Campaigners concerned for the future of the National Health Service rallied in Central Milton Keynes on Saturday.
Held in the square outside M&S, the rally was part of a nationwide day-of-action against the government's Health and Care Bill.
It included a stall, leafleting, street theatre, music and guest speakers, including local NHS staff.
The national day-of-action was co-ordinated by SOS-NHS, a coalition of campaign groups. There was major support from the Unite trade union, which has more than100,000 NHS staff members.
Opponents fear the Health and Care Bill, currently at Report Stage in the Lords, will transform the NHS into a US-style insurance-based scheme run for profit by private corporations.
They say services will be cut and treatments rationed, with doctors replaced by less-skilled staff wielding computer algorithms. And they believe it cannot remedy a decade of under-resourcing or reverse the collapse of adult social care.
Campaigners say these changes will be forced through the imminent creation of 42 area-based Integrated Care Systems with private providers on their boards.
They claim this will create a “postcode lottery” for treatment and give control of budgets to private corporations, undermining the duty to serve local populations' health needs, and weakening local councils' input.
Locally, the former MK Clinical Commissioning Group has been dissolved and the much bigger Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes ICS will soon take over.
Chris Coppock of MK SOS-NHS said: "This bill is no safe prescription for our NHS. Far from ending the purchaser-provider split, it transplants private corporations into the heart of the NHS, where they can leech out ever more profit. It will create a two-tier NHS where those who can pay to “go private”, will, while those who can't may go untreated—or treat themselves through phone-apps and websites.
"Those - often the poorest - without such devices may find themselves locked out. We want an end to privatisation with a publicly-run, publicly accountable and properly resourced NHS for all."
Photographer Jane Russell was at the rally to capture the atmosphere.
