This week we had what could be described as a near miss which, had it happened, would have had profound consequences for us all.

I am referring to what could have been considered as a mega event in the Cameron coalition government’s creeping privatisation of the NHS, which was the largest US weapons manufacturing company Lockheed Martin winning £1 billion contract to supply services to GPs.

However, they were fended off by a stalwart organisation known as SumOfUs.org which mustered 100,000 online votes against the proposal, which helped to get the media interested also.

It is quite a national scandal that Cameron’s Health and Social Care Act of April 2013 has opened the door wide for private companies to make a profitable killing from our cherished NHS.

However, not many SA readers would have been aware of this ‘near miss’ as such matters never seem to quite reach our daily news broadcasts.

We had a lucky miss this time but Lockheed Martin has been the chief gainer out of US inspired wars, legal or not.

It surely must be the ultimate insult for the Prime Minister to even contemplate allowing their like to bid for our NHS which is there for the good of our people and to save lives, as opposed to financing the destruction of so very many.

Already our NHS is showing many craters from previous impact events since Mr Cameron’s bill was passed, giving purely for profit privateers, such as Bupa, Virgin Care, and Care UK, to name but a few, 131contracts for various services and equipment to the value of £2.6 bn, which they were allowed to bid for and win.

It would appear to me that much of the so called funding crisis in the NHS that we all are being led to believe is so serious, is due to the fact of tax payer’s money being prised away from it, as has been the case with all privatisations.

The rich and wealthy make gains off the backs of privatisations at the expense of the majority taxpayers, who ultimately find them digging ever deeper in to their pockets to shift the wealth to them.

I for one would like to retain our NHS in the original configuration to when it was first proposed and then implemented, as I can imagine that any SA readers would like to find themselves with an American style health regime, where if a family loved one becomes ill and suddenly needs hospitalisation, the first thing to be considered is to start scurrying around to find a health insurance certificate with fingers well and truly crossed in that the amount of cover is going to be adequate for all up and coming eventualities.

The alternative is a great fat bill which can cripple a family’s finances more surely than the pain of the illness ever did.

G A Woodward Nelson Street Swindon