Tories aren’t even bothering to hide their NHS privatisation plan anymore

[Letshaveablackcelebration2022]

I think it was possible Noam Chomsky who said that the route to all privatisation of services was that first they run it totally into the ground and then they offer up a private model as a solution . It’s actually tedious in its predictability. Pillaging everything good from the country- Royal Mail, water, utilities, rail network, even housing via private landlords - everything to make profit.

And of course as predicted, the NHS was the final prize.

Why?

It makes sense to use slack in the private sector to bring down waiting lists. 10bn over four years is peanuts compared to 800 billion allocated to the NHS.

What I do think is tricky is outright privatisation that happened to British Rail. Trains are now cleaner and staff less surly but services are no more efficient.

The railways are a shining example for the importance of a mixed economy with profitable bits subsidising more expensive life enhancing bits. A parallel could be stem subsidising the Arts.

Unfortunately, there's a significant portion of UK voters who are single issue voters and will make their voting decision not based on whoever whistles the loudest about their trigger issue.

Illegal immigration is a great example of this. This problem exists solely because the tories have underfunded the service and refused to establish any legal/safe routes into the country.

Yet because they make the "right" noises about stopping Illegal migration many will vote for the tories yet again, regardless of their record on the issue. The issues with the NHS are similarly draped in tory undermining, mismanagement and underfunding.

It's like employing a cowboy builder to renovate your home, bringing him back again to fix the mess he made the first time because he gave the cheapest quote , and then being surprised the mess hasn't been fixed again.

This isn’t confined to Tories though Streeting / Labour said the same

My DM had been having her cataracts assessed every six months. In the autumn she was told that she was now at the stage that she needed to have the op, and that it would be at least one year before she could have it done on the NHS. A year!

She could afford to have it done privately - and if she couldn’t then we would have needed to find the money somehow as she lives in a rural area with no public transport, and has for the past few months been unable to drive when it’s dark or when the sun is low in the sky.

As per a pp’s comment - the private eye clinic was run like a military operation. Extremely efficient, quick, good communication. Procedure early on a weekend morning, check-up early evening, presumably because the surgeon is working in the NHS the rest of the time. I saw an interview just the other day with a man who does similar private/NHS split and he says he can do so many more procedures privately than on NHS because less time wasted.

The NHS is too big, too inefficient and manages to be both desperate because staff are struggling, and complacent, because the politicians and the public have put it on a pedestal and don’t want change!

My Nan phoned this morning to say she’s been told she needs a hip replacement, and has booked herself in to have it done privately. She’s going to use her savings, because ‘in my 80s, what else are they there for?’

I wish more people had this attitude rather than just seeing it as the state’s job to provide everything for free, 100% of the time.

Well I used it extensively as a student in the late 70s and had no complaints. Jimmy Saville and Gary Glitter made sure I used my railcard to good effect.

No reluctance at all

I’d look at social care as a priority and population health / personal responsibility

I think that's too simplistic when you take into account socioeconomic factors.

I favour a European model but not sure how to implement that with the different cultural beliefs. European countries with better healthcare systems tend to have higher taxes but also higher salaries & better benefits for all.

In terms of funding now, social care is a huge drain & care in the home should be means tested, so should AA, prescriptions should be too as opposed to weird exemptions for some & blanket free for over 60s. NI should be paid by working pensioners. CGT should be in line with income tax.
The increased funding should be channeled into investing in better systems and more staff so we have enough of them in the first place. Then you can look at true reforms.

Exactly, it's hard to know whether something needs stitches or not, that's why we consult professionals. Ignoring an injury that needs treatment can cause it to become more serious or require surgery or other more expensive treatment later. This patient just needed advice.

Indeed! Or under the SNP in Scotland.

(sarcasm intended)

It is not just about paying nurses more for example. I’m sure the job is physically and mentally hard. Yes a few grand a year helps but ultimately it’s the same job with the same problems. Lack of staff, over worked.

My question is how do you make the new generation want to go into nursing? Lots of younger people don’t want to go into certain jobs anymore.

People can work from home and do a job there.

Or they can work in a hospital, get run ragged, work Xmas day, work nights shifts , get abused by patients. Clean up peoples shit and vomit.

We have to be honest, lots of people just don’t want to go into NHS anymore.

Similar to people not wanting to be teachers or prison officers.

We can’t force a new generation of people to do these jobs if they don’t want to do it.

As I said , people can do other jobs and work from home, without all the negatives I listed above.

In terms of healthcare, I can confirm the private sector care I've had is in a different league to the NHS. Emergency care aside that is.

I was at one of the leading London hospitals yesterday and there was a 90 minute wait for blood tests from the outpatient clinics. There weren't enough seats and some of the people were becoming quite distressed about the wait and missing their consultations. My non-scheduled blood test at a private hospital was a 5 minute wait the week before.

It's a three week wait to see my NHS GP and I can get a video consultation with the private GP (included in my health insurance) usually the same day. They can order any diagnostic tests needed after that.

People who've spoken about the quasi-private system in Germany and France have been very positive about the way it works (which is different to the US).

We spend less per person on health care than France, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Belgium and Japan. Yet somehow folk still seem to believe our health service is comparatively well funded.

The NHS is huge and could improve organisationally, but this cannot happen when the service is doing nothing but putting out fires.

The irony of course is that private sector nurses are better paid for what tends to be better working conditions, 10 years ago this wasn't the case but here we are.

www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/154e8143-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/154e8143-en

If you wonder what privatisation might look like, look at care homes and childcare provision. Profit well before people.

The NHS is not, or should not be, a static service. As population trends have changed, so the NHS should have changed. It is not as if millions of people have suddenly became 70 years old, or suddenly began living longer.

Politicians of all parties have been negligent in this respect, but the Conservative policies and politicians of the last 13 years have been particularly bad.

Lansley accepted a donation from a private healthcare company and thought that fast-food companies such as McDonald's, KFC and processed food and drink companies PepsiCo, Kellogg's, Unilever and Mars were the companies that he should be consulting when addressing the state of the UK's health. His decisions started the rot, and Hunt (the longest-service Health Minister that the country has ever had) continued to make bad choices - the results of which are now glaringly obvious.

Nobody would argue against the NHS being more proactive and focussing more on preventative healthcare and education, but this can't be done as long as the priority is dealing with the overwhelming number of patients needing care here and now. Health education can also only be of limited use as long as millions of people cannot afford healthy food, suitable housing or lead healthier lifestyles.

Compare and contrast with countries such as Germany and Austria. As soon as these countries were back on their feet after WW2, the politicians and the population that vote for them decided that healthcare must be a priority, and that the standard of healthcare offered universally should be equal to that previously only available to those wealthy enough and willing to pay for it. The result is a system far better resourced than the UK, with far more doctors, nurses and beds per capita than in the UK. Waiting lists are all but unknown, both before the pandemic and since. The population realises that this level of service costs, but also that it has huge benefits to individuals, employers and society in general.

What price being 75 and knowing that if you have a heart attack, an ambulance will reach you in minutes and not two hours or more as in the UK? What is the value to an individual, their family and their employer of being able to have the knee operation, or other surgery, that will get them out of pain and fully functioning again? The Conservatives want to monetarise this for profit. Other "mutual insurance" systems (not the American profit-driven insurance model) exist so that everyone can benefit.

The NHS does need to be reformed, but the Conservatives have not demonstrated that they have the necessary solutions, and Javid's proposal is so flawed as to be idiotic. Politicians are supposed to act in the interests of the voters, and the country in general, not for the benefit of their donors and those who have the means to shout loudest. The question everyone should be asking is not "can we afford a universal healthcare system" but rather, "can we afford NOT to have such a system?"

We have both and had a same day with NHS v 24 to 72hr wait for private GP.

I appreciate having the back up although we rarely use it - once for top consultant in last couple of decades. The NHS has been accessible enough and easier.

I not against private provision, as we have it, but another thing other countries do is tax rebates for those who choose private. This would likely cause outcry here.

Part of the problem for us is we have an incredibly successful model wrt keeping people alive longer but very low appetite for how to make it work. Beyond keep paying more - the trouble is it’s generally higher users demanding that of others.

The nhs has been slowly privatised for years, starting with Blair’s labour.

imo we need to go the other way, stop paying for PFI buildings, for outsourcing, for locums and external companies. Stop treating each nhs entity as separate businesses.

bring it all back in house and consolidate.

My question is how do you make the new generation want to go into nursing? Lots of younger people don’t want to go into certain jobs anymore.

Yes why work in healthcare at all or why work in healthcare in the UK. I think this will be a growing issue.

We are basically asking younger people to pay more tax, work more for less pay, have less generous pensions and an older retirement age. Higher housing & childcare costs. But please work as a nurse or a care assistant. Why?

Health education can also only be of limited use as long as millions of people cannot afford healthy food, suitable housing or lead healthier lifestyles.

Completely agree, it's a much wider issue.

We can’t go back in time, nor can we make ourselves a richer country. It’s all very well comparing to Germany and Switzerland which have higher wealth than we do. But we are both unhealthier and poorer.

Yes, we can afford not to have a universal healthcare system. Very few countries have the level of free healthcare we do and that is why it is flagging - we can no longer afford to pay for the increasing care everyone needs. It’s really straightforward actually. What else can be done?

Health education can also only be of limited use as long as millions of people cannot afford healthy food, suitable housing or lead healthier lifestyles.

It is complex but I’d start with accepting people should have more responsibility towards their health. It’s always met with they can’t. I don’t agree. But the bar is very low in the U.K. on this issue.

But we are both unhealthier and poorer.

they are linked though aren't they. Poorer generally means unhealthier for individuals & countries.

Would you stop all free healthcare?

It is complex but I’d start with accepting people should have more responsibility towards their health. It’s always met with they can’t. I don’t agree. But the bar is very low in the U.K. on this issue.

What does that look like though?

This labour shortage is a new thing which reverses the power structure between workers and bosses, we have increasingly fewer young healthy people to look after increasingly more older sick people.
Although not quite as bad as China
amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/20/the-last-generation-young-chinese-people-vow-not-to-have-children
Yet......

Narrow doorways, if you can't fit through we won't treat you? 🤷