Will the NHS be privatised?

[JBrew84]

Chatting to DH - he seems to think it's inevitable that the NHS will be privatised, he thinks gradually over the next 20-30 yrs we'll end up with pretty much fully private health service apart from the most basic things, even under Labour - already looks like it could have started with talk of government making people pay for GP appointments in the future. Anyone else find this really depressing? I love our NHS and it all going private is my worst nightmare...

Why should you assume America would be the template rather than elsewhere?

Because privatisation is already happening & the things aren't improving. I think outcomes will be money & profit driven

@smizing

Part of me wish it was privatized. I mean what are we even paying NI for?

NI doesn't pay for the NHS, it goes into the NI fund it. NHS comes out of general taxation. NI covers contributory benefits such as pension

@PennyForearm
You are paying NI for the state pension not the NHS.

Well Labour is very likely to win the next GE as I'm sure you know, and yet you think they'll merrily adopt the nuclear solution?

How odd.

@BMW6 I don't think they will win...

It will hopefully go the same way the healthcare system does in France, Italy, Germany etc where it works very nicely. The hard left like to scaremonger that the only 2 choices we have, are a US type private healthcare system or a completely free at point of source NHS. Neither of which are good.

There are numerous and many options in between these 2 scenarios.

Because it’s what the Tories want. And because the “do nothing” option gets them there. Gradually those of us who can afford to and who do not have pre-existing conditions will take out private health insurance, and the NHS becomes Medicare.

It'll most probably be the US system as that's the one that allows greedy shareholders to make the most amount of profit. Think Facebook and social media have commodified your data? Just wait until the private healthcare companies get their mitts on it....

Plus our current "leaders" loathe pretty much anything that comes out of Europe, ideology wise. Yes, it would be great if we were going to follow the French or German system.

But if that actually happens I'll willingly walk into a Tory club.....

We’re living in little America, where everything is for sale. It will be sold, along with us, yes.

The inequality levels we currently have are going to explode.

Such a load of student common room utter bollox being spouted on here 🙄🙄

And you know this how?

The NHS gets quite a bit more money, in real terms, than a decade ago. There are also now a lot more staff in hospitals than a few years ago. It hasn’t improved performance. That is probably partly because the population gets older and older so needs more and more health care. But it’s just not true that the tories have given it less money.
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-budget

The government who did the biggest switch to private providers was Labour before 2010 because they thought it would improve performance.
https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2006/feb/16/health.politics

Thanks for all the messages! A few thoughts -

I do agree it definitely needs to change - I understand the point about bringing in private sector companies as providers but the service still being free at the point of use as this basically happens already. One of my worries is who exactly we're outsourcing this sort of stuff to... For example this recent article about patient data being shared with a 'US spy firm' is quite worrying and it does just feel like the desperate need for change might mean some shady deals that require a bit more scrutiny will go under the radar!

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nhs-tells-hospitals-to-share-medical-records-with-us-spy-tech-company-qhs3397ft