Shadow Minister for Public Health is urging Brent Central MP to speak out about health bill

Campaigners fighting controversial Government plans to reform the health service delivered a petition to a Brent MP as part of their crusade.

The group led by Diane Abbott MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Public Health, are urging Brent Central MP Sarah Teather’s to speak out against the Health and Social Care Bill.

Yesterday (Thursday), Ms Abbott handed over a 150,000 signature e-petition at the Willesden office of the Lib Dem Brent Central MP, who is also the Minister for Children and Families.

The bill will see the biggest shake up in the NHS in 60 years and has attracted criticism that it will see the service privatised through the back door.

Opponents include the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of GPs and the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists

Ms Abbot said: “Sarah Teather needs to decide if she will stand with the millions of NHS staff, patients and members of the public who oppose this bill or with the Conservative Party, who have no mandate for this top-down reorganisation of our NHS.”

Navin Shah, Labour Assembly Member for Brent and Harrow, said the bill will have a detrimental effect on Brent residents.

He added: “This is too important an issue for Sarah Teather to stay silent on.”

Ms Teather told the Times that under the Labour government private providers were paid �250million for operations they did not perform.

She added: “Thanks to the Liberal Democrats we are plugging the loopholes in Labour’s pro-competition reforms to make that kind of favouritism towards the private sector illegal. And instead of following Labour’s lead of allowing managers to run the health service, we are putting doctors, nurses and patients at the heart of decision making in the NHS.”