The Tories are using smear tactics against doctors to help push through their privatisation agenda

The government are moving towards legally abolished the national health service. The junior doctors' strike must broaden into a national campaign to oppose this

Demonstrators march down Whitehall during the 'Let's Save the NHS' protest by junior doctors in London last month (PA)

The results of the British Medical Association ballot are in and junior doctors have overwhelmingly voted in favour of industrial action in December over the threatened imposition of a new contract. Amongst other things, this contract removes safeguards to prevent junior doctors from working hours in excess of the European Working Time Directive. It would also redefine anti-social hours thus reducing pay banding for late evenings and weekends. As a result, those specialties with a greater burden of anti-social hours, such as A&E, would be adversely affected, leading to a pay cut.

A new generation of young doctors have been politicised. This culminated in marches last month in London and several cities in which thousands of doctors poured out on to the streets to vent their fury against the government. Many of these doctors are Conservative voters. I had the privilege recently of speaking in front of thousands at Parliament Square about my book - How to Dismantle the NHS in 10 Easy Steps - which explains how the NHS is being privatised by stealth and how the introduction of universal private health insurance, along the lines of Medicare in the US, is round the corner. As a young GP, I feel it is my duty to inform the British public that our NHS is being deliberately run into the ground to pave the way for privatisation - a 30 year project now reaching its final stages. The current manufactured crisis, generated by deliberate government policies, such as funding cuts, is a classic strategy of privatisation.

In spite of these protests, the government refused to re-negotiate the major sticking points whilst accusing the BMA of refusing to come to the table. The government's tactic is to smear doctors as caring only about how much they will be paid, as evidenced by recent Sun editorials. Industrial action will probably up the antagonism making it easier for the government to smear doctors as apparently endangering the welfare of the public. The reality is, of course, the other way round;.the primary concern of junior doctors being that the new contract endangers patient safety.

Breaking the allegiance and loyalty of staff is one of the important strategies for attacking a public sector organisation. This is often achieved through policies that demoralise and alienate, which have included public sector pay freezes and the likely abolition of automatic pay rises linked to length of service. The predictable response of junior doctors threatening to leave the NHS if the contract is imposed is therefore entirely in keeping with the ideological intent of the government.

We are also now seeing the introduction of physician's associates - non-medical staff who will carry out many of the roles and responsibilities of doctors. This reduction in the skill mix is part and parcel of the deprofessionalisation of UK medicine - which started when Thatcher wrested day to day running of hospitals from doctors, and introduced management.

The media circus, scenting a potential kill in the offing with the scalping of a minister or even Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, has jumped on the bandwagon with a significant amount of airwave coverage and column inches devoted to the issue. Jeremy Hunt's position looks increasingly untenable following hard on the heels of potentially serious allegations around misinforming parliament over weekend mortality statistics. His predecessor Andrew Lansley is now advising the private healthcare sector. However, personnel change will not halt the juggernaut of privatisation. The Health & Social Care Act 2012, enabled by the Liberal Democrats in Coalition, is nothing less than a privatisation act.

This Act does three key things. Firstly, it abolishes the government's responsibility to provide a National Health Service. Secondly, it means that there is no legal guarantee in the future for the NHS to provide comprehensive services beyond emergency care and ambulances, which smacks suspiciously of a private insurance system. Thirdly, it opens up NHS contracts to unlimited privatisation. Despite this outrageous content, it has somehow escaped the radar of most Labour MPs and the mainstream media, as it was introducted in the form of a 400 page document full of deliberate obfuscation.

Yet the parameters of the debate have been restricted to a dispute over pay and contract terms. It is only when the fight over the junior doctor contract widens into a national campaign to save the NHS that the public will be won over.

When I wrote my book, I did so as a concerned doctor disturbed by a government ideologically fixated on privatising the NHS against the wishes of the public, who are overwhelmingly in favour of a publicly-funded and run NHS. Since then, I have received an unexpected diagnosis and am undergoing intensive medical treatment. This has only reaffirmed my resolve to fight, alongside many others, to guarantee the provision of universal free healthcare. David Cameron is pleading with doctors not to strike. My message to David Cameron - if he's listening – is: this just got personal.

Youssef El Gingihy is a GP and author. How to Dismantle the NHS in 10 Easy Steps is published by Zero books

@ElGingihy