FOLLOWING the news that our county council has made a request for a devolution package for our public services, including health services, I have been reading the literature published for other areas where requests have been made and spoken to a number of staff both involved and affected.

With regard to health, there is background to these proposals.

Simon Stevens is the CEO of NHS England and has always had a deep ideological commitment to a commercialised health system.

He was head of US healthcare firm UnitedHealth (one of the largest health sector corporations in the world) for whom he wrote their long-term plan to break into the NHS.

The plan has much overlap with Mr Stevens’ five-year Forward View (5YFV) for all health services in England – on the face of it, a fair set of ideas for the NHS, but digging deeper reveals it is simply a way to move the NHS over to the US system.

A big part of all of this is the process of devolution.

This was always part of the plan to break into local NHS money.

One might suppose less bureaucracy or more transparency in a local council but that is not the experience of campaigners and workers in many counties, including this one.

This is a simple dishonest transfer of power that completely bypasses us, the people.

The very people it is supposed to empower.

Devolution takes the N out of NHS.

In Manchester, the devolution package lists all the wonderful opportunities it will bring – yet they could all be achieved via an overarching body, such as Parliament.

The end game is for devolution to replace Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) – those local groups of GPs that the government told us would run our services in a less bureaucratic way.

They are to be federated out to regional groups.

CCGs’ record on scrutiny of private companies has been poor to date, but the county council’s record is no better.

Colleagues in other counties have told me how, when devolution requests were made, the government handed the package over with no time to scrutinise and demanded a yes/no response ASAP.

Further discussions have happened behind closed doors with no public consultation.

Our county council is deluding itself if it thinks it can do any meaningful tweaking of the proposals.

This is why, in Cornwall, Labour councillors rejected the proposal.

Health service campaigners say devolution is a Trojan horse for privatisation.

And why wouldn’t they?

After all, this is all about integrating NHS services with privately outsourced services and devolving cuts to councils.

So much for the NHS being financially ring-fenced.

Of course, if the council wants truly comprehensive health and care services, this is only achievable via full public ownership but the "new care models" which Simon Stevens is advising, and which need devolution of powers to occur, are the precursor to the USA-style system of Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs).

The US has one of the the most expensive and inequitable healthcare systems in the world.

I am not a statist and am not wedded to the NHS, but I want services that are accountable, affordable and in public ownership.

This can only be achieved by scrapping the expensive market system in the health service and by having a system that works across the country, unfragmented, as one.

The government plans for all councils to have a devolved health service by the next general election.

Devolution is the next step toward a US health care system, designed for the benefit, not of us, but of corporations.

Hannah Basson

Stroud