I’m shocked that the head of the Adam Smith institute thinks more privatisation is the answer.
But sadly, I suspect he is right. The system has been undermined to such an extent, largely by privatisation that has already happened, that we need to change.
I think that’s tragic. But it’s facts that we as a nation don’t want to face.
The only way the right would keep the NHS is if it’s profitable for them. And that’s what we’ve got.
The fear is America.
Strictly speaking that’s not really related to privatisation, since you could have a system like Germany (which is somewhat hybrid, but its more private than the NHS) or even a fully private version of that with heavily regulated insurance.
Free at the point of use must be maintained. How you do that is a different matter.
the Tories are on their ‘privatisation by stealth’ 20 year plan,chronic underfunding, the propaganda machine is spun up and dropping weekly stories about how shit it is, they are chipping off bits at a time and selling the contracts to their benefactors companies, saddest of all is the DM reading ageing population who will eventually need free health care still vote for these fuckers.
Maybe Tory cabinet ministers should not write books about privatising the NHS then?
>Put together by Douglas Carswell, the book’s authors also included Tory MPs Michael Gove, Daniel Hannan, Greg Clark, David Gauke, and Kwasi Kwarteng.
We know the Tory Party has links to private health care and we know they want to privatise it, the only reason it is not privatised yet is people fighting against it because they are rightly fearful.
What’s most surprisng about this hatchet job is that he’s gone through a litany of current problems and not once mentioned the cause of them. Is it possible he’s ignorant of there being a pandemic going on, that’s had huge impacts on our health service? Is he ignorant of the mismanagement that’s put us in a worse position than we should have been in? Is he delusional, maybe, and doesn’t think that the last two years would have had any effect on healthcare?
> One solution would be to enable every patient to “Go Private” if the NHS fails to provide service within a reasonable time, paid for out of local health budgets.
The problems with private diversion like this are pretty varied, but include …
First, when you farm operations outside the NHS, you lose the opportunity to train NHS doctors to do these operations. They end up being done by older doctors with no provision made for younger doctors to learn.
The second is that any complications or problems fall back on the NHS to deal with, making the NHS look worse. The NHS ends up achieving less (because they didn’t do the operation itself) but eating the costs of any mistakes or post-operative problems.
You also end up removing the pressure to fix the problem. Why bother trying to bring waiting lists down when you can just ignore people until a deadline is reached and they become someone else’s problem. At best, you end up with the NHS picking and choosing the operations they want to do, which isn’t good for patients.
> Allowing people to suffer in agony or die while they wait for treatment rather than involve the NHS is not noble, it’s madly irresponsible.
Yes, and the solution is investment in the NHS, not taking the same pot of money and handing it to private sector profiteers.
5 comments
I’m shocked that the head of the Adam Smith institute thinks more privatisation is the answer.
But sadly, I suspect he is right. The system has been undermined to such an extent, largely by privatisation that has already happened, that we need to change.
I think that’s tragic. But it’s facts that we as a nation don’t want to face.
The only way the right would keep the NHS is if it’s profitable for them. And that’s what we’ve got.
The fear is America.
Strictly speaking that’s not really related to privatisation, since you could have a system like Germany (which is somewhat hybrid, but its more private than the NHS) or even a fully private version of that with heavily regulated insurance.
Free at the point of use must be maintained. How you do that is a different matter.
the Tories are on their ‘privatisation by stealth’ 20 year plan,chronic underfunding, the propaganda machine is spun up and dropping weekly stories about how shit it is, they are chipping off bits at a time and selling the contracts to their benefactors companies, saddest of all is the DM reading ageing population who will eventually need free health care still vote for these fuckers.
Maybe Tory cabinet ministers should not write books about privatising the NHS then?
​
[Jeremy Hunt co-authored book calling for NHS to be replaced with private insurance](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-hunt-privatise-nhs-tories-privatising-private-insurance-market-replacement-direct-democracy-a6865306.html)
>Put together by Douglas Carswell, the book’s authors also included Tory MPs Michael Gove, Daniel Hannan, Greg Clark, David Gauke, and Kwasi Kwarteng.
We know the Tory Party has links to private health care and we know they want to privatise it, the only reason it is not privatised yet is people fighting against it because they are rightly fearful.
What’s most surprisng about this hatchet job is that he’s gone through a litany of current problems and not once mentioned the cause of them. Is it possible he’s ignorant of there being a pandemic going on, that’s had huge impacts on our health service? Is he ignorant of the mismanagement that’s put us in a worse position than we should have been in? Is he delusional, maybe, and doesn’t think that the last two years would have had any effect on healthcare?
> One solution would be to enable every patient to “Go Private” if the NHS fails to provide service within a reasonable time, paid for out of local health budgets.
The problems with private diversion like this are pretty varied, but include …
First, when you farm operations outside the NHS, you lose the opportunity to train NHS doctors to do these operations. They end up being done by older doctors with no provision made for younger doctors to learn.
The second is that any complications or problems fall back on the NHS to deal with, making the NHS look worse. The NHS ends up achieving less (because they didn’t do the operation itself) but eating the costs of any mistakes or post-operative problems.
You also end up removing the pressure to fix the problem. Why bother trying to bring waiting lists down when you can just ignore people until a deadline is reached and they become someone else’s problem. At best, you end up with the NHS picking and choosing the operations they want to do, which isn’t good for patients.
> Allowing people to suffer in agony or die while they wait for treatment rather than involve the NHS is not noble, it’s madly irresponsible.
Yes, and the solution is investment in the NHS, not taking the same pot of money and handing it to private sector profiteers.