Sir – As Dr Richard Thorne explains, so clearly (Letters, April 4), the future of the NHS is precarious and the majority of people seem not to know.
As he says, under proposed regulations, the commissioners of care are not left free to stick with their existing public service provider — even though they were promised by Andrew Lansley and others that they would have complete freedom to decide.
The House of Lords has the power to stop this and they are to have a debate on Wednesday, April 24.  Some in Oxford may know members of the House of Lords personally.
If you do, please discuss with them whether they are aware that proposed Regulation 5 requires a service to be opened to competition unless it can be shown that only one provider is capable of providing the service.
How easy is that? It is an invitation to potential providers, such as Virgin, to threaten legal action, claiming that they could have provided the service and should have been allowed to tender.
If the Lords vote for these regulations to be annulled, then the Government will have to revise and resubmit them. The same applies to the Commons, but, unlike legislation, just one House is sufficient to reject a set of regulations.
Normally regulations go through on the nod after 40 days, so the fact that these are revised regulations, already objected to once, shows how controversial they are.
This is the final battleground, deciding the shape of the NHS until after the next election and beyond, as contracts once let are not easily revoked.
Jeanne Warren, Garsington