To be worried for the NHS after reading this?

[hoomans]

A new 184 bed private hospital due to open next year being built by a large American healthcare company that is planning to offer consultants fixed salaries to incentivise them to move over. Aibu to be worried about the future of the NHS if staff are being poached when we already desperately struggle to recruit staff anyway? Is this the start of a two tier healthcare system in England? I can't help but think that this is the governments long term plan to Americanise the healthcare system otherwise surely they would be trying to block its opening to protect the NHS? www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/us-hospital-cleveland-clinic-london-nhs-doctors-private-sector-b924181.html%3famp

Well...duh.
The tories are on record stating they want to privatise the NHS.
Are you really surprised or have you lived in a cave since 2010???

No, I wouldn't be worried. The vast majority of private doctors also hold NHS positions. Those that have applied have done so on part-time roles according to that article.

This is nothing new.

This is hardly the first instance of ‘private’ services in the UK. Many consultants work privately as well as for the NHS, GPs are stand-alone businesses, the NHS contracts services from many private companies, almost all care homes and care agencies are privately run.

We need to differentiate between the NHS buying in services from commercial organisations, and people having to pay for services that have previously been free. Both are happening but to me the only one that matters is the latter. And there is going to be a lot more of it in the years to come.

@PuffinMcHuffin

No, I wouldn't be worried. The vast majority of private doctors also hold NHS positions. Those that have applied have done so on part-time roles according to that article.

This is nothing new.

This is true, there is a market for private medical treatment too.

@Mrs08 you should probably do some background reading. Tony Blair started talking privatisation waaaaay back in 1997.

I'm concerned because it is an American company now muscling in on the healthcare market in the UK and the American healthcare system terrifies me.

Knowing first hand how (greedy) private hospitals work, for the 184 patients there will only be 10 staff. So you can relax op, it will not collapse the NHS!

[quote PuffinMcHuffin]@Mrs08 you should probably do some background reading. Tony Blair started talking privatisation waaaaay back in 1997.[/quote]
PFI?
Not quite the same us it?

Watch those drug prices go up!

Just because they are American doesn't mean they will run their business. I saw somewhere (a year round so ago) that something like 1 in 10 UK mental health news was operated by US firms so not exactly a new trend.

Private health care has existed in this country as far back as when the NHS was created. We have always have both (We always as in since the NHS was around)

I accept there is a place for private healthcare alongside the NHS but I'm worried about American involvement in the English healthcare system.

I have heard some horror stories about private hospitals, the American healthcare system focuses on costly surgeries for maximum profit, not the grind of public health.

So if you want to pay premium for a knee or hip replacement, but your treatment based on profit margin rather than need - what's not to love!

It's just another private hospital being built, it's hardly new, there are over 500 private hospitals many of them owned by groups some of the US based.

Big healthcare are companies like United Health and Aetna have been sniffing around for a very long time.

The biggest provider of private healthcare in the U.K. currently is Circle/BMI They have the largest NHS contracts and are Chinese owned.

That is potentially going to change when Ramsay take over Spire (assuming monopolies agree). They are looking to expand and are American/Canadian.

Independent healthcare creams off the most lucrative parts of NHS work for profit already. Dido Harding and Hopeless will encourage a greater move towards independent healthcare undermining the NHS.

The exception is Virgin who, despite being a global umbrella brand, provide NHS care through a U.K. company and do not currently make a profit - in fact, they subsidise the care they deliver.

The private sector is well known for recommending treatment or investigation which possibly isn't required (upselling). Whilst lowering the threshold for this seems harmless it encourages people to feel it was and then NHS is considered negligent for not offering the same. Unnecessary investigations can cause complications as well including low level radiation doses. That's my main issue with private medicine

Two types of private healthcare....companies who deliver NHS paid for care... and companies who get direct payment from patients. The former will ration healthcare because it costs them and the second will upsell

I don't know, something needs to happen.

@hoomans there is already American companies within the NHS though, it's nothing new. This has been discussed for months recently (thinking of AT Medics take over which hit the news specifically).

The NHS is largely broken beyond belief. I support a degree of privatisation as things absoutely cannot carry on like they are. Many countries have half private (considerably better than our private) and half state funded and it works extremely well, but an American company doing this? Horrifying.

@Miiaaoow

The NHS is largely broken beyond belief. I support a degree of privatisation as things absoutely cannot carry on like they are. Many countries have half private (considerably better than our private) and half state funded and it works extremely well, but an American company doing this? Horrifying.

Which country does that on the same money?

I work for a private healthcare company and this is nothing new. Many of my colleagues work both NHS and private sector and have done so for many years. Personally I don't think the NHS will ever get privatised but it definitely needs to be run more efficiently.

It’s disgusting. I am sickened that anybody who claims to care about the NHS could be so thick as to vote this part in to power continuously. They are charlatans who care about nothing but lining their pockets and the pockets of their friends. It’s already started with GP practices, it’s just creeping privatisation.

The NHS is ours, it is not (or should not ) be for sale. Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove to name 2 off the top of my head are all for privatisation and I’m sure they’re all set to profit.

@hoomans

I accept there is a place for private healthcare alongside the NHS but I'm worried about American involvement in the English healthcare system.

You've really bought into the leftie scaremongering