"The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it"
Aneurin Bevan

Tuesday, 10 August 2010

NHS Privatisation

I made this video to show the consequences of the NHS White paper on our NHS.

at 14:17

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous11 August 2010 at 01:24

    Lol scaremongering and nonsense.

    Making public ownership out to be something beneficial to the public is in itself a little bit silly as something run by the public sector and paid for with tax payees money is hardly making it any more 'ours'. We have no say in how it's run and this won't change when it's run by social enterprises!

    It's also a bit silly to say it's being privatised because whilst individual discretion is handed over to private individuals without political biases, the decision of who gets the 'contracts' so to speak are still the discretion of the public sector - so it's not private. This is a bit like calling local government a private enterprise because they contract work out.

    I think it's a good comparison to make really - local govt works better when people are contracted rather than directly employed and this thinking will surely extend to the NHS.

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  2. richard.blogger11 August 2010 at 12:31

    First, it is privatisation because if public assets are taken out of public ownership then they are no longer public any more. Legally an SE is a private company.

    Second, if you don't think that you have no say in how your local NHS hospital is run then I suspect you haven't bothered trying. Legally all NHS Trust board meetings are open to the public with an opportunity for the public to raise issues. With FTs it is a bit different and the legal requirement is to allow the public to attend governors' meetings and have an opportunity to comment. Also NHS Trusts and FTs have annual general meetings where the public can interact. So the public DO have an opportunity to have a say in how a NHS hospital is run.

    Third, I would ask you to compare the closure of Longbridge (a private company) and the threats of closure to any NHS hospital. While politicians show concern over the closure of private businesses ultimately it is not their responsibility. But when it comes to a public organisation politicians (OUR representatives) do take action because it will badly reflect on them come election time.

    An SE is a private business. If they decide to close a clinic local politicians will not care because it is not their responsibility; to them it is just the same as (say) Sainsburys no longer selling your favourite brand of butter: it is their business, they do what they like.

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  3. Cockroach Catcher11 August 2010 at 19:51

    Made a link in my latest post.

    The Cockroach Catcher

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  4. Anonymous14 August 2010 at 15:34

    Hi
    Good clear presentation. We need more like this if people are to understand what the Tories are up to. One observation though: this will not happen overnight, or even within next couple of years. It will happen gradually, even steathily, over the next 5 to 10 years. And as privatisation gathers pace, we will then see consolidation of the new private market into an increasingly smaller number of very powerful providers. Having cast providers into the social enterprise sector, it is not hard to foresee SEs selling to for profit providers, hence completing the privatisation project. The Tories intention is that this mature "market" will be regulated from the centre (both economically and for quality), with GPs purchasing services for their patients. This will be a very far cry from our NHS - it will become a major source of profit for suppliers, and patients will be subservient to these suppliers. It is very hard to see how the "national" in NHS is secure.

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