Anyone worried that the tories are now privatising England's covid response?

[FatCatThinCat]

The government announced today that they're scrapping PHE. The pandemic handling part will be merged in the NHS Track and Trace and everything else will be the responsibility of local councils (a whole other thread needed for that). But there is no NHS Track and Trace. Track and Trace is a private organisation run by SERCO.

I'm very worried.

Me too.

It's not even like they've done a fantastic job with tracking and tracing so therefore give them more responsibility. They've done a shit job and local authorities/health services/voluinteers have been doing their own thing to try and plug the gaps.

I don't think Dido Harding should be head of anything from her ahem TRACK record

Seems a ridiculous time to be scrapping PHE. Just another in a catalogue of disasters from this government.

Yep. Terrifying frankly. But what can we do? Nothing. So trying to read and dismiss when it comes to headlines.

Very worried for the NHS. Hancock is saying private firms can really help the NHS. Really? Such firms made a shambles of Test and trace and the countless ppe and ventilator contracts given to their mates’ companies were a disaster too. They gave ppe contracts to the likes of pest control and confectionary firms who never delivered a single mask.

Harding has a terrible track record and her husband is a member of a Tory group that wants to scrap phe and privatise they nhs. And they just succeeded with the first.

I despair

It's absolutely shocking!!!!!

No doubt we'll accept if from the tories though as we do most things that don't directly affect us

This is pushing me over the edge. Corruption, incompetence lies privatising nhs with huge contracts to mates and no one seems to be able to stop them and each time they get more brazen.
All the other functions of PHE too- who will take care of them?

It's completely ridiculous and doesn't actually make sense. PHE wasn't created all that long ago and was done so to bring other aspects of health all together under one banner, like they claim to be doing now. It would make more sense to integrate Track and Trace into PHE.

The comparison to the German system is so disingenious too. The Robert Koch Institute is over 125 years old and run by qualified and experienced people, not a Government mouthpiece.

I think the OP's attitude is exactly the problem that gave us such difficulties early on in the epidemic here.

There were many private labs who were ready and willing to offer testing capacity and contacting Government ministers, but PHE and the NHS were so against any private involvement, egged on by media cries of 'don't privatise the NHS' that they wouldn't accept the capacity and we couldn't do enough tests. A few GP surgeries did quietly use academic and commercial labs, against the advice of the NHS, and were able to at least follow what was happening among their staff, although they couldn't offer such tests to the public.

In 'disingenious' comparison, in Germany health provision is decentralised and local health authorities were willing and able to use the testing capacity offered directly to them by commercial and academic laboratories, so got large scale testing up and running quickly.

This really is not true. They gave out a raft of private contracts for ppe and ventilators. But they gave them to firms run by friends who had no experience in ppe rather than the experienced private ppe firms. And the friends firms took the money and didn’t deliver the ppe. That is the problem.

It seems to be cronyism.

They tried to compare to the German system?!

When we have the same well-funded excellent standard of healthcare that Germany has, then they can compare. Certainly not at the moment.

The pandemic response shouldn't be privatised, but Serco have a dreadful track record. How do they keep getting contracts?

The response to the pandemic should be a national one. The last thing we need is uncoordinated confusing variations across the country.

@FatCatThinCat please can you ask mumsnet to move this to chat or something with more traffic ? I think it's important a topic like this gets more exposure . People really are oblivious about what's going on.

I think the OP's attitude is exactly the problem that gave us such difficulties early on in the epidemic here.

Then you think wrong. I have/had no issue with established private labs being drafted in during a crisis to support the country. This isn't about that. It's about completely privatising the countries pandemic response. About giving vast sums of taxpayers money to your mates who have no experience in the field whatsoever.

PHE is directly accountable to the government. The government could have directed them to use private labs at any time, but they didn't. The failure is at the government's door and this is just them trying to evade responsibility while linning their own pockets.