The NHS (National Health Service) has approved the creation of chains of hospitals for the first time in its history in a bid to tackle its deep financial problems and to allow more patients to be cared for by leading doctors in their fields. It will see highly respected institutions, such as Moorfields eye hospital in London and Manchester's Christie cancer centre, providing specialist services to patients potentially many miles away in another part of England. But the move has prompted fears that it will lead to the running down, and even closure, of small local hospitals which are highly valued by patients as a result of mergers and takeovers. Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, will announce the dramatic step in a speech to the CBI on Friday in which he will hail it as part of the "radical reform" the health service must undergo if it is to remain viable. He has pledged to transform the way the NHS in England works by 2020 so it can withstand the huge pressures caused by the growing and ageing population, growth in the number of people with long-term conditions such as diabetes and dementia, and tight budgets expected for years to come. The decision to permit hospitals to band together into chains, which are common in many other countries, overturns 67 years of NHS history. Ed Smith, the chair of NHS financial regulator Monitor, said the era of standalone hospitals such as the foundation trust hospitals introduced by the last Labour government, was dead. Smith said: "These were right at the time, but the economic and clinical circumstances facing the NHS are now different, and our response needs to evolve." While hospitals would still retain their separate identities for the time being, NHS sources admitted it could lead to big or high-performing hospitals taking over smaller district general hospitals, many of which are increasingly in the red and struggling to provide high-class care, especially with a growing shortage of many types of health professionals. Dr. Gives Peedell, an oncologist who co-chairs the National Health Action party, said: "The history of mergers in the NHS, and in the wider world of industry, is by no means one of predictable success. The danger would be that smaller trusts are gobbled up by larger ones in the name of efficiency, leaving services much less accessible for local people. And the evidence from America shows that chains end up squeezing out competition and care is compromised in the quest to maximize profit."

单选题 Why has the NHS approved of the creation of chains of hospitals?

单选题 What is the public's concern about this dramatic step in the radical reform?

单选题 What can we infer from the third paragraph?

单选题 Which of the following is true according to the fourth paragraph?

单选题 What does Dr. Peedell think about the chain hospitals?