Wes Streeting's plans for the NHS all have one purpose, and that is to increase the role of the private sector and big pharmaceutical companies within it, at cost to us, the patients. He should not be trusted.
The audio version of this post is available here:
This is the transcript:
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Wes Streeting has committed to three strategic shifts in the NHS and I suggest we should all be worried.
The three strategic, the three strategic shifts that Wes Streeting has committed to are to move from hospital to community and then, he said, the NHS will move from analogue to digital. And finally, it's going to move from treatment to prevention.
Now, as slogans go, all of these sound entirely reasonable. But I listened to a video recently put out by Crispin Flintoff, and he had a chap called Dr Bob Gill on there, who I don't really know of, but he came up with some extremely worrying points, and I've discussed them since with people who know about the NHS, and it seems to me that West Streeting is, in fact - you can guess it- lining the NHS up for privatisation.
So, what do these three strategic shifts really mean? Let's start with the first one - moving from hospital to community.
Privatised medical providers do not like hospital care. They know that those people who end up in hospital - and all of us do at some point in our lives - will require complex medical treatment.
Those who are in A&E will never get private medical care.
Those who get through that process because they have heart attacks or strokes, or they've got cancer, or they've had a road traffic accident, or they require a major surgery for whatever that reason might be, will never, in most cases, ever have private medical treatment.
These acute cases all involve complexity, and private medicine really does not want to go anywhere near acute cases and complexity if it can avoid them. So, the whole basis of the transfer of medicine from hospital to community is to outsource from hospitals all those things that can be run by medical algorithms.
Like what? Things like diabetes control, things like the control of cholesterol through statins, everything to do with hypertension and heart disease, and maybe even the control of what I call the diseases of despair, which are things like depression. Those all run, to a very large degree, on the basis of an algorithm that says, if you see this, do that. And those are the conditions. that private medicine loves.
They are largely consistent with this whole idea of moving from treatment to prevention as well, because treatment to prevention doesn't mean we're going to stop actually treating people at all. In the way that Wes Streeting thinks about this, the move from treatment to prevention is about prescribing a great deal of drugs in anticipation that somebody might be ill. So, I've just mentioned them, all those things for statins and cholesterol and high blood pressure, low blood pressure, and everything else that many people, by the time they reach my age, are taking on a very regular basis. It is apparently quite common for a man, once they've reached retirement age, to be on at least ten regular drugs a day. That's what prevention means. And you can understand why privatised medicine loves this idea.
First of all, these algorithms can be run by relatively lowly trained people. There is now a massive move inside the NHS and amongst some of the Royal Colleges of Medicine, rather surprisingly, to replace the role of the doctor inside UK medicine with the role of the physician associate.
What does the physician associate do? Well, they're a person who's got a couple of years of post-graduate medical training - the equivalent of a glorified master's degree if you like - but really have none of the skills that are provided to a doctor as a result of them doing five years of a medical degree and a year in hospital post qualification and then usually a significant number of postgraduate qualifications as well.
The physician associate is there to simply deliver the algorithm, to prescribe the routine medicine, to make sure that when they put all the routine medicines that have been prescribed to a person back into the algorithm, that AI says there are no conflicts between them.
Now that is, by the way, important, because one in eight admissions of older people to hospital are because of conflicts within the prescribed medical regimes that they have been given to deal with the complexity that they apparently suffer from. But that can all be managed by these relatively low-grade staff who are cheaper, of course, to employ and who will, of course, deliver vast profits to private medical companies because the drugs bill will go through the roof.
So, treatment to prevention means more prescriptions, and that means more profit.
Just the same as moving people out of hospital to community does the same, because the community will not employ full-scale GPs, but will instead employ people like physician associates or the paramedic who I saw the last time I went to see what I thought was a GP, but was not.
So, two of these three shifts already look like they are about putting private medicine in charge.
So, let's look at that third shift in the NHS that Wes Streeting wants. That's the one from analogue to digital. This sounds very logical, and to a certain degree it is.
There are major problems in the digital systems of the NHS. It is crazy that it still uses pagers and fax machines. It's madness, you might say, that there are different systems in use in different GP practices around the country, so they can't all communicate with each other, and inside many hospitals there are inadequate systems of recording digitally the progress of a patient so that people do not know what is going on even inside the same unit by looking at the digital medical record, and it's very hard to then communicate outcomes to GPs. That obviously needs to be addressed.
But I do not think that this is what analogue to digital means, because let's be candid, there is not now a single GP practice in the whole of the UK that does not use digital methods for storing the data on patients.
Those days of paper records in GP practices have gone and that's over 90 percent of all NHS appointments.
In the vast majority of hospitals, everything is also recorded digitally too.
In other words, the practitioner, whoever they might be, will record the outcome of a consultation on a medical system of some sort, on a computer of some sort, which will usually be available to produce a summary for transmission to anybody who needs it.
In other words, the analog to digital transition of the NHS has really already largely taken place, a few exceptions apart.
Therefore, Wes Streeting must be talking about something else, and he is. What is he talking about? He's talking about two things.
One is the use of AI, and I really do doubt whether AI has a major part in most of the medical consultations that take place in the UK. Why is that? Because most medical consultations that take place in the UK are about the management of a patient's uncertainty. In other words, the patient turns up with a range of symptoms and conditions which they probably incompletely relay to the medical practitioner, out of which uncertainty the medical practitioner has to decide on a course of action. That course of action is not based upon an assessment of risk. It is based upon an intuition of what is required. Because in a situation of uncertainty, there are no probabilities. There is only guesswork. And you might say, surely medicine has gone beyond that, but given the complexity of the human being, our own inability to communicate what we are suffering from, and to relay our own history of our illnesses, uncertainty is what has to be faced.
Now, computers are great at dealing with risk. Risk is all about probabilities. If X has happened, what is the probability that Y will follow? AI might well be able to deal with that, and AI will of course be able to deal with some algorithmic style management of cases, maybe things like diabetes. But, when we face the complexity of most people, particularly the elderly, who have what are called in medical terms multiple comorbidities, or those who have anxiety and depression, which are illnesses which are not necessarily, in any sense, easy to comprehend for anyone, then we are dealing with situations where AI is unlikely to provide the answers.
But that is what, I think, Wes Streeting wants to deliver. He wants to produce a digital NHS because, as is the belief of the Tony Blair Institute, which appears to be putting this idea right across the whole of government, AI is now the answer to everything. And Wes Streeting is, no doubt, listening.
But there's another dimension to this as well. What does he really mean about analogue to digital? What he means is that he wants every record of every person in the NHS to be available to sell to medical companies so that they can, therefore, take the data on a patient and come back and say, “Do you realise that you should prescribe this or you should be offering that, or you should be doing this blood test, or you should be having this checkup or whatever.” All of those services will, of course, be provided by - you've guessed it - private medical operators or by pharmaceutical companies who will be making the drugs in question. In other words, this movement from analogue to digital is not about putting the patient at the heart of this idea of transition to a better service, but is about the idea that the medical industry knows best for you, and you are going to be subject to its consideration as to what you require to be done to you.
I believe that is wrong.
I believe that all these moves are deeply dangerous.
Hospital to community, no thank you. Because what we know we've got in the UK is an acute shortage of hospital beds compared to every other country in Europe. We cannot already meet the demand for inpatient care in this country. Now I know all the problems with social care and bed blocking, but that would still not, even if it was solved, provide the number of hospital beds that we need. So that is the wrong direction of travel. And community does in any case mean downgrading.
I don't believe in moving from treatment to prevention if prevention means the prescribing of more drugs because that is simply a way to boost pharmaceutical company profits.
And I don't believe in this analogue to digital approach to medicine which takes the human out of care and puts the AI algorithm into it.
Therefore, and in conclusion, let me suggest one thing. Wes Streeting is not to be taken at his word.
He has not said he is against the privatisation of the NHS.
He has in fact said he believes there is ample scope for improved relationships between the NHS and the private sector.
I believe his whole programme for the NHS is about delivery of those.
The presence of Alan Milburn, a former NHS Health Secretary, as an unpaid advisor at the Department of Health, who has since 2010 spent most of his time working for US health companies promoting the idea of private medicine, is clear indication of that direction of travel.
Where Streeting's own rhetoric is indication of that. And if we unpack these three directions of travel, these shifts that Wes Streeting talks about, they too are all about increasing the role of private medicine in the NHS and downgrading the role of those people who we really need to rely on - those people of enormous experience called doctors and senior nurses.
This is not what we need. Wes Streeting is all about profit, not care for you. And that is not where Labour should be going.
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I share your fears about privatisation.
However, fear must not be a barrier to change; it needs to be recognised and harnessed to deliver the correct changes.
For example, “hospital to community” – more treatment in the community is a great idea, who wants to spend time in hospital? But it only makes sense IF and ONLY IF it is delivering better results; IF and ONLY IF hospital services are not degraded.
So, rather than oppose everything that Wes Streeting suggest (tempting though that is) we need to recognise the dangers you point out and challenge him on the points you make. EG. “Can you guarantee that the number of hospital beds/staff (already low versus other countries) will not be reduced further even though some care is moving to the community?”.
I think this is more powerful/valuable than blanket opposition that is too easily dismissed.
Richard provides a convincing case that Wes Streeting is really all about privatisation beneath the very reasonable aims of community care, prevention, digitisation .
But maybe Clive Parry’s response would be the best way of calling it out – such as ‘so prevention means banning junk food, ultra processed food, banning advertising junk food, clean ari in schools and workplaces, not more drugs?
I think the two are wholly consistent with each other
Connect for Health what a Disaster that IT program was. A £23 Billion write off
Not the £12 Billion they claimed it was
Connecting for Health information technology system, which over-ran in cost and time and failed in ways that were well-predicted by all the IT experts.
“hospital to community” – that transition has already taken place, by and large, for mental health. The large Victorian asylums are no more. And probably that is a good thing. But is community mental health care really working well? And there is a terrible shortage of inpatient places for acute cases.
“treatment to prevention” – ok, fine. Everyone prefers an ounce of prevention to a pound of cure. So let’s talk about smoking (and vaping) and alcohol and diet and exercise and wellbeing. None of that is going to help much if you are in a road traffic accident or have a fall. Or have a congenital disorder. Or develop cancer or dementia.
“analogue to digital” – can Streeting give an example of parts of the NHS are “analogue” today? Where they are using paper and slide rules? I’m sure he does mean AI, which is the current fashion, and I expect there will be new IT systems that assist medical practitioners to provide better care than either could alone. Does Streeting have any idea how long that will take to implement safely and how much it will cost? Like many information technology projects in the public sector (see Horizon) NHS IT does not have a glorious history.
“hospital to community” – that transition has already taken place, by and large, for mental health.
I’d say for mental health the transition was more ‘hospital to prison’ than ‘hospital to community’.
Mental health is also generally missing from Streeting’s announcements and plans. Not much money to be made there I suppose. When it should be at the forefront. Departments for Health and Justice should be working on this together as well. There are thousands of people who should be under the care of NHS and not in prisons.
I think you are right about money
Mental health remains very badly served and picks up ounces, but rarely has time to do much more
And all of this is dressed up in language that for most people is innocuous and which does not imply in any way Streeting’s true intent. I notice more and more the promulgation of the narrative that an insured model is the way to go with the NHS, as it is in the USA. Lord Winston being one prominent person who has publicly stated this. I think this narrative will gain more traction in the MSM and in social media. But, this is not the intent with the NHS. This is the deception. Starmer has recently stated that the NHS will remain free at the point of need. I think this phrase will also gain traction and be used to counter the concept of the insured model, which will give the impression to most people that nothing much is going to change. Both narratives are essentially being directed from the same source. One is designed to cause concern, but is not stated by the Government, while the other is stated by the Government and is designed to allay fears and mask the true intent. It’s designed to get the uncritical majority looking the other way when action is undertaken.
“I notice more and more the promulgation of the narrative that an insured model is the way to go with the NHS, as it is in the USA.”
Who in the UK is going to pay the “insurance premiums”?
In the USA “insurance premiums” are basically paid by the employer for their employees ….ie… for work working age people.
I do not see UK employers wanting to pay health insurance premiums for their employees.
This is nothing but cost shifting.
Agreed
Somehow the right thing large insurance premiums are much better than tax
Their logic defeats me
It’s also going to discourage firms from investing here if they know they’re going to have to subsidise healthcare for their employees. The state should be picking up that tab and others (effective public transport and road and rail freight transport systems) because if it doesn’t, who will and why should they when there are countries elsewhere with more pragmatic approaches?
It has never been any kind of secret that Wes Streeting would reshape the NHS to deliver more money into offshore tax havens, at the expense of those who come to rely on it.
This is one of the key reasons I could not bring myself to vote Labour.
No one, in my opinion, who sees the NHS as a vehicle for transferring public money to capitalists should be in charge of the health portfolio. It is a clear conflict of interest.
My model of ‘prevention’ is quite different to Mr. Streetings.
It means meeting all of the basic needs of every human being, with adequate warm/dry housing, clean air, clean water, access to green spaces, affordable good food, urban planning and infrastructure that prioritises active travel, good and holistic education, good working conditions, enough paid time off, an adequate welfare state, and working hours that mean people don’t struggle finding time to get an adequate amount of exercise.
Finally, and most importantly, an income for everyone sufficient as to not force them into debt to meet any of their basic needs (with something left over).
This is the ticket to improved mental and physical health, high productivity, growth and an NHS free from the burdens caused by austerity, poor ultra processed food and inactivity.
I don’t see any government enslaved to neoliberal ideals achieving even a tiny fraction of those things.
“It means meeting all of the basic needs of every human being, with adequate warm/dry housing, clean air, clean water, access to green spaces, affordable good food, urban planning and infrastructure that prioritises active travel, good and holistic education, good working conditions, enough paid time off, an adequate welfare state, and working hours that mean people don’t struggle finding time to get an adequate amount of exercise.
Finally, and most importantly, an income for everyone sufficient as to not force them into debt to meet any of their basic needs (with something left over).”
Precisely. None of that should be thought of as in any way extreme or idealistic, yet it is.
Income – a Universal Basic Income would go a long way to improving many lives, mentally and physically.
Commentators, it seems to me, always forget the context… if you’re going to have UBI or even an LBI you have to have price controls and rent controls too otherwise opportunistic cartels will simply soak up the extra money available. Or, perhaps, introduce realistic genuine and properly enforced legislation to remove cartels. Either way, provision of a basic income will only do good in the right context, something too often overlooked.
yes, the aim is privatisation.
here are some other articles on Labour’s plans
https://labournet.net/other/2409/Darzi1.html
https://keepournhspublic.com/labour-and-the-nhs/
Greg
The very thought of putting an inexperienced, unqualified halfwit of questionable honesty in charge of the NHS is terrifying, but, hey, here we are, we have Wes Streeting!
Your point about the ability of AI and Physician Associates to treat complex conditions is well made. For example I give you Marfans Syndrome. It affects the connective tissue…any connective tissue. Joints, eyes, hearts, lungs…and the problems can be severe and life threatening. No AI program, however clever, can diagnose it and there are few specialists who understand it.
We have it in our family and its effects are devastating.
I just checked, and I am living with a medic who does know about it
But she agrees, it requires considerable lateral thinking outside the algorithm to bring it into a consultation.
She says she hopes you find someone sho udnertsdands it
Therefore it should be discouraged for GP practices to hire Physician Associates and to use AI to handle well documented symptoms and malingerer patients which would bore fully qualified GPs, allowing GPs to deal with more complex work which they find more interesting and which might keep them in the profession longer.
Is that the argument?
But contracts are impoosed on GPs requring them to do such things
Labour has a blue print precedent for privatisation. Look no further than the Blair academy privatisation of state schools.
State funding, but very high salaries for the directors of the academy groups.
Have never understood why there are these massive academy groups of schools – someone must be benefitting .
I thought academisation was about freeing schools from the dead hand of local authoiry bureaucracies – not merging them into massive quasi private bureaucracies.
It was always about capturing state revenue for private gain
“capturing state revenue for private gain”
“The purpose of a public utility is to minimize the cost of basic needs.
Privatized healthcare maximizes costs as a profit-gaining opportunity for the insurance companies”.
https://michael-hudson.com/2024/07/gold-as-the-peace-currency/
Likewise schools, universities, energy companies, railways.
Profits must come from somewhere, and it’s not from “efficiencies”.
Profits come from additional charges and poor services.
That’s why we have the most expensive energy and rail fares in Europe (if not the world).
The general public sees none of the profits, but gets to experience the worse of the services.
Labour/Tory Neoliberalism: profits before people.
I might have first got this from Michael
It is too long ago to remember now
Land grab.
And important metrics hidden behind the excuse of commercial sensitivity
I find your video very disturbing, but highly plausible. I am a retired GP and have met Dr Bob Gill in the past, he knows what he is talking about, he has been fighting privatisation of the NHS for years. I have just watched the video you are referring to, he is right we need to reach out to as much of the public as possible as they are being hoodwinked and have been for years. Successive governments have been cunningly bringing about privatisation by stealth – largely being directed by American health insurance companies, who have had ‘their feet under the table’ in the reorganisation of the NHS for several years. We all know that America spends more on health than any other high income country and has the worst outcomes, why should we want to move from what we had – which was one of the best and most cost effective healthcare systems (sadly no more) to an American system? – I guess because it is going to the line the pockets of the private health companies and insurance companies at the expense of patients. The NHS will go the way of the private water companies and the railways etc. BUT peoples health, lives and wellbeing will be put at risk.
One small bit of good news The Royal College of GPs has just voted NO to PAs in general practice (20th September) but I don’t suppose it will stop the changes. The BMA has been pathetic throughout this dreadful transition.
We need to share this widely!
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2023/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2022
Thanks
Much to agree with
And I had seen that RCGP decision – at last.
Wes Streeting to quote the great Blackadder “as convincing as Dr Crippen’s defence lawyer.”
I too fear for the future of our NHS. I know you are not a great believer in the Royal Society of Medicine, but I have benefited from many of their informative presentations. In one RSM event we were told that more than 6 prescribed medications a day raises the risk of error. All too often one medication is to counteract the side effects of another medication. It is advisable to trim down to only the medications you absolutely require.
Big Pharma wants to get everyone on Statins; it’s a great money spinner for a drug seriously lacking efficacy in certain groups of individuals including older women. The key data is found by researching something called the ‘Number Needed to Treat’. NNT represents the number of patients who would need to be medicated before a single patient would benefit from the drug. Big Pharma doesn’t want you to examine these statistics while they pour pills down your throat in bucketloads!
After surviving Kidney Cancer, it knocked out my ability to make Cortisol, so I will have to take Hydrocortisone for the rest of my life. I take a baby aspirin a day as I have a higher risk for clots after a section of my Vena Cava was removed during surgery, but, despite being past retirement age, that’s it, no other drugs. I do take some non pharma supplements including D3 and I also take a combination of Lutein, Meso-zeaxanthin and Zeaxanthin after attending an informative RSM lecture: ‘Connecting carotenoids from eye to brain: A new vision for management of age-related macular degeneration and dementia – 2024 Howard Foundation Lecture by Professor John Nolan’.
I was shocked when, at one RSM presentation, they showed us that our vegetables have become so depleted of nutrients that it would now take 26 bowls of spinach to obtain the nutrition once found in a single bowl! In a presentation on vitamins I discovered that older people do not metabolize B vitamins well: more info from the RSM. Also, we do not get enough vitamin K in our diet, the benefits of which are well documented in the Rotterdam study. ‘Doctors Club’ or not the info presented provides legitimate continuing education credits for MDs and is well researched.
Noted, thanks, and I am not disagreeing with any of that.
The idea of unmonitored drug pollution in the water is frightening enough, but when private companies could be given carte blanche to administer protective dosages without need is horrifying.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/27/amr-drug-resistance-england-national-parks-hidden-hazards-rivers-pollution-aoe
Thank you for this thoughtful assessment of the proposals being put forward by Wes “Stupid Boy” Streeting. I confess to being horrified by the prospect you reveal, all too credibly. This is possibly one of the most significant (non-Monetary) posts you have ever published, at least in the 8 years, or so, that I have been reading your blog. I urge every reader to re-post on whatever social media channel they favour to get some level of increased public awareness. I know that “every day’s a school day” on this blog, but some more than others. Your work is so appreciated. More power to you.
Thank you.
I agree.
Wes Streeting is somebody else I would not trust even to walk my dog.
His philosophy is one of privatising for gain ie picking the low-lying fruit and leaving the rest to the NHS.
Big Pharma is being greedy here: we are already paying a fortune through the present arrangements with the NHS, but they want more and Wes Streeting’s job is to give it to them.
I certainly don’t trust him.
One example of the bad effects of private NHS provision is in eye hospitals.
Private providers now do a high proportion of contracted out “routine” NHS eye surgery such as cataract surgery in otherwise healthy patients (to reduce NHS waiting lists).
Side effect is that NHS eye hospital do far fewer and NHS junior surgeons don’t learn their craft on the routine stuff. So fewer trained experienced surgeons around for the complicated/UNusual stuff. So NHS Eye Hospitals can’t fill their senior vacancies. But never mind, the private eye surgeons/hospitals doing the routine stuff, cream off good margins & salaries. Sorry, can’t remember where I read this, may have been social media (or even here!!).
Quite possibly here…..
Health is the responsibility of the devolved nations, so I can see considerable problems arising if he tries to enforce privatisation of the NHS in Scotland, Wales and N Ireland. The immediate and obvious problem will be political. I don’t know how the Welsh and N Irish view their Health Services, but in Scotland the public would be enraged if he tries to strong-arm an enforcement. Holyrood wouldn’t agree to it and, if he resorts to a S30 Order to enforce it (as we’ve seen here in the recent past under the Tories) he risks pushing Scotland’s “Indy Overton Window” further towards independence. Support for Holyrood in Scotland is high (only the Tories would like to shut it down) and any actions that undermine it will be resented no matter how the biased MSM depict it. His other enforcement method might lie in cutting the Block Grant but, despite the MSM’s efforts (they’ve tried to blame the Scottish Government’s policies for the impact of Westminster’s austerity on the Grant payable to Scotland) but the real reason for the funding shortfall is much better understood here now. Enforcement of NHSS privatisation via further funding cuts would push the Indy Overton further towards independence.
If Streeting does enforce privatisation, there are other major problems: NHSS is structured differently from NHS England. After devolution, NHSS was quick to reject the Tories’ “Internal Market” concept and revert to a structure of Regional Boards responsible for high level admin, with separate Acute Services and Primary Care divisions responsible for delivery of patient care. This has delivered better statistics per head of population and better data quality than elsewhere in the UK. It also resulted in programmes to standardise national systems like patient records, A&E software, clinical hardware etc instead of the “zoo” of differing software and hardware so typical of the individual Trusts of the Internal Market. If Streeting is seriously planning NHS privatisation he’d be wise to consider the implications in the devolved nations as it’s my guess that he hasn’t even thought about that.
THE GREAT NHS HEIST
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Www0cHLQulw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Www0cHLQulw
Dr Bob Gill made this film.
John Pilger also made a documentary about the privatisation of the NHS.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11012738/?ref_=ls_t_1
The trailer for John Pilgers film
Also a name to look out for is Allyson Pollock who is an academic who made a stunning TED talk about the 2012 Health and Social Care Act. This act could not have happened without the foundation of reforms brought in by Tony Blair.
Pollock is good on finance but very weak on other issues, in my opinion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz5dl9fhj7o
Allyson Pollock TED talk
Well if consistently campaigning for an unprivatised health service from the introduction of PFI (as early as I know about) to date including working with Peter Broderick to highlight the dangers of the change in the law in 2012, plus slowing the whole privatisation agenda with a judicial review is weak then what is strong?
I made clear she has done good work on PFI.
On Covid and other issues I could not agree with her.
It is possible to agree with people on some things and not others. Why is that so hard to comprehend?
Richard
Thank you for your clarification. The context was privatisation and not Covid. I am not a troll and your comment was unclear. I don’t know what or who you know. If you hadn’t come across Bob Gill have you come across Public Matters? Their Facebook videos on the changes to the Health Service from a couple of years ago are very educational. Not as snappy as yours but worth watching if you’re interested in the history.
Thanks
It is not just privatisation.
It is Americanisation. In that the uk is aping the accountable care system in the USA.
It is managerialism . In that there is an assumption nature can be controlled, medical staff can be controlled and the capitalist system is the best way to manage.
It is all about creating shortages out of which prices can be hiked, profits extracted, and the status of the private healthcare system enhanced.
It’s about establishment control, which ensures Treasury starves the nhs of capital , supports ideas that the nhs is unaffordable, unsustainable and the private sector is best.
It’s about medical profession complicity as they benefit substantially from the two tier system.
It’s about the professional classes complicity as the intermediaries of a complex legal and financial system creates jobs and profits for the intermediaries involved. The healthcare think tanks are also complicit , they have accepted funding , lent credibility to spurious claims and are happy to ride the gravy train.
It’s about the inadequacies of regulators and the legal profession who have immunity from prosecution for the harm caused and which have only to prove plausibility to the unscientific claims that everyone will benefit from accountable care, even though history shows there are no benefits and leads to the consolidation of the inequitable distribution of resources.
And it’s corruption as ministers and parties come to be funded by the vested interests who stand to gain.
Privatisation is only part of the problem; and will only be avoided by addressing a range of issues above.
@Roger
You understand the USA Healthcare System very well.
Full marks!
https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=566111287901995&vanity=ThePublicMatter
This Public Matters video explains how Roger is correct.
I absolutely agree with you Roger, thank you.
Have not read all the post yet but it appears to me that the main point is lost. This DELIBERATE process of dismantling our “free at the point of use” NHS has been a slow process from Margret thatcher and possibly beyond. I’ve watched and campaigned this slow process for 10yrs along with Bob Gill. It had been very clever slow process. The details cannot be found in the Main Media therefore the majority of this country haven’t got a clue what has happened. They believe “NHS isn’t working “ and those with money are using private health. The rest of us are suffering. THIS WAS THE PLAN Covid just helped it on its way. We are at the end game where the model used is nearly in place – THE AMERICAN MODEL – an insurance based system for those with money and Medicaid for those who can’t afford hence the downgrading of staff. – THE ONLY ANSWER IS TO REINSTATE our NHS. This is NOT Wess Streeting’s plan.
We need the whole country to be properly informed as to what is really happening and then TO FIGHT BACK!!
(Unfortunately we are not like the French!!) but I’ll keep my fingers crossed