A MOVEMENT to ‘kill the NHS reform Bill’ is gathering pace in Oxfordshire.

The Government has ann-ounced plans to hand control of 80 per cent of the NHS budget to GP-led commissioning groups by 2013.

Doctors from 83 practices in Oxfordshire will create the biggest consortium in England, covering 670,000 pa-tients, with a £930m budget.

Health campaigners from Oxfordshire are gearing up to take their fight against the reform, hailed as the biggest shake-up of the NHS in its history, to Downing Street.

Oxfordshire Keep Our NHS Public claims the move will rip the heart out of the NHS, force GPs to take charge of bodies rationing treatments and lead to the price of services being put before the quality of care for patients.

The group will join an anti-cuts march through Oxford from Cowley Road to Bonn Square tomorrow.

It also plans to take 15 coaches of protesters to London on Saturday, March 26, to join a national rally against the NHS reforms.

At a packed meeting on Wednesday – organised by Keep Our NHS Public, in partnership with Oxford Labour Party – GPs, councillors and members of the public heard warnings from health expert John Lister.

Mr Lister, director of campaign group London Health Emergency, warned urgent political action was needed before Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s plan did “lasting and massive damage” to the NHS.

Mr Lister said: “GP consortia, with their budgets squeezed by the need to generate £20bn of ‘efficiency savings’, will become no more than local rationing bodies, restricting access to hospital care and drawing up ever-longer lists of treatment excluded from the NHS.

“The postcode lottery on local access to services will be more random than ever.”

However, the chairman of the shadow Oxfordshire GP commissioning board, Dr John Galuszka, denied the reforms would mean the death of the NHS. He said: “The shadow Oxfordshire GP Consortium recognises the experience and skills of primary care trust staff and will be looking to retain as much expertise as possible.

“This support will ensure that services are commissioned by those who best know the needs of the population they serve.”

He added: “Shifting decision-making closer to the patient, placing greater responsibility in the hands of the GPs and promoting clinical leadership will ensure high quality care and value for money is maintained.”

But GP Dr Ken Williamson, the chairman of Oxfordshire Keep Our NHS Public, said the board was “naive” for thinking it could keep the status quo.

He said: “While we have a fairly high standard of health care locally and it’s sensible to try to keep that, all around Oxfordshire, private provid-ers are being set up. It will be difficult for the consortium not to become a rationing board, in light of the savings pressure it will be under.”

awilliams@oxfordmail.co.uk