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This book review has taken longer than expected. I have struggled to write it, frequently placing it at the bottom of my ‘to do list’. This apathy has been frustrating, as the changes and future of the NHS are something that I feel passionately about. However, I realised that in the past year my attitude to the future of the NHS has drifted into a state of helplessness (at best) and avoiding/not wanting to know (at worst).
Reading this book has certainly shaken me out of this state. It has succeeded in putting me back in touch with my anger about what has happened and my fears for the future of the NHS. I must be honest in declaring my wish for every child psychotherapist to read this book and to understand how the NHS has been opened up to a private market with no regard to democratic process. I am not reviewing this book as an impartial observer. I am writing as a member of the public, patient and as a child psychotherapist who is committed to the NHS as a provider of equal, universal, high-quality services to all those who need it, not only those who will be able to afford it.
NHS SOS was written in 2013, one year after the
Health and Social Care Act became law. It is not a book written from a neutral stance; it has been written by a group of doctors, researchers and an MP, all of whom are campaigners for the NHS and what it stands for – equal comprehensive healthcare for all. The book describes the journey of the Health and Social Care Act and the implications for the NHS and for all of us. It sets out the political ideology and context of the Act and the contrast between how it was sold and spun to the general public and medical establishments. It describes how the people who could have protected the NHS either stood by and did nothing or actively supported the Act and all the changes that would ensue.
The language is accessible and the dry terminology, acronyms, complexity of organisations and systems are clearly explained. It does well to chart the journey of