The Guardian reports this morning that:
The largest private provider of NHS out-of-hours GP services is facing allegations by senior doctors that its service in London is so short-staffed it is regularly unsafe.
There is a reason why this is happening. It's called money. And it's called a total lack of understanding on the part of government and private companies that health services are nothing like supermarkets and that those who have to provide them 24 hours a day have to be very well cared for themselves if society is going to get the service it needs.
But that understanding does not exist. And we al pay the price as a result.
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‘And it’s called a total lack of understanding on the part of government and private companies that health services are nothing like supermarkets…’
I think you’d be more accurate if you said ‘…a wanton disregard on the part of government and private companies…’
These people and their advisers aren’t stupid. They know the score. But they are so blinded by ideology that they chose to ignore reality and instead invent one of their own. If people suffer as a result, so be it. Thus the ghost of Ayn Rand stalks the NHS (and elsewhere in British public services).
The amount of money these companies are stripping from the NHS is colossal. In their world “efficiency” is supposed to = “cheaper”: it doesn’t even do that. In case others have not noticed, Harmoni was bought by Care UK in November, just one month after Jim Easton, ex head of cuts in the NHS, became the managing director of Care UK
http://thosebigwords.forumcommunity.net/?t=47582789&p=371066772
And after Careuk had been outbid by Harmoni to take over out of hours 111 services.
There is an early day motion, number 773 on the govt. website to get private healthcare companies to be more open and honest about their dealings with the NHS.
Find out if your MP has signed it – so far only 43 have, including 4 Libdems – and if not ask them why. Find out on theyworkforyou.com
This is public money going to private companies, and we need to know how much, and how much of it is going to offshore accounts.
Do we know-or can we discover-the actual amount of NHS spending paid to private companies, which is taken as profit?
No
Get your MP to sign up to the EDM 773 as mentioned above.
You could also sign up to my epetition to ask for an enquiry into the links between private healthcare companies and govt. ministers. The link is
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/40126
Commercial in confidence, of course.