
The House of Lords committee on the “Sustainability” of the NHS is pushing this agenda and continues to carry it forward. So far there is little public awareness of this stealth attack on the NHS.
The BBC should be asking the question,
“Should GPs ask patients if they can afford to pay for their own treatment because the government has deliberately underfunded it for six years and continues to do so, with the clear goal of driving those who are healthy and wealthy enough to get private health insurance, out of the NHS?”
Please email them and tell them they are asking the wrong question and it would be much better to ask the right one. youandyours@bbc.co.uk
NHS MATTERS! 
I just wrote this:
“Your programme on Monday 12 September is discussing the question:
Should GPs ask patients if they can afford to pay for their own treatment in order to save the NHS money?”
This is the wrong question. Perhaps you should discuss the following question:
“Should GPs ask patients if they can afford to pay for their own treatment because the government has deliberately underfunded it for six years and continues to do so, with the clear goal of driving those who are healthy and wealthy enough to get private health insurance, out of the NHS?”
Does that sound partisan? It is. It’s one point of view about NHS funding, but the BBC regularly fails to mention it when debating the NHS. On the other hand it could be said that when the government refers to ‘overspending’, what it actually means is the NHS isn’t being funded sufficiently to be run. By accepting government language without question or even mention, the BBC is accepting the political viewpoint of one party. It is inherent to the BBC charter that it remains impartial. To that end, I ask you to include the other side in Monday’s debate:
“Should GPs ask patients if they can afford to pay for their own treatment because the government has deliberately underfunded it for six years and continues to do so, with the clear goal of driving those who are healthy and wealthy enough to get private health insurance, out of the NHS?”
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Middleton
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