Sometimes I blog something with real hope it will be read. And usually it isn't.
Other times I dash a blog off and discover it's a hit.
This one, last week, was in the later category. Look at those link numbers at the bottom:
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Well done.
Next job: get Labour to put the reversal of this ridiculous idea on the top line in the next manifesto.
And bear in mind that the basis of the health care system – GPs – are actually private businesses and have been since the NHS started. Never understood that one, or why specialists are allowed to have private ‘side businesses’.
This is just one of many examples where it is pretty clear that social/collective provision of goods/services results in greater economic efficiency – just as there are many cases where the opposite is true. Proper social democrats who can accept both the strengths and weaknesses of the market economy, as opposed to with a more doctrinaire approach, should be capable of making the judgement when to intervene in markets based on a study of the facts. Perhaps a similar approach might be applied to postal services, transport costs, provision for the elderly, the BBC Licence Fee (just contrast with what is charged by Sky!)etc.etc.
Precisely Stephen, we desparately need politicians who don’t believe ‘private good, public bad’, and who reject the right wing dogma of ‘free markets’, and look to regulated markets or the state to provide a decent society and a working economy.
Your last point about the VFM of the BBC compared to Sky is well made.
Can it be reversed? If so, given the lobbying/vested interests of those that would ultimately be required to enact a reversal, would there be any interest from them in doing so? they have, after all, lied through their teeth to get it this far.
@ Rod Brown
Point taken about reversing this, which is why I believe Labour needs to operate a modern version of “Morton’s Fork” on this.
To those providers who find they have made nothing on their venture, or even made a loss, Labour should tell those providers that they will then surely not mind those services returning to democratic control under the State; to those who find they have made a profit, Labour should tell those providers that they should be satisfied with such unmerited profit as they have earned in the short time they will have held the service; to ALL such providers Labour should say that the services will be taken back WITHOUT COMPENSATION.
I suspect that the more likely it appears that Labour will form the next Government – either alone, or in some sort of coalition – the less such vultures will come forward to pick over the bones of the NHS. Indeed, they will discover that, far from being a carcase, the NHS will actually be alive and kicking, and serving the citizens of the UK well.
I would agree with Andrew. We have seen the non reversal of many (utility) privatizations now costing the Revenue upwards of 7-10 billion a year. Compare that with the revenue of sales at about £67 billion then surely it could be argued that we gave those companies away over a 7 to 10 year period. It was one thing to take those companies into private shareholders but they have eventually ended up housed off-shore and no longer paying their taxes on revenues solely gained from UK infrastructure. They don’t seem like such a good deal, much as this NHS scandal will play out I’m sure. Sad days.
I found this to be of interest, although it does not fill me with hope for the prospect of reversal.
Dr Lucy Reynolds edited version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i-yFfLgzSc
Unfortunately, you will find that labour started a lot of the “outsourcing”, and that labour is as “in” with the NHS thieves as the tories.
The contracts will have been signed and buy-back terms will be onerous.
Nothing is ever new.
Has anyone worked out how much public money has been wasted on the procedural aspect of moving publicly controlled services into private hands? Given that public money often underwrites this ‘privitisation’ it seems a double con: It’s not properly private and public money REALLY gets wasted which is what the ideologues said about nationalisation in the first place! I can remember talking to a railway worker in the 90’s who was aghast at the immense waste taking place in the split ups and putting out to tender which created a wallet lining industry in itself.
Nat that I know of
I’ll bet that if private providers were actually held to the contracted service levels then they would soon be screaming blue murder and begging to be released from the contracts – which for a penal fee I might consider if it were up to me! A few months ago Panorama (I think) did an expose of the gross miss of promises made by Virgin healthcare at a GP surgery they had taken over.
I worry whether EU competition law will somehow prevent renationalisation. I would very much like to be reassured that I am wrong.
Perhaps one word of caution – it would be unwise to pretend that even if the market is not the best way of providing decent healthcare for all, that doesn’t mean that there are still not very serious debates to be held as to the interests of providers and users should be balanced and that there are some areas why financial discipline within the NHS has always been pretty awful e.g. purchasing from the pharmaceutical companies, capital and IT expenditure and where the level of skills need to be improved. Although, given the scale of the undertaking my guess is that this would be better done by the NHS employing its own people rather than outside consultants (with their additional overheads and profit margins)
@ Stephen
Sorry, I don’t really buy this, as the whole motivation and thinking behind the Thatcherite “deforms” of the NHS, started under John Moore, but only carried through in early 1992, after both he and Thatcher had left office, was the, if not marketisation, then certainly the business bureaucratization of the NHS, by breaking it up into cost centres, and NHS Trusts etc. which were meant to address exactly the problems you highlight, by flagging up economic inefficiencies.
In fact there are few people who do not hold that this business bureaucratization actually made things worse, and turned a lumbering organization that largely met its remit, and operated to general levels of satisfaction, into a ludicrous “bottom line” driven behemoth, that didn’t even have the virtues of esprit de corps and co-operation that had enabled the pre-1992 NHS to function.
Secondly, if these “deforms” have not managed to address those failings in the last 20 years – despite Labour’s attempt (at least by Frank Dobson at the beginning and Andy Burnham at the end – but let us not speak of the horrendous Milburn, Hewitt and Reid) to amend the lunacy of the 1992 set-up by increasing spending and strengthening the voice of the patient – then I won’t hold my breath waiting for the Con-Dem’s souped-up 2012 version of 1992 to achieve these “improvements”.
The truth is that Thatcher was a Right-wing Maoist, in that, like Mao, she mistrusted and abhorred “experts”, preferring to believe that the market would produce better results than experts. Labour’s failing was to choose the wrong experts, in calling in “consultants” and purveyors of “management psycho-babble” (alas, consider Gordon Brown’s “endogenous growth”!)instead of adopting the classic Organization and Methods route of speaking to those who deliver the service(the nurses, doctors, cleaners, cooks, porters, receptionists etc.) and those who receive it, namely the patients.
These are the real experts, who can tell you what does and what doesn’t, what will and what won’t, work. Basically, Labour forgot to exercise the “Ask the Audience” option; the Tories, of course, thought that all the flashing lights and razzmatazz of the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” set were not only the driving force, but were also the means whereby questions get answered, and so failed to exercise any of the 3 options, and then wondered why they didn’t win anything.
Agreed
Andrew
I would still contend that many of the problems I have identified have not been addressed. Even though you are correct to point out that the attempts of the Tories and Labour failed – it doesn’t mean that problems don’t continue to exist. I have no problem with applying classic organisation and method routes, but that does also have to be combined with basic financial competence which still doesn’t exist in many places (and as I indicated earlier should be devloped internally rather than using expensive external consultants who do not understand the ethos of the NHS), but please lets not pretend that everything in the garden is lovely and just defend the status quo.
National Health Action Party! I have been following Allyson Pollock and Clive Peedell and Clare Gerada a long time and so many others, they are committed and have integrity, please check it out!
All three are people of considerable integrity who I have strong respect for
If the Weaklings in charge at Westminster have their way then the UK will join the US on the far right of the graph. To be precise draw two parallel lines. The first running parallel to the horizontal axis and running through Hungary, the second parallel to the vertical axis running through the US. The UK will be situated at where those two lines intersect!