//The blue brexit buss - "We'll send Trump £500 Million a week. Let's fund US drug firms, not our NHS".//
//I mean.. he is the leader of the labour party i'm sure he'd be aware of such events rather than the average joe sat at home.//
Ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaa! (NJ pops up to the hospital – NHS, natch - to have some stitches inserted into his split sides).
If you object to the “privatisation” of the NHS, you may like to consider this:
- The majority of GPs are private contractors and not employed by the NHS. They have been ever since the NHS was formed in 1948.
- Likewise, dentists who undertake NHS work.
- Pharmacists who fulfil NHS prescriptions are private contractors. They always have been. There are no NHS dispensaries apart from within NHS hospitals.
- Where I live (and no doubt elsewhere) there operates a private physiotherapy service. You can either be referred there by your doctor or you can "self-refer" for a consultation. There is no charge. The costs are met by the NHS. It is a tuppeny bus ride from where I live and you can usually get an appointment within a couple of days.
By contrast there is only one NHS provided physiotherapy facility and that is eleven miles away (two buses and a train) and an appointment takes at least eight weeks (by which time whatever you're suffering from has either got better or (more probably) considerably worsened.
- The "Private Finance Initiative” (PFI) is a way to get private investors to fund public infrastructure (like hospitals). It was introduced in 1992 by the Major government. It was widely criticised by Labour as “back door privatisation” and because of that controversy its use was limited. Fast forward to the Blair government and PFI expanded considerably under the NHS (Private Finance) Act 1997. When challenged about its increasing use the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown could not provide a rationale for PFI other than to "declare repeatedly that the public sector is bad at management, and that only the private sector is efficient and can manage services well.”
- In 2003 the (Labour) government commissioned around 35 new 'independent sector treatment centres' (ISTCs), with the aim of helping the NHS to reduce waiting times for hip and knee surgery, cataract operations and other procedures. These treatment centres are owned and operated by private companies but are contracted to provide services exclusively to NHS patients. Mrs NJ had a procedure carried out under this scheme and it was truly excellent. A private room, a sandwich and tea for me whilst I waited for her to return from the theatre.
- Many Pathology and phlebotomy facilities used by the NHS are run privately.
The NHS buys its drugs from the UK, the EU and the rest of the world. A UK:US trade deal would not prevent that, though it may make it more advantageous for US products to be considered. To suggest that all private involvement in the NHS must be resisted as a matter of dogma is clearly ridiculous. The NHS does some very good work. But overall it is inefficient, top heavy with management and bean counters and is past its sell by date. It requires urgent reform and a move away from the monolithic monster it has become. The government could devote all the State's entire spending to it and the extra funds would simply be consumed by bureaucracy. Private providers are the way forward.
As I said in a question a couple of weeks’ ago, the NHS is not the envy of the world. It is only UK ideologues who tell the rest of the world that it is and they try to persuade us likewise.