Hancock resigns

[Buttonupbitches]

Good, why has it taken this long.

Have they said they want to sell it off though? I think it would be too unpopular to do even if they wanted to

They’ve been doing it by stealth since 2013. Huge swathes of the NHS are now in the hands of private providers like Gina Coladangelo’s brother’s company.

Imagine if the whistleblower reported it internally upwards to Boris, I think that would raise a laugh at no 10

Exactly - it would have hot nowhere! The whistleblower would have been found a job cleaning toilets in a Govt building somewhere and the Cock would have been slapped on the back by his laughing Tory mates for being a bit of a norty boy.

Have they said they want to sell it off though? I think it would be too unpopular to do even if they wanted to.

No they know damn well that if they actually said they would sell it off it would be a complete vote loser. Hence the privatisation by stealth. So much badged as NHS isn't now. There are the GP practices in London sold off to an American firm, as one example.

I think the NHS does need reform, but I would want to see it done after a full investigation of what the public think they want, what they are prepared to pay for, and an examination of how other countries finance their health systems. Not just selling off chunks to American firms. The American system is the last one we want to emulate.

Ask Rebecca Wade, ex editor of the Sun, about paying for information from people involved in the justice system. Or the Daniel Morgan family. Colin Stagg. Christopher Jefferies. Molly Dowlers family. News of the World and Sun were full of info straight from the police. You are extremely naive or have another agenda.

@Blossomtoes

Have they said they want to sell it off though? I think it would be too unpopular to do even if they wanted to

They’ve been doing it by stealth since 2013. Huge swathes of the NHS are now in the hands of private providers like Gina Coladangelo’s brother’s company.

It started long before 2013.

It was definitely a feature of the Blair and Brown governments.

It started long before 2013

The legal obligation to tender all clinical services was enshrined in the Lansley Health and Social Care Act which was passed in 2012 and came into force in April 2013. There may have been ad hoc privatisation before - not PFI, that’s something different - but it wasn’t a legal obligation.

It's even worse in a way if there was no legal obligation...but Blair and Brown did it anyway.

This isn't a one party issue. Both sides (and the Lib Dems, from their coalition days) embraced and encouraged various forms of it.

PFI is related. A massive financial burden for the NHS.

Agree with pp we definitely don't need an American model.

My own preference would be a German or Scandinavian model. The higher taxes would be very well worth it.

Give me some examples - not PFI - of the Blair/Brown governments hiving off NHS clinical services to the private sector. Support services started to be put out to tender under Thatcher but not clinical ones.

PFI was a good idea in principle. It should have been like taking out a mortgage. It fell down because the NHS had no experience of contract negotiation and was too arrogant to buy it in. The contract providers saw them coming and ran rings round them.

PFI was an absolutely terrible idea. It was so obvious what would happen.

It was a good idea appallingly executed. As always, the devil was in the detail.

Cameron once described himself as the heir to Blair, didn't he?

www.theguardian.com/society/2006/feb/16/health.politics

Tony Blair today welcomed 11 private healthcare providers into the "NHS family", as he promised them the chance to gain a stronger foothold in the NHS.

By 2008 we could have as much as 40% of acute operations done in the private sector being done under the NHS banner," he told health bosses.

Mr Blair's praise for the private sector came as he and the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, held a Downing Street summit with the newly launched NHS Partners Network, a loose alliance of private sector and not-for-profit healthcare companies delivering the first wave of independent sector treatment centres (ISTCs).

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9731053/Matt-Hancock-Tories-refused-break-sweat-defence-sheer-hypocrisy.html

@Blossomtoes. Give me some examples - not PFI - of the Blair/Brown governments hiving off NHS clinical services to the private sector.

Hiving off NHS cataract surgery to private healthcare providers is one. Still going on with providers such as Spire and Spa Medica.

The resignation was inevitable but he should have been sacked for incompetence and all the sleaze surrounding awarding PPE contracts not preparing for a pandemic that was just around the corner . Allowing covid patients to be sent back to nursing homes .the way thus government has performed is atrocious ..yet distractions fall in the guise of PM having baby getting married and hancock having a sleazy affair . I think Hancock said he was working hard fighting the pandemic obviously not that hard

@Blossomtoes

Have they said they want to sell it off though? I think it would be too unpopular to do even if they wanted to

They’ve been doing it by stealth since 2013. Huge swathes of the NHS are now in the hands of private providers like Gina Coladangelo’s brother’s company.

"privatisation" happened right at the start of the founding of the NHS.

Most GP practices have always been private businesses. More latterly, most dental surgeries, opticians, etc providing NHS services have been private businesses.

[quote pam290358]**@Blossomtoes*. Give me some examples - not PFI - of the Blair/Brown governments hiving off NHS clinical services to the private sector. *

Hiving off NHS cataract surgery to private healthcare providers is one. Still going on with providers such as Spire and Spa Medica.[/quote]
They certainly successfully "hived off" some hearing aid services to Specsavers. I used to get mine from the NHS which took months and multiple appointments. The last couple of times, I've got my NHS hearing aids from Specsavers - no long waiting lists, quick and efficient "one appointment" system for hearing tests, consultation, etc. It just shows how inefficient and slow the "old" NHS system was for getting hearing aids when you had to go to your nearest audiology dept in a hospital.

@Tealightsandd

PFI was an absolutely terrible idea. It was so obvious what would happen.

No, the idea was good. The problem was incompetent NHS managers "negotiating" the contracts that they weren't capable of understanding.

Exactly @Badbadbunny. I’m a very sad person because I thought about how it should have been done last night. If they’d set up a shit hot central PFI contracts unit, staffed with the very best lawyers and supply chain experts to negotiate all PFI contracts, it would have been done properly and represented value for money. As it was it was amateur hour in all the organisations that had PFI projects and they paid £££ for incompetent private sector lawyers.

@Blossomtoes

Exactly *@Badbadbunny*. I’m a very sad person because I thought about how it should have been done last night. If they’d set up a shit hot central PFI contracts unit, staffed with the very best lawyers and supply chain experts to negotiate all PFI contracts, it would have been done properly and represented value for money. As it was it was amateur hour in all the organisations that had PFI projects and they paid £££ for incompetent private sector lawyers.

Yes, I agree. Given the sheer scale of the PFI contracts, there should have been experts involved at all stages. It would have saved a fortune in the long run for a dedicated team of top lawyers/negotiators to have been hired to do the deals properly. But then again, all the politicians wanted at the time were "shiny new hospitals" that made them look good on TV when they opened them. As usual, they didn't think beyond their term in office.

@Blossomtoes

Exactly *@Badbadbunny*. I’m a very sad person because I thought about how it should have been done last night. If they’d set up a shit hot central PFI contracts unit, staffed with the very best lawyers and supply chain experts to negotiate all PFI contracts, it would have been done properly and represented value for money. As it was it was amateur hour in all the organisations that had PFI projects and they paid £££ for incompetent private sector lawyers.

You will find that millions was spaffed on consultants about PFI contracts from the big 4 accountancy firms. But then like the current government all such consultants are interested in is enriching themselves.

I know that @jgw1. The point I was making was that if the government had directly employed and incentivised those experts to negotiate best value for money contracts (without cutting corners), PFI could have been a real success story instead of bonanza time at the taxpayers’ expense.

But this is all to do with the Public Sector bad, Private Sector good mantra. Without examining which bits of the Public sector are good, and turning a blind eye to bad parts of the private sector.

You only have to look at his boss Boris to see where he gets his morals from.

@Peregrina

But this is all to do with the Public Sector bad, Private Sector good mantra. Without examining which bits of the Public sector are good, and turning a blind eye to bad parts of the private sector.

This. In great big bucketfuls.

One thing that is coming out of this all is how self assured and full of himself Dominic Cummings is.

Tweeting about how he tricked the PM into sacking Sajid and how Carrie has employed him.

I think this government are a bunch of lying pricks but D.C. isn't the better person he claims he is.