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Original poster

“The NHS will be shown no mercy" says Cameron health adviser

30 replies

ttosca · 13/05/2011 14:37

Tamasin Cave

9 May 2011

'GPs won't have to turn to the private sector' to help with commissioning health services, said Andrew Lansley today in the Commons, trying to fend off accusations that the Tories are privatising the NHS with their reforms.

?The House knows my commitment to the NHS," he continued. ?I haven?t spent seven and a half years as shadow secretary and secretary of state to see the NHS undermined, or fragmented or privatised... That was never my intention. It is not my intention.?

Privatisation was ?never his intention?? Someone should tell that to Mark Britnell, a former high-flyer in the Department of Health, now global head of health at KPMG, and recent appointee to David Cameron?s ?kitchen cabinet? of health experts to advise on health service reform.

Just six months ago, Britnell told a conference of private healthcare executives1: ?In future, the NHS will be a state insurance provider not a state deliverer.?

In case there was any ambiguity in that, Britnell explained to conference delegates (in a session called 'Reform Revolution'):

?The NHS will be shown no mercy and the best time to take advantage of this will be in the next couple of years."

How could Britnell, who made it into the top ten of the ?100 most influential people in health ? last year - as well as into No.10 - have got Lansley so wrong?

(Ref 1: Mark Britnell was speaking at a conference in October 2010 organised by private equity firm, Apax Partners. Read the conference brochure, and his quote, here.

www.spinwatch.org/blogs-mainmenu-29/310-tamasin-cave/5435-the-nhs-will-be-shown-no-mercyq-says-cameron-health-adviser

OP posts:
Original poster
ttosca · 17/05/2011 01:07

Vienetta-

Peaceful protest doesn't work in this country - at least not marching from A to B. Yes, the Iraq war taught us that much.

What we need are mass strikes and direct action. Unfortunately our democracy has failed. The only thing which works are methods which put throw a spanner in the system.

OP posts:
VforViennetta · 16/05/2011 03:36

Iraq war?, didn't a million turn out then?

I don't think peaceful protest works in this country. It could work, in inventive ways, but too many people are brainwashed/narrow minded, they believe the whole Labour/Tory bullshit, immigration, dole scroungers shite.

Original poster
ttosca · 16/05/2011 03:26

The only way things are going to get better, Viennetta, is if people turn out into the streets in the hundreds of thousands or millions, and demand that things change.

OP posts:
VforViennetta · 16/05/2011 01:31

Scary, I'm not against reform of the NHS if it is done in a sensible and considered manner, for example looking at the systems which work most efficiently/deliver the best results in other countries.

But no, just ill thought out profiteering, what else can we expect, as someone more witty than me said "Socialism for the rich, Capitalism for the poor".

I am actually really worried about the future, I do not see any rays of light on the horizon, I can't see how anything is going to get better for a fairly long time.

newwave · 15/05/2011 23:11

I also read that in the Observer, blows apart any Tory bullshit about "The NHS is safe in our hands" far from it, it seems.

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