Hackney doctors, who believe the government’s Health and Social Care Bill poses a threat to their patients, are supporting a campaign proposing GPs will stand against marginal Lib Dem and Tory MPs at the next election.

A letter outlining the plans was published in The Independent on Sunday last week, and was signed by 278 healthcare professionals who believe the reforms will “damage and fragment the NHS, widen healthcare inequalities, and worsen patient care in England.”

Twenty signatories are doctors living or working in Hackney.

“We believe that the Parliamentary passage of the Health and Social Care Bill has been an embarrassment to our democracy,” read the letter.

“Despite such widespread professional concern and opposition to this hopelessly complex, flawed and potentially dangerous legislation, the coalition government has repeatedly blocked the publication of the NHS risk register and continues to push ahead with the bill.

“It is our view that coalition MPs and Peers have placed the political survival of the coalition Government above professional opinion, patient safety, and the will of the citizens of this country.”

They want to form a coalition of healthcare professionals to take on coalition MPs in the next election on the non-party independent ticket to defend the NHS and “act in the public interest.”

Doctors in Hackney in conjunction with the Hackney Coalition to Save the NHS are inviting the public along to a meeting next Thursday (March 29) at 7.30pm in Stamford Hill Library to find out more.

It will give residents the opportunity to question of GPs, hospital doctors and other health workers like physiotherapists and occupational therapists.