How more paying patients could mean end of the NHS as we know it

AP Photo/ Virginia Mayo

If today's warning from one of Britain's leading medical experts is to be taken seriously, our hospitals could soon all be full of wealthy Arabs having heart surgery while urgent cases such as those with mental health issues, anyone in an A&E department and the elderly will simply have to wait.

Hamish Meldrum, head of the British Medical Association – the doctors' union – has let it be known that his members are not happy with the Government's plans for the NHS because they feel that we are heading down a road where those with medical insurance or money will simply leapfrog those in need, which is not really the NHS way.