An ordinary meeting of the society was held at the Royal Southampton Yacht Club on Wednesday 1st November 2006. In the President’s absence Dr John Glasspool took the Chair. He introduced the speaker Dr Nigel Watson, secretary of the Wessex LMC, who spoke to the title ‘’The Future of the NHS’’.

He first described the role of the LMC and then went on to review the current problems in the NHS. He addressed the problems of funding, political interference, poor management and the Service’s inability to retain the ablest, and the poor relations with the medical profession which have been exacerbated by Sir Liam Donaldson’s proposals.

Other problems as he saw it were the formation of Foundation Trusts which would result in the retention by those hospitals of the profitable parts of the service only and Practice Based Commissioning which together would in effect keep people out of hospital and cut the services to the community; especially as the PCTs were incompetent and the hospitals cheated.

In the future he considered there would more privatisation to large companies, more rationing and the introduction of additional funding streams as taxation would not be able to maintain the NHS. He felt though that no other country had a better system. He thought a bank of England type independence was on the cards with a reduction of political control and more regional autonomy.