Apparently if the NHS is privatised we wont have to pay for medicine.

[malificent7]

So says my Tory dad. Is he right?

Many NHS hospitals in Kent are already run by a private healthcare company - Richard Branson' Virgin. They put in reasonable prices in their tender. The minute they can they will raise the cost of running the contract. The same as every other industry that has been privatised over the years. Our local schools catering was awarded to an outside company as they could provide it cheaper than employing school cooksetc. The minute they could they raised the prices.

Like the FACT that most GP surgeries are private businesses with the partner GP's being profit-sharing partners?

Or the FACT that most opticians and pharmacies and dentists are private businesses?

All these kinds of business provide free NHS services using a privatisation model

Exactly.

Indeed. GPs have always been self employed private businesses. It was the only basis on which doctors were prepared to join the NHS in 1948.

And this is where this thread needs this link - Commonwealth Fund (American think tank) take one comparing different healthcare systems.

Most people in the general public do not realise that GPs are self-employed. However, most GPs have one client: the NHS. GPs have most of the usual downsides of being self-employed with none of the freedoms. Also, if a GP works harder i.e. sees more patients, they don't get correspondingly paid more (we have 1500 more patients than we had 18 months ago and were paid 15k less in the lats year). There is NO contract at the moment, nobody knows what the future will bring.

I, for one, totally understand why young doctors don't want to enter Primary Care in the UK.
We have 18 training posts in my county and last year had 5 applicants on those 18 places

And yet, I love my job - hate the politics, love the doctoring.

There is widespread concern in central bank circles about the soundness of a great many very large banks in other countries, including Germany, France and Italy. If you ever read the business pages of the broadsheet newspapers (even those that are now in tabloid format).

Ballooning PFI payments are taking a huge chunk of NHS funding which is not going into front line services. But it was the Blair/Brown governments that were irresponsible enough to resort to off-balance sheet financing.

"Squishy around 75% of all GP and A&E visits are unnecessary and the condition will go away on its own accord. "

This happens anyway here. The ER can't turn you away because of your inability to pay, but regular doctors can, so people go to the ER because they have something minor wrong with them (e.g. headache) and it costs them money to go to the equivalent of a GP.

trust me, it is way crap here.

Anyone who supports the NHS privatisation is more than welcome to the world of the Irish healthcare system.

Amen.

Allow the Tories to sell the NHS off to their American pals and you will soon come to regret it.

OCSock excellent post.

The PFI scandal under the last Labour government is an absolute disgrace and no one seems to care. Barts NHS trust is drowning in debt thanks to the PFI put in place by labour.

Swindon hospital PFI put in place by Labour in 1999 awarded a 30 year contract worth £10 million a year to a private company, with a break out clause no sooner than 2018. The services have deprecated year on year, the situation is so dire the hospital trust even hired lawyers to see if they could terminate services sooner but couldn't.

PFI was created by the Tory John Major government but it was the last Labour government that put in place the large majority of the private financing contracts.

This off balance sheet spending by the last Labour Party is continuing to cripple us and none of the major political parties (or their voters, or the unions) are mentioning it or taking steps to address it.

I think the idea is that private companies will provide healthcare services for the state. They will compete to win these lucrative contacts and services will improve. In the way that Virgin Healthcare provide a lot of services in my area. Or your bin men are probably from a private company.

I personally believe that this will increase the tax bill rather than decrease it and in order to make a profit some things might be charged for and services are unlikely to improve.

Hands of the NHS Tory/DUP Coalition!

Yes people forget all those private PFI contracts the Labour Government got us into. The NHS is at least a lot safer now the Tories continue in power.

Yes something akin to 90% of PFI's (which the government loses a huge amount of money every year) were entered into by Labour! A fact everyone conveniently forgets. PFI's are a huge loss maker, they were supposed to be used as a way to spread cost but were completely overused by Labour shunting costs into future years and hugely increasing overall cost of projects. However using private firms to deliver some services can provide competition and improved service. No one is suggesting we pay for private health care in the way that America does, merely use private firms to provide some of the services provided by the current NHS paid for by taxes as the current NHS is.