The Privatised NHS 140


The independence campaign in Scotland has re-established the reality of public debate and a genuine political community.  Through old fashioned meetings and face to face conversation, combined with social media, people are hearing a narrative which is blocked by the gatekeepers of the mainstream media.  Philipa Whitford, a surgeon, here talks about Labour Tories, Tory Tories and Liberal Tories combining to destroy the very principles of the NHS. You don’t get to hear this on the BBC.

You can skip the first minute, but after that I suggest you listen to every word, very carefully.

Hat tip to Munguin’s Republic

I might have worked out how to post my recent podcast interview by Michael Greenwell


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140 thoughts on “The Privatised NHS

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  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !

    Mary

    That’s a cop out, and you know it.

    You are evidently incapable of putting forward any argument based on your own thinking and in your own words.

    Just a news-gathering service and a cutter and paster.

  • Mary

    ‘Contract Alert Report (Apr 2013 -Apr 2014)

    Our latest analysis of the NHS contracts that are being opened up to the market sets out the annual trends and compares them with the year before the Health and Social Care Act came into effect. By recording submissions from NHS commissioners on the official websites (TED and supply to health) we have identified what services are up for grabs, who is winning them and how much money is involved.

    Key findings:-
    • £13 billion worth of contracts to run or manage clinically related NHS services have been advertised in the 12 months since the competition regulations (section 75) were passed by Parliament. This is more than three times the value of the previous year.

    •492 clinical contract opportunities have been advertised over the last year and there has been a 30% rise in adverts inviting bids from the private sector and charities.

    •68% of the contracts that have been awarded (80) since April 2013 have gone to commercial companies.

    •A huge range of treatments and care are involved. Overall we have counted over 70 categories of NHS healthcare (see the list below) covering every aspect of the patient journey including diagnosis, treatment and on-going healthcare across every possible setting.

    •The types of care most involved in tendering and the Any Qualified Provider scheme are Diagnostics (93 contracts), Mental Health (33 contracts), Pharmacy (33), Home Care (30), GP services and Out-of-Hours (25), Musculoskeletal Services (21), and Community Health (17).

    •Many aspects of emergency or urgent healthcare care are now part of competitive tenders, including blue light and other ambulance services, the running of urgent care centres and hospital A&E, 111 services and GP Out-of-Hours care.

    •The use of the market and the commercial sector is extending beyond the provision of care to include management, planning and commissioning functions.’

    /..

    http://www.nhsforsale.info/privatisation-list/contract-alert/contract-alert-report-april-april.html

    ‘We’re creating a series of maps to illustrate the extent and the growth of NHS privatisation in England. The maps below will show different aspects of privatisation, and you can use them to see the services being privatised or tendered in your local area.’
    http://www.nhsforsale.info/mapping-privatisation.html

  • Ba'al Zevul (Demoniser)

    Tony’s here:

    http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/what-hedge-funds-talk-about-when-they-talk-about-money/

    A strange message seems to have penetrated some normally resistant skulls, however –

    During a panel discussion at the lunch, Harold Ford Jr., the former Tennessee congressman, and Gary Kaminsky, a Morgan Stanley vice chairman, both complained that the top 1 percent of the United States was becoming richer while the quality of life had declined for average Americans as their cost of living had increased…..

    “I don’t think the U.S. economy has recovered from anything,” said Peter Schiff, chief investment officer of Euro Pacific Capital. “All the Fed has succeeded in doing is reflating bubbles,” he said, adding that it has enriched a small part of the population.

    It’s the gummint’s fault, of course. Not theirs.

  • Ba'al Zevul (Demoniser)

    And G-CEYL’s back at Farnborough. Must have arrived overnight. Look forward to seeing Tony around again, however briefly. Next stop, Kazakhstan.

  • Mary For Truth and Justice

    15 May 2014
    Surrey NHS trust approved to take over Berkshire authority
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated Heatherwood and Wexham Park as inadequate

    NHS trust placed in special measures
    Hospital unit to close permanently
    Hospital trust takeover step closer

    The planned takeover of a Berkshire NHS trust by a neighbouring authority has reached a major stage of approval.

    In February, Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was rated as inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

    Frimley Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in Surrey was given the go-ahead for the takeover by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

    Trust bosses hope the move will “improve services for local people”.

    Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
    Wexham Park, Slough
    Heatherwood, Ascot
    King Edward VII, Windsor
    St Mark’s, Maidenhead
    Fitzwilliam House, Bracknell
    Chalfonts Outpatients, Chalfont St Peter

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27420929

    One of the Frimley Park directors works for Serco. YCNMIU.

  • Mary For Truth and Justice

    The link to the Frimley Park board.
    http://www.frimleypark.nhs.uk/about-us/board-of-directors

    Look at the chairman. Wonder which ‘conflict situations’ ie wars he worked in?

    Sir Michael Aaronson CBE
    Chairman

    Appointed to the Trust as Chairman April 2006, end of tenure 31 March 2016

    Mike’s earlier career was half in HM Diplomatic Service and half at Save the Children, where he was overseas director and subsequently, from 1995-2005, its Chief Executive.
    From 2001-2008 he was Chairman of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Geneva based private foundation working in conflict mediation, and from 2001-2007 a governor of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy.
    Since 2006 he has been a non-executive director of Oxford Policy Management Limited, a development consultancy providing policy advice in low and middle-income countries.
    At the end of March 2012 he stood down after five years as a civil service commissioner.
    He is an honorary fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, and from 2008-2011 was a visiting professor in the politics department at the University of Surrey, where in May 2011 he became a professorial research fellow and executive director of the Centre for International Intervention.
    He has worked both with NATO and the UK Ministry of Defence on civil and military collaboration in conflict situations.
    In June 2006 Mike was knighted for services to children.

  • Ba'al Zevul (Demoniser)

    You didn’t know Blair International was advising Myanmar (Burma)?

    http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/national-news/10364-terms-of-engagement-rights-group-calls-on-tony-blair-to-disclose-on-advisory-role.html

    His refusal to answer questions about his operations is getting just a little tedious. You’d think such a publicity whore would be glad to let everyone know how much good his work is doing…

    “Burma Campaign UK has written to Tony Blair’s office 11 times in the past year, asking him to clarify what his involvement in Burma is. He has refused to disclose this information”, the release read.

    In December 2013, Tony Blair’s office reportedly replied to one letter, but “ignored specific questions”, according to the rights group.

    “We are currently carrying out governance work on a short-term basis, supporting the government to build delivery mechanisms to help deliver their long-term strategic goals”, the response from Blair’s office reportedly read – something Burma Campaign UK describes as “so general as to be meaningless”.

    BCUK has obtained the standard brushoff issued to any concerned enquirer into what all these impressive governance initiatives are actually supposed to do, and in particular which country’s aid budget is being milked to do it.

  • Ba'al Zevul (Demoniser)

    And where’s the bloody report? Eh?

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10835369/Chilcot-inquiry-MPs-demand-explanation-for-four-year-delay-of-report-on-Iraq-war.html

    “It’s very serious that this report is now at least four years overdue, so we’ve written to the minister to ask for an explanation as to why these delays have occurred, what is holding up the publication of the report and how these issues are going to be resolved.

    “On the basis of that we may well call for the minister, or indeed the Cabinet Secretary, to come and give us evidence to explain how they are going to sort this out.”

    Not that that will reveal anything, sorry to say. Just the usual obfuscation.

  • Ba'al Zevul (Demoniser)

    January Zurich, February Munich, March…

    Prague. Doing this.

    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/tr/business/2013/10/palestine-economic-initiative-kerry-key-sectors.html

    “The initiative also aims to engender, over the medium-term, a substantial shift in the Palestinian economy toward private sector-led development. By focusing on the growth of key private industries, assisted by a mix of enabling factors, the initiative aims to shift the Palestinian economy toward a model of private sector-led development and economic sustainability ahead of eventual Palestinian statehood.”

    Message from Earth, John and Tony: there ain’t gonna be any Palestinian statehood. Not while you keep propping up Likud. And you’re going to need some major investment in access routes to connect the existing Bantustans. Sounds good, but no cigar.

    The PEI, incidentally exists to leverage the private sector to create jobs and economic stability…

    Which means subsidising the private sector, including Firerush Ventures No.3 LP, a registered investment company in the Blair empire, we can imagine, with public money upfront to do some slightly risky financing of its own. So where do you go to do that?

    Washington (April/May?).

    http://www.opic.gov/blog/photos/featured-photo-opic-president-welcomes-tony-blair

    Just a cat who likes doing good (sorry, Stevie Smith) to the US government’s development finance organisation, OPIC, in Washington. Which doesn’t look good for any Palestinian SME’s not perfectly aligned with Israel, to me.

  • Ba'al Zevul (demoniser)

    Offering the fruits of his wisdom on geopolitics at the Aspen Institute in June will be…him again. Should be a good fee. This is extremely wealthy country.

    The Aspen institute is a nonpartisan organisation dedicated to making money. Its board features David Koch (of Koch Brothers) and Madeleine Allbright. Its CEO, Walter Isaacson, was appointed by President George W. Bush to the chairman of the U.S.-Palestinian Partnership, which seeks to create economic and educational opportunities in the Palestinian territories. [as none are even now permitted to exist by the occupiers – BZ]

    It’s very strong on something called global leadership, which a cynic might interpret as catching embryonic politicians and entrepreneurs in difficult countries and training them in the globalist skills necessary to ensure their resources go to the right companies.

  • Mary For Truth and Justice

    No worries for Jeremy

    Jeremy Hunt’s £500,000 windfall

    Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, received £499,999 in dividend pay last year from Hotcourses, the educational publisher he co-founded in 1996.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10785681/Jeremy-Hunts-500000-windfall.html

    and £2.1m before that.

    He has been making tea for the patients in Lincoln County.
    http://www.lincolnshireecho.co.uk/Health-Secretary-Jeremy-Hunt-helps-Lincoln-County/story-21101907-detail/story.html

  • Mary

    THEN

    As Oliver Letwin predicted in 2004

    Letwin: ‘NHS will not exist under Tories’
    By Andy McSmith , Political Editor
    06 June 2004

    Oliver Letwin has reportedly told a private meeting that the “NHS will not exist” within five years of a Conservative election victory.

    The Shadow Chancellor said that the health service would instead be a “funding stream handing out money to pay people where they want to go for their healthcare”, according to a member of the audience.

    The remarks, which have been furiously denied by Mr Letwin, were last night seized on by Labour as evidence of the Tories’ true intentions towards the NHS.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/letwin-nhs-will-not-exist-under-tories-6168295.html

    ~~~~
    NOW

    The Coalition has deliberately financially trashed the NHS to justify its privatisation

    May 17, 2014

    In the years before Cameron’s Health and Social Care Act, the National Health Service (NHS) ran a combined £10 billion surplus. Now it faces bankruptcy.

    http://kittysjones.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/the-coalition-has-deliberately-financially-trashed-the-nhs-to-justify-its-privatisation/

  • Mary

    Coming here soon and here already in some NHS hospitals.

    “Now I am, going to reveal to you why it is so difficult to get a live human being on the telephone at these important places: because the more of a racketeering matrix medicine becomes, the more it seeks to evade responsibility for the consequences. That is, the more medicine becomes a criminal enterprise, the less it wants to hear from its client/victims. The same ethos is at work in just about every other realm of corporate enterprise in the USA. Our problem in the USA is not “capitalism,” it’s racketeering.

    Your Call Is Important To Us
    http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/your-call-is-important-to-us/
    May 19 2014

    When phoning a hospital in the West Country, an electronic voice asks you to say which department you want to speak to. If you say medical physiology, you might get medical photography where an exasperated medical photographer answers to tell you that you have the wrong department. His/her time is wasted, work was interrupted and you have wasted a call and have to restart the process. I do not know how widespread this system is.

    From my local hospital last week, a disembodied ‘voice’ reminded me of a forthcoming outpatient appointment. Other ‘voices’ said the date, the time, the department and my name and I was told to press 1 to signify my attendance.

    The real human switchboard operators have been outsourced to a private outfit, their number and salaries reduced. In the good old days, they knew where all the doctors could be found and locate them, all the names of the staff and what was going on in the hospital. In other words, they were an essential part of a smooth running organisation. I do not know what it is like nowadays trying to get through to a ward to inquire about a patient.

  • Mary

    GPs say no to charging patients

    Calls to charge patients for GP visits in the UK have been rejected by family doctors.
    The issue was debated at the British Medical Association’s annual GP conference in York.
    Delegates voted against the idea, but warned that services were being stretched so much that care was being put at risk.
    BMA GP leader Dr Chaand Nagpaul said general practice was becoming “conveyor belt medicine”.
    He pointed out that some GPs were having to see up to 60 patients a day.

    /..
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-27519902

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