NHS reforms

[Section_31]

Have hardly seen any discussion on this anywhere but the health bill was passed by the Commons last week. I'm shocked and appalled that none of this appeared on Tory or Lib Dem manifestos (much like tuition fees) and yet here we are. To think, I trusted them to leave the NHS alone.

 

BMA to fight on after MPs pass health bill - newsarticle-content - Pulse

 

Exclusive The BMA has vowed to step up its lobbying of peers to try to derail the health bill in the House of Lords, after MPs voted in favour of the Government's controversial NHS reforms last night.

 

 

Related articles

 

Gerada hits back after PM's claim that the RCGP supports health bill

'Big opportunities' for private sector in health bill, says minister

NAPC Annual Conference 2011

The Health and Social Care Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons by 316 votes to 251. A rumoured Liberal Democrat rebellion over the reforms failed to materialise, with just four of the party's MPs voting against the bill.

 

The result means the bill will be debated in the Lords next month.

 

Dr Laurence Buckman, GPC chair, told Pulse the BMA will now lobby peers from all parties to persuade them to scrap the ‘faulty' bill, warning that the reforms offer private providers ‘far too many opportunities to take over huge chunks of the NHS.'

 

Dr Buckman said: ‘We were disappointed but not surprised at the lack of Lib Dem opposition in yesterday's vote but I have more faith in the House of Lords to properly address the issues in this bill.'

 

‘We will be lobbying lords and meeting lords of all political parties to persuade them that this bill is so faulty that it needs to be withdrawn. If they can't cope with that then we certainly want some pretty hefty modifications to it.'

 

‘The idea of clinically led commissioning might be a great opportunity for doctors to improve the health service but this bill does not deliver that. These are overly bureaucratic, expensive reforms.'

 

Hours before yesterday's health bill vote the Prime Minister claimed that the Government's revisions to the bill, following its ‘listening exercise', had won over the health profession. Yet the PM faced embarrassment after his claims were swiftly disputed by the RCGP, Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of Nursing, who all said they still had worries over the reforms.

 

Dr Buckman said doctors did not support the bill, and said the Government's listening exercise had failed to allay the BMA's fears over the reforms.

 

He said: ‘The pause made some useful changes but it also made an awful lot more changes that made things harder to deliver. We are concerned about the failure to impose a cap on private practice in NHS hospitals. Foundation trusts will chase after private business to the detriment of their NHS patients.'

 

Yesterday, health minister Lord Howe said that the health bill would ‘present big opportunities' for the private sector to take over parts of NHS care.

 

Speaking at the Independent Healthcare Forum, he said: ‘There will be big opportunities for the private sector here and it must be done on merit and the quality of the support provided.'

 

[Johnny Cougar]

The Private Sector should be nowhere fucking near the provision of public services in general and Health care in particular. Nowhere near.

Profit and self interest has no place in public services. From personal experience of having an Aunt in a Southern Cross care home, I can tell you that it is fucking disgraceful and Cameron and any cunt who agrees with him should be killed in the face.

[VladimirIlyich]

This is exactly what those of us who have lived through Tory governments expected and the enablers who allowed them to do this should never have another MP elected again and be cast into the political wilderness forever.

 

This is the kind of shit that makes it difficult to defend this country to outsiders and equate it to a mini USA,which is not a favourable comparison.

[Strontium]

The Private Sector should be nowhere fucking near the provision of public services in general and Health care in particular. Nowhere near.

 

 

Well that's a door which was opened a long time ago. The private sector has been providing a variety of NHS services since the 80s, and every government since has only expanded the practice.

 

Profit and self interest has no place in public services. From personal experience of having an Aunt in a Southern Cross care home, I can tell you that it is fucking disgraceful and Cameron and any cunt who agrees with him should be killed in the face.

 

 

Dennis Tooth, is that you?

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

You forgot to add 'in very different roles' at the end of your first sentence, Stronts.

[lifetime fan]

'Performance' related contracts in mental health and learning disability services.

 

What could possibly go wrong?

[Anubis]

Well that's a door which was opened a long time ago. The private sector has been providing a variety of NHS services since the 80s, and every government since has only expanded the practice.

 

 

Sadly very true. Probably the greatest institution this country ever built - probably one of the greatest in the world - and we've been slowly led towards a privatisation by outsourcing side services, and the fiasco of PFI.

 

 

The end of the NHS as we know it | Colin Leys | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

 

The end of the NHS as we know it

 

 

The health bill is the final stage of a project that began 25 years ago to turn this vital public service over to the private sector

 

 

What Wednesday's vote on the health and social care bill shows more clearly than anything is that many, if not most, of the political elite no longer care whether they are carrying out the wishes of the electorate, and barely pretend that we are any longer a democracy.

 

The prime minister promised before the 2010 election not to introduce any "top-down reorganisations" of the NHS; to say he, Andrew Lansley and Nick Clegg lack an electoral mandate for the bill is an understatement. It is also an understatement to say that they have not told the truth about the bill's intentions, and that they have reduced Department of Health statements, such as its latest so-called MythBuster document, to a level of brazen mendacity that demeans a once great office of state.

 

The principle seems to be that if an official lie – such as that the bill does not imply privatisation – is repeated often enough, most people will feel it must be true. And by using existing powers to abolish PCTs and set up "pathfinder" so-called GP consortia, and making arrangements with foreign private companies to take over NHS hospitals, the government has also pre-empted such debate as MPs are inclined to have. The Conservative MP Dr Sarah Wollaston, who originally denounced the bill, now says that changes have already gone too far to oppose it any further – a remarkable statement of political impotence.

 

The bill will end the NHS as a comprehensive service equally available to all. People with limited means will have a narrowing range of free services of declining quality, and will once again face long waits for elective care. Everyone else will go back to trying to find money for private insurance and private care. More and more NHS hospital beds will be occupied by private patients. Doctors will be divided into a few who will become rich, and many who will end up working on reduced terms and with little professional freedom for large corporations (the staff of the hospitals that are being considered for handing over to private firms will have noted that the firms in question want "a free hand with staff").

 

The costs of market-based healthcare – from making and monitoring multiple and complex contracts, to advertising, billing, auditing, legal disputes, multimillion pound executive salaries, dividends and fraud – will soon consume 20% or more of the health budget, as they do in the US. Neither the Care Quality Commission nor NHS Protect (the former NHS Counter-Fraud Unit) are remotely resourced enough, or empowered enough, to prevent the decline of care quality and the scale of financial fraud that the bill will introduce.

 

What we are witnessing is the completion of a project begun some 25 years ago to restore healthcare to private enterprise. The key players have not been MPs but private healthcare companies and consultancies like McKinsey and KPMG. The war has been waged by the lavish corporate funding of pro-market thinktanks – the quiet subversion of some of those, like the King's Fund, that are still rather quaintly described as "independent" – and the deep penetration of the Department of Health and Labour's senior ranks. No countervailing argument has come from pro-public thinktanks, because none exists with resources equal to the task. And how many MPs have actually read through the bill they are in the process of endorsing, or even the explanatory notes that accompany it?

 

The one serious obstacle to the bill's promoters has been the impact of social media: 38 Degrees, Facebook, expert bloggers and tweeters. Along with the million-plus people who work for the NHS, a steadily growing portion of, especially, younger voters, have been exposed to a different narrative and see through the spin. At the moment most of them may be more cynical than politically active. But if the bill becomes law and the reality begins to be felt in people's daily lives it is this counter-narrative that will make sense. MPs – and now the Lords – would be well advised to ponder the implications of this.

[Section_31]

Evan as an abstract concept, I find the idea of the health industry making a profit absolutely vile. I mean think about it, run it around in your head for a minute. The health industry, run for profit, when that money could be reinvested in care instead. Look at what happened to Southern Cross, a handful of businessmen making a killing on the publilc tit and then the thing collapses, leaving people in the shit and with the state again being left to pick up the pieces.

 

Why do we always have to follow the American model? There are other countries like Germany and Australia where health insurance is non-profit or is state-guaranteed, but instead we're going down the road where we could realistically end up having our life and death dictated by the bottom line.

[Strontium]

Why do we always have to follow the American model?

 

 

It's nothing like the American model.

[dennis tooth]

It's nothing like the American model.

 

yes it is. thanks.

[Strontium]

Thanks for that powerfully reasoned argument.

[dennis tooth]

Thanks for that powerfully reasoned argument.

 

I dont really have to do I? You keep shouting but no ones listening to your shit, you have a respect defecit mate and should make some cuts to your budget accordingly.

[Strontium]

There's only one shouter around here. I respect anyone who can demonstrate an ability to be civil in discussions, and that's not you.

[Strontium]

Fuck off and die

[dennis tooth]

There's only one shouter around here. I respect anyone who can demonstrate an ability to be civil in discussions, and that's not you.

 

you miss the point, no one pays much attention to care what you think and Im being civil about that or, putting it kindly if you will, time and again you are proven wrong so theres no need to say much more is there?

[Creator Supreme]

Fuck off and die

 

A lovely liberal reply from our resident ConDem apologist there!!

[redsoxs]

He can always blame Clegg, some suckers will lap that up anyway, me.... I've gone private over the last 10 yrs, only because its paid & off set against my income tax, the next move will be to introduce it into more employment contracts, giving corporate businesses extra tax breaks if this is offered, then in 20 yrs use it as an excuse to break up the NHS.

[silverlining]

A lovely liberal reply from our resident ConDem apologist there!!

 

He does like telling people to die or kill themselves awfully often.

 

I think he has issues.

[Strontium]

A lovely liberal reply from our resident ConDem apologist there!!

 

 

Nothing illiberal about defending oneself against aggression, especially aggression of the anonymous keyboard warrior shithouse type.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Nothing illiberal about defending oneself against aggression, especially aggression of the anonymous keyboard warrior shithouse type.

 

Wishing somebody dead is certainly illiberal.

[Strontium]

Actively killing someone would be illiberal. Passively wishing death upon them not so much.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Actively killing someone would be illiberal. Passively wishing death upon them not so much.

 

Of course it's illiberal, Stronts. Don't be a fanny. I'm guessing you don't actually want the guy to die over some shit he said on the internet, so I'm not pushing it.

 

You take things people say on here too seriously, and play the faux-offended routine, but you're more than willing to say the same things to others. And, before you say it, not always in response.

[Mr. Beast]

absolutely appalling every other part of civil society has failed to stop (or even notice) this bill - and now left with the fcking House of Lords as the only thing standing in it's way. a handful of Labour MPs have stirred a little, politely pushing for amendments but not really showing proper unmovable opposition; the unions finally woke up last week and had a fucking midnight vigil - should have been legal obstruction, civil disobedience whatever it took- pretty easy fight to win.

 

decent article here:

 

The health reform Bill moves one step closer - Telegraph

 

So there we have it. The Health and Social Care Bill has been passed by the House of Commons with a majority of 65. My heart sank when I heard the news. Without doubt, this signals the end of the NHS as we know it. I felt depressed and betrayed. I have no particular affiliation to any political party or ideological tie to the NHS. I defend the NHS because the evidence shows that it is the best system to deliver health care.

 

So I decided to vote for the Liberal Democrats in the last general election because I thought that the NHS would be safest in their hands. But I had failed to take into account the sweet allure of power, the heady top notes of which they have tasted since sipping at the poisoned chalice of coalition government.

 

Before the vote, sources close to Nick Clegg were reported as saying: “We expect MPs to vote with the government. Otherwise we won’t last very long [in power].” It was clear that voting was about power, not what was best for the people. In the end, only four Liberal Democrats were brave enough to rebel and vote against it.

 

What the vote has shown is that the many of the political elite in this country no longer care about representing the views of the people they are mandated to serve. Butworse than this Machiavellian posturing and self-interest is the misrepresentation and deceit that has been adopted in order to push these reforms through.

 

David Cameron promised no top-down reorganisation of the NHS, only to introduce a top-down reorganisation of the NHS. His Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, assured us that he would cut bureaucracy, and then proposed a bill that will see bureaucracy increase.

 

We were told they were listening to concerns and that concessions had been made, only for no meaningful changes to be proposed in the amended Bill. We have had assurances that the NHS will not be privatised, only for freedom-of-information requests to show that the Department of Health has already had talks with a German company, Helios, about taking over NHS hospitals.

 

During Prime Minister’s Question Time last week, Cameron stood up and said that the Royal College of Nurses, the Royal College of GPs and the Royal College of Physicians all supported the reforms, forcing all of them to issue statements contradicting this and expressing their concerns.

 

We are told we need reform to tackle spiralling costs. But the NHS has shown itself to be one of the cheapest health-care systems in the world. Undeterred by evidence or fact, the Government pushed forward with its rhetoric. Despite what we are being assured, a privately run but publicly funded health service is the end of the NHS. The commercial interests of the providers become paramount.

 

We have already seen what happens when we open up the NHS to the market. Private Finance Initiative (PFI) was introduced by the Labour government amid assurances that it would make services more efficient and cost effective, yet the opposite has been shown to be the case.

 

The costs of PFI contracts have crippled trusts. Official figures show that, under PFI schemes, taxpayers are committed to paying £229 billion for new hospitals, schools and other projects with a capital value of just £56 billion. Some of the private companies are due to see returns of more than 70 per cent.

 

This new Bill takes the principles of PFI and replicates them on a gargantuan scale. It takes a knife to the soft underbelly of the NHS and splays it open, disembowelling it for private companies to pick over the soft, juicy and profitable entrails. And it is we, the tax paying public, who will pay handsomely for this.

 

It will be a disaster for those with chronic, complex, debilitating conditions with no discernible end point that a price tag can be ruthlessly slapped on. For the commercial sector, these individuals are worthless, fiscally desiccated specimens out of which no profit can be squeezed. State-run services will be obliged to care for these individuals and, with no profitability attached, undermine its own position in the new market place.

 

It is worthwhile remembering that the Commonwealth Fund report last year placed the NHS top for equity, efficiency, safety, effectiveness and patient satisfaction. It was also cheaper than France, Germany and the US. That is not to say that there is not room for improvement. It seems utterly perverse, however, to open up our system to providers in other countries, such as American and German health-care companies, which, as shown by the Commonwealth Fund report, have a track record of providing a more expensive and inferior services in their own countries.

 

The Bill now passes to the House of Lords, where it will be debated. We can only hope that they have the sense and independence of mind to put the interests of the electorate first and put right this tragic wrong that has been done to our health-care system.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

 

It's nothing like the American model.

 

It is, it's all about companies monopolising the market for nothing but pure and simple capital gain. It stinks.

 

The service will only get worse, there will be sky-high charges for Joe Public while the companies will always look to have a big bottom end profit.

[Mr. Beast]

just as corrupt as well

 

http://www.lobbyingtransparency.org/images/private%20healthcare%20network_spinwatch.pdf

 

Lobbying Transparency - We’ll need to shout louder for Lansley to hear us

We’ll need to shout louder for Lansley to hear us

 

The short walk up Whitehall this weekend provided one snapshot of why hundreds of thousands of us turned up to protest.

 

Shuffling past Nick Clegg’s Cabinet Office, amidst the banners and bells, and beautifully timed to a soundtrack of Dolly Parton’s ‘Nine to Five’, I looked to the right and there they were: Clegg’s true ‘alarm clock heroes’, a group of doctors and nurses gathered outside the Department of Health. Four hours into the march and they were still loudly condemning health secretary Andrew Lansley’s plans to fling open the doors of the NHS to private healthcare companies.

 

Five minutes further up Whitehall, however, and we got a timely reminder of the government’s unwavering support for the private sector. Outside the smoked-glass windows of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (lobbyists for the big drug companies), stood an impenetrable line of police. Whether the protective shield was the idea of the ABPI or the government is irrelevant. What is clear is that the pharmaceutical industry enjoys a relationship with the government that is off limits to the public.

 

It’s not just big drug companies that enjoy close ties with our politicians. Private health companies across the board have built a dense and largely opaque network of political contacts with one aim – to influence policy in their interests. They don’t have to shout.

Take just one private healthcare company, General Healthcare Group (GHG), the UK’s largest private hospital firm. Its chair is Peter Gershon, who was appointed by David Cameron to advise the government on public sector spending cuts. GHG is up front about the ‘opportunities’ it sees from public sector reform.

 

 

GHG’s majority shareholder is Netcare, South Africa’s largest private hospital group. Netcare sees the NHS as “one of the largest and most attractive healthcare markets globally”. According to its CEO: “We have targeted the UK healthcare market for expansion, as the long-term demographic trends and prospects for development… offer significant future growth potential.”

 

Unlike the vast majority of UK healthcare professionals who are fiercely critical of Lansley’s reforms, Adrian Fawcett, CEO of GHG is optimistic about the changes: "We are entering a new, exciting era, driven by the forthcoming healthcare reform that will ultimately change, to our benefit, the landscape in which we operate.” Ka-ching!

 

As well as directly courting politicians, GHG’s lobbying campaign to usher in this lucrative dawn has involved funding the H5 Private Hospitals Alliance, a lobby group for the big 5 private hospital groups in the UK (launched in Parliament); surveying MPs on the role of private healthcare providers; hiring extra hands with lobbying agency College Hill; and funding the free market think tank, Reform.

 

GHG’s sponsorship of Reform (a £6000 annual fee plus £6000 per event it sponsors), has bought the firm influence and privileged access to politicians: a 2009 GHG-sponsored conference, for example, called ‘The Future of Health’ saw Fawcett share a platform with Lansley and other key health politicians.

 

This complex web of influence has been constructed by private healthcare to get the reforms it wants. Follow any other thread and you’ll find similar:

 

Before joining the think tank, Reform’s deputy director, Nick Seddon, was head of communications at private hospital firm, Circle, which at the end of last year became the first private contractor to take over the running of a whole NHS hospital. Circle replaced him with Christina Lineen, a former aide to Andrew Lansley.

 

Reform supports the pro-market lobby group Doctors for Reform, headed by Dr Paul Charlson, a GP but one that runs a private clinic specializing in anti-aging treatments. Charlson is also chair of the Conservative Medical Society, which is affiliated to the National Union of the Conservative Party, and a director at pro-market think tank 2020health. Its chairman is former Tory health minister Tom Sackville, who is also the chief executive of a global network of private health insurers.

 

It goes on and on (see this Private Healthcare Lobbying Network for more).

 

For the nurses out protesting on Saturday, getting their voices heard above the roar of the crowd is nothing compared to shouting above the legions of lobbyists surrounding Lansley.

 

We know who currently has his ear.

 

The ‘lobbying network’ above features in a new book The Plot Against the NHS by Colin Leys and Stewart Player, published by The Merlin Press on April 14th.

 

Take a short tour of some of the private healthcare companies, as well as lobbyists they hire and think tanks they fund, which are pushing for reform of the NHS.