This is a letter I sent to Will Quince on behalf of my three-year-old grandson and granddaughter for, unlike me, they will have a lifetime to cope with the NHS funding changes which will probably come into effect from April 2019.

The essence of these changes means moving from a model where hospitals are paid per treatment per patient to an Integrated Care Provider (ICP) model, where a provider will be given a lump sum at the start of the year to provide a range of treatments to the local population.

The term ICP has been rolled out to replace its predecessor Accountable Care Organisations (ACO) - the means by which the American Medicare and Medicaid systems provide a medical safety net to US citizens unable to afford private medical insurance.

It's more than likely Integrated Care Providers will be private sector organisations who may have no specialist medical knowledge, but subcontract in the required medical expertise to run the contract for them.

This subcontracting process inevitably increases the cost of the contract, thus filtering money away that could have been spent on frontline services.

Secondly, the publicly-aired rationale for this process, to integrate the provision of health and social care, is not even mentioned in the NHS Consultation document that has been circulating this year.

So what is this change about?

One must assume it is how your party intends to generate £20 billion of efficiency savings in the NHS over the next five years.

The much vaunted figure and recently announced cash injection looks more and more like window dressing to make ICP contracts more attractive to private sector bidders.

So where does this leave Joe Public?

While provision of NHS care will undoubtedly remain free at the point of delivery (it would be political suicide not to guarantee this), the range of available treatments will undoubtedly contract, as private sector ICPs exercise their primary function, to ensure an acceptable level of profit for their shareholders.

The recent withdrawal of 17 "ineffective" treatments by NHS England is softening us up for what's to come.

If you can't get the treatment on the new cost conscious NHS, then the private medical insurance vultures will happily take your money, and much else you own judging by the fact that the highest cause of bankruptcy in North America is an inability to pay huge medical bills.

In a supposedly civilised modern society, where corporate wealth continues to grow at the expense of individuals, what kind of healthcare might my grandchildren expect as they hopefully grow to a fine old age?

One where their changing medical needs are fully met, free of charge?

Or one where there life quality is compromised due to medical insurance costs or the inability to pay them?

Please don't gamble my grandchildren's health with your continued ideological vandalism of our NHS.

Alan C Mathias

De Vere Road, Colchester