Private sector providers want to down-skill medical staff to make them easier to fire, more biddable, and above all, cheaper
In 2010 David Cameron’s coalition government betrayed pre-election promises to protect the NHS. Instead they imposed savage spending cuts and pushed through ‘reforms’ which put at risk the health of the entire population.
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 has been described as so ‘complex, confusing and bureaucratic’ that the organisation of the NHS ‘is not fit for purpose’ as a result. The NHS is now at the brink of extinction. The public has been misled about the objectives and consequences of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act.
But the coalition’s repeated denials of NHS privatisation do not stand up to scrutiny. Aneurin Bevan once said:
“No society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of a lack of means.”
The 2012 Act has not just repealed society’s contract with the health service, it has put the NHS on the chopping block, ready to be sold in pieces to private corporations. The Health and Social Care Act raised the cap hospitals could generate from private income to 49 per cent from an average of around two per cent.
Privatisation is an ideological luxury which wastes money and destabilises the NHS. It has no purpose other than diverting money to shareholders and enriching a privileged few. We all know people should always come before profit, but the current government thinks otherwise.
In the past year, £9 billion worth of our NHS has been put up for sale, while thousands of jobs have been axed, including over 4000 senior nurses.
Half of our 600 ambulance stations are earmarked for closure. 50 of the 230 NHS walk-in centres have been closed and 66 A&E and maternity units have been shut or downgraded.
Waiting lists for operations are at their longest in years as hospitals are consumed by the crisis in A&E.
The coalition’s policies and privatisation mean the NHS as we know it will be gone in as little as five years if no one speaks up. The NHS will just be a logo; reduced from being the main provider of health services in England with one of the biggest workforces in the world, to a US-style insurance scheme, divorced from the delivery of care. Fewer treatments will be available as cuts start to bite.
The ‘new’ NHS is now more fragmented than ever before. It has no primacy over provision, and money is squandered over lost causes such as procurement of contracts and fighting competition from within. There has been a proliferation of small and large providers in the NHS in the last two or three years and the other winners in this revolutionary reform are management consultants. The proliferation of private service providers spells serious problems for the future. For while the public sector seeks to maximise quality and coverage of services, the private sector aims to provide services in order to maximise profits.
Private sector providers want to de-professionalise and down-skill the practice of medicine in this country, so as to make staff more interchangeable, easier to fire, more biddable, and above all, cheaper.
According to Ipsos MORI, the NHS is a top-of-the-list election issue for most voters. The NHS matters, and not just to the 1.4 million people who work in it, but to the entire population of Britain.
David Cameron intends to achieve what eluded all the other Tory governments since Bevan created the country’s most cherished institution, the NHS, in 1948. Winston Churchill lost the battle to kill the NHS at birth. Thatcher was prevented by cooler heads from creating an insurance-based system. John Major attempted to suffocate the NHS by bringing in the internal market. David Cameron is fulfilling the dream of the ‘Tory right’ to privatise health care lock-stock and barrel.
The NHS has never been in a more dangerous position than it is right now. This General Election will decide whether the NHS will survive or perish. It’s time to raise the alarm about what is happening and build a campaign for change. This election will give voters a clear choice – a public, integrated NHS or a health market under David Cameron.
Kailash Chand OBE has written the foreword for the election guide on the NHS produced by the Centre for Labour and Social Studies (Class). Download your copy here
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25 Responses to “The NHS has never been in more danger”
Riversideboy
Well said Richard, I do not know where these people are coming from, possibly personal axes to grind so they throw any Labour principles away. If you are Labour you fight for the NHS not turn your back on it
Leon Wolfeson
So your first response is to use the very real issues measured and caused by the disorganisation is to try and say “everyone does it”.
You are indeed treating people as idiots.
Richard Honey
Thanks Riverside boy. I tend to steer away from commenting on LFF as often seems like a forum for Ukip type Mr Angrys or far left fantasists, but some of these comments really made my blood boil!
Domac
The NHS has never fared well under a Tory government. In 1997 when they had been in government for 18 years the NHS was run down. Same is happening again. Yet even worse now as the NHS is being sold off to profit making companies.
Keepniggling
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