Wonderful as it was to read the otherwise excellent article by Dr Julian Tudor Hart, it was surprising and disappointing to see that the great man is seriously misinformed about Kaiser Permanente.
England has taken a 30-year road to the ruin of the NHS
This is not a profit-making health maintenance organisation and is totally unlike the other, truly commercial, giants he quotes. Kaiser Permanente is a not-for-profit, medically led, GP-based, integrated care organisation.
Indeed, had it been possible to adopt the model of healthcare provision used by the Permanente Medical Groups at the NHS's inception in 1948, we might not be in this mess now.
Sadly, politicians of all three parties think differently. It would be good to see a united BMA strongly espousing the benefits of a system based on the Permanente Medical Group model as the rational alternative to politicians' destruction of the NHS.
From Dr Robert Morley
Birmingham
