NHS cuts

Yes, Mellowfruit, I agree and worst of all, I think taxpayers money will be used to effectively subsidize these companies !!

Celibin, I just don't think there should be any competition at all between providers of healthcare. I don't see it as a marketplace. As soon as someone starts thinking that they might be able to make a profit out of providing some health treatment/op etc, their main priority has to be to make that profit, and not to provide the healthcare, imo. Their loyalties have to be to the shareholders first and then to the patient.

And it's scary how many vested interests there are (see above).

Mellowfrutfulness: v perceptive comments by yourselves and others. I know people who worked so hard to build our NHS but it has already gone.Many no longer wish to work in unsafe conditions and so many medics haveemigrated. Change is of course inevitable but do people realise what it will be like to live in a US style health system? The Germans did it quite well: (though there are problems lawsuits etc) I mean did well in the sense of the provision of quality care for their people: medics are well-paid so attractive job but main provision is by Not-For -Profit so there is gentle competition.

Sorry, HHLimbo, I don't know, but I think Margaret answered your question.

Celibin, I wish the government looked at the health care systems in other countries and learned from them. I've often wondered why, when there is a system that is working really well somewhere, it's not copied here. But I think the answer is that the government really wants to hand over the NHS to private providers, to the people who support them. No other explanation makes sense. The NHS is a millstone round successive governments' necks, and this lot want rid. But they want rid in a way that allows them to profit from it (indirectly or directly) while not being accountable to the electorate when things go wrong.

If I thought having private providers might be good for the NHS, it wouldn't bother me, but for all the reasons mentioned by people on this thread and others, I think it would be absolutely disastrous.

Yes, that it what they do. Save a bit at first but in the long run it costs more. Here they sold off the land occupied by a convalescent hospital to a housing co who made a nice profit. Consequently the general hospital, which was designed for ACUTE patient care, ended up bed blocked as there was nowhere to put the largely elderly patients who just needed low-grade nursing once their acute condition had been managed. Operations for other people were delayed and the highly specialised nurses(who cost a lot) became Geriatric nurses for which they were not trained. Cost much more in the end but NHs management was not thinking long term.

Germany placed on-going health care to Not-For-Profit-Companies years ago. For any chronic/pre-existing conditions you automatically see a Speciialist - like going to a dentist in the UK. They are v thorough and the battle against cancer started 30 years ago. We are so behind and we have not adapted . e.g only 1st babies need to be born in hospital : most can be born at home with midwives. We have enough hospitals in most areas to deal quickly with emergencies if one occurs.

Mellowfruitfulness, I have experience of 4 other comparable countries' health services both as a patient and seeing others who were patients. When I came back to the UK I realised things were sliding . One factor seems to be they have abandoned the GP system whereas we have just given them more power/money . Quicker access to a Specialist saves lives . I could expand here if required. You would be quite shocked if you knew the detail.

It isn't about the costs, it's about bringing in a "managed" marketplace. The government's "reforms" will dismantle the NHS if they go through. For instance, they are removing the cap on the amount of money that hospitals can make out of private patients (at the moment it's usually around 1 - 2 %), which means that if your local hospital starts to run into difficulties financially, they might decide to increase the number of private patients they see (theoretically, they could treat ONLY private patients), and there would be nothing you or your MP could do about it.
The Public Accounts Committee published a report this week showing a great deal of concern about the lack of contingency planning - i.e. what happens if your local hospital starts to fail financially.
The other thing that is likely to happen is that hospitals will focus on "easier" treatments that they can make money out of, leaving complex cases (with no one with the responsibility to tend to these patients). I was talking to someone last night who explained how treating children with heart conditions is so much more expensive than treating adults. Under the new arrangements, a hospital could just decide to focus on adults because the "market" is better for that. Do not be fooled by this government. If they have their way, we will lose our National Health Service. I for one can't afford private health insurance. Take a look at www.nhscampaign.org/ to find out more, and make sure you email your MP and ask them to oppose the Health and Social Care bill.

Excellent! yes, it's really important that people write to/email their MP and ask them to oppose the Health and Social Care bill if they don't want to see the NHS privatised. That's what this bill is all about, and I for one can't afford private health insurance. I think anyone with children or dependants should be especially worried because if you do have to buy health insurance, the costs are high (and if you get very ill, you may not be covered). The government has "paused" the process, which means that there is still time to stop this going through. Better still, ring your MP's office - you can put your postcode in to get their details on www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/
Arrange to go and see your MP and ask them to oppose it. There's lots of information on the website of the NHS Support Federation which you can print off and take with you www.nhscampaign.org/
They are campaigning against this bill, alongside many many others. It is so important to stop this bill. If we lose the NHS, we will never get it back.

When is the vote Mellow? Is there somewhere to find out?

Celibin, what do you mean, overtaken us in the health stakes? Do you mean that other countries manage to make health care provision more profitable? Or provide better health care for patients? What should be the priority of the NHS?

They have been cutting NHS by stealth for the last 20 years.Locally it is quite clear medics have a monopoly :the same people do the medicine whether you pay or not so there is no competition HERE.We need to look at why other similar countries have overtaken us in the health stakes .... UK appears to see cutting/privatisation as the solution: others have just adapted their ways .NHS should bite the bullet and change: hard as it is.

It's a real eye opener, isn't it, Mellow.

Thank you for the link, Cate. Here's a flavour of what they say:

'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.? '

Really makes me angry. How dare these people - whether British or not - try to make a profit from us when we're ill.

@ Mellowfruitfulness :"I have already received an answer from my MP, who is totally against the NHS cuts, and calls it 'privatisation through the back door'. He says American companies are just waiting to buy up current providers, etc."

There's info here, for anyone who's interested, on the links between the Government and private healthcare and pharmaceutical companies:

www.lobbyingtransparency.org/content/view/59/1/

The NHS is like the story of the elephant and the six blind men. We each see only the parts of it that affect us or the people we know, and I have no idea what to think when I hear some of the horror stories. Our experiences have all been positive for the last fifty years, at least, in England and in Scotland. In that time my extended family have had road accidents, babies, broken limbs, cancer, strokes etc - all expertly dealt with. For free. I don't know anyone who has any complaints, I honestly don't.

Whether you like it or loathe it, though, the government is trying to force through changes that will make it a lot worse, imo.

"This at a time when patient satisfaction with the NHS is at record levels ..."

Where? In the last few months we've had some terrible stories doing the rounds about the NHS. MN boards are littered with people who have had bad experiences with GPs and hospitals. In my own family, two members have been left dangerously ill because of NHS failings. And a friend, having been newly diagnosed with diabetes, was then left to flounder by herself, unmonitored with inappropriate medication, and ended up in hospital on the verge of organ failure.

Patient satisfaction is patchy at best with the NHS because patients have very little power and say in the process. If there was a real alternative to the NHS (beyond private healthcare which many can't afford), I think we'd find out how dissatisfied people were. As it is, we have Hobson's Choice, health providers take advantage of their monopoly status and we are stuck with making the best of a bad job.

Well Labour brought in al ot of market reforms to the NHS, set up those trusts and let GPs offer services from their practices previously provided by hospitals.

Not sure if anyone is reading this any more, but for the record, the Labour MP I emailed said: ?By handing over £80bn of the NHS budget to GPs there is an effective privatisation of the service. There is already evidence that major US medical conglomerates are looking to purchase packages of local GP practices in order to get control of significant sums of public funds in order to commission health services. This is the unintended consequence of using the visualisation of a popular local GP commissioning services on the behalf of the local community, when, in actual fact, large multi-national medical profiteers will control our NHS. The Shadow Health Secretary hit the nail on the head when he described this policy as ?ripping the National out of the National Health Service?.

This at a time when patient satisfaction with the NHS is at record levels but I am concerned that as a result of the Government?s reforms and their £3 billion reorganisation of the NHS, services will suffer and become less, rather than more patient-centred'.

Now I shall have to name-change ...

I have already received an answer from my MP, who is totally against the NHS cuts, and calls it 'privatisation through the back door'. He says American companies are just waiting to buy up current providers, etc.

I've asked him if I can quote from his email here.

Chubsasaurus, sorry if my post was the last thing you wanted to see after a long day. But I had already sent it when I wrote about it on here.

Clearly people do need to be able to write to MPs, and even though I didn't phrase the email myself, it said what I wanted to say. OK, it's less effort for me, but it's just as strongly felt as if I had spent 6 hours on it. Why would it have meant less work for you if I had written it myself, btw? Surely if lots of people send in the same email, you can write one standard response?

Also, the 38 degrees campaign is run by people who are doing something to change things they feel really strongly about, probably for no money and in their own time. I know political activists also stay up till the wee small hours - unpaid - and their campaigns are a great way to get people involved, imo, even if in a small way.

But getting home at 10.15 is no life for you. I hope you're taking some time off after the elections?

Oh, and if you are working for my MP, don't out me on here when you get my email!

Glad to know someone is taking notice of these letters and as much as I have sympathy for your plight, I'm afraid the issues around this bill take precendence over your own issues with having to work overtime. I know for a fact that MPs total the number of letters they receive on a topic, and they get frustrated if they don't get as many letters about the NHS as they do about forests. I hope you are being paid extra for all your hard work, may I suggest you get some shut eye now.