NHS reforms- anyone else as disbelieving as I am?

[nowwearefour]

What on earth is going on here? Privatisation by stealth? I know what- let's take the focus off the patients and the healthcare and put it on re-organising ourselves.AGAIN. how brilliant. anyone care to help me see what the benefits are of this?

AMaka - countries that have a more free market approach to the provision of healthcare have much greater transactional (i.e. management) costs - US is the prime example of this.
The main ppoint of these reforms is nothign to do with GPs and everything to do with allowing private companies in to provide and commission healthcare. Cheap, it won't be.

Am I alone in thinking that the 10 o'clock news item on thislast night bwas totally biased in favour of the changes, I sat there open mouthed that the 2 talkings head they had on one was totally in favour the other said It could be ok if it's done well, none of the negative points AT ALL I was and still am fuming...

Just flabbergasted to read this story

It seems that GPs aren't to be trusted to supply the flu vaccine in future, but no problems handling 80% of the whole NHS budget???

It is deeply ironic, isn't it.

As someone who worked in the NHS for a short while and as a mother of a child with CP I believe that the NHS in its current form does not, and cannot operate effectively. It faces increasing demand and limited resources, therefore changes need to be made.

The NHS needs MODERNISING NOT PRIVATISING. It needs the link/investment from the private sector in order to maintain and improve standards, but it also needs the committment/investment/regualtion from Government to ensure profits are invested back into the NHS to make it successful. (Not given out in immoral large bonuses to private healthcare boses).

On another point if DC and his crew are going to cut council spending then surely there should be rules/regulations imposed on coucnils as to the services they cannot cut, eg. Respite care, sitting service, direct payments etc, otherwise the councils have carte blanche to do what they like.

I feel deeply deeply let down by this government in terms of the help and support provided for disabled children and their carers. They have no appreciation or understanding of the pressure on children/siblings/parents and beleive that they are out of touch with reality having only experienced an advantaged upper class lifestyle.

I noticed that, Doris. Particularly liked the bit where they said, iirc, "At the moment your treatment is decided by managers; in the future it will be decided by your GP."

WTF?!!

Straight from the govt press release, I'd guess that one was.

Why give healthcare solely to GP's???? Really some of them are great, but some of them aren't so brilliant. Why not give the commissioning budget to community Nurses or occupational therapists or physiotherapists? Why are GP's seen to be the ones who should hold the budget??? People need teams of NHS workers not just GP's.

Hi child 1234- you say as long as the principle remains that healthcare is free at the point of need .., does it matter if it's provided by a private company

I suspect a lot of people are thinking the same thing, but it will make a difference

• it's their statutory duty to make a profit, which has to come from tax payers money which is lost to the NHS

• they don't like unprofitable patients ie the elderly, long term sick with many problems etc.These will be left for the dwindling NHS rump to care for

• they behave badly. In the US they spent $1,000,000 a day lobbying against Obama's healthcare reforms, and regularly pay large fines for medical fraud. Why will they be any different over here?

• they have no track record of or desire to teach and train the next generation of health care workers, an integral part of NHS activity

• they can walk away any time they like (some have already) leaving patients high and dry and perhaps a much diminished local NHS service.

And medical leaders are not happy, most doctors - figures suggest over 80% - want nothing to do with the reforms, which the government are pushing through even before the bill has gone to parliament. Unconstitutional or what!

Only happening in England and Wales. Could do with some re-jigging in Scotland too. How can someone retire from their job only to be able to go back to it, two or maybe three days a week and still be paid, is beyond me.

Meant to add a bit more there - As in why can't the retired person stay retired on their more than adequate pension and give the job to someone else.

I fear we'll end up with a 2-tier system like the US. Health care may be excellent there - but only as long as you or your employer can pay sky-high insurance premiums.

"as long as the principle remains that healthcare is free at the point of need .., does it matter if it's provided by a private company"

It matters more even than you said, medicalmum. Once the structures for private provision are in place, it becomes easy to remove taxpayer funding slice by slice, service by service.

It's impossible to privatise a coherent, integrated National Health Service because its too big, you couldn't find a buyer. So it has to be done like this. Fragment it and tell people service won't change; outsource fragments and tell people service won't change; change payment from taxation to pay-per-use and tell people it won't affect the poor; etc etc

I am very concerned about the future of midwifery in this brave new world. Especially after DC referring to 'maternity nurses' who welcomed his children into the world. Some scary shit going on atm, the NHS being the scariest...

What is it going to take before people just start getting up and being counted. why do we as a nation just sit back and take this. The National Health Service was set up for free health for all! The Coalition Government of 1945-1948 was the best government this country has ever had. Why are we letting this government just do what it likes? Why don't we try and stand up and do, rather than lying down, and letting those who are rich enough to never need the National Health themselves break it all down. I believe in the power of the pen, petitions, people getting together to organise their opposition to these draconian measures, and say: NO! "We are not going to let you do this to us"! We have to respond with our feet, by standing up and being counted!

shananiah, yup - afraid this lot are NOT listening, its just one broken promise [Not to mess with the NHS] after another (well not that we even elected DC on any promises - talk about government by stealth!) 38degrees is running a campaign, as are the NHS federation - is it time for a mumsnet campaign? can we bring toddlers to our protests and not be scared of police riding at us?

Just to correct a factual error, the new Health Bill only covers England, not Wales (or any of the other Home Countries).

Thisisanicecage, you are dead right - this is about breaking up the NHS so the private sector can take the profitable bits. As KPMG told the DH last year in a secret report that they have refused to publish. KPMG looked at the NHS and realised it was too big and complicated for them to understand, so told the Dept of Health to carve up the NHS. And now the Tories have taken over and are doing it.

Edam who is KPMG?

Tigerseye and others, thanks - I am learning so much about the health service from you.

I also thought the BBC News and Newsnight was very one-sided, very pro the changes. Disappointing.

KPMG are a professional services firm

one of the big four multi-million pound accountancy firms, Hammer. Like the rest of 'em, have redefined themselves as management consultants who cream off millions of pounds of public money in all sorts of ways, but in this case by pretending they know how to run public services.

Not sure if it was KPMG or one of the others who us taxpayers funded to go into the banks that we had bailed out and tell the bankers how to avoid taxes on their bonuses. So many different levels of fleecing the rest of us it makes your head spin...

Thanks.

I know what you mean about the different levels of fleecing, Edam. I've often wondered if the benefits system, our phone and utility bills, even the weird array of really-incredibly-special-just-for-you-super-saver-off-peak-stand-on-your-head rail fares - are all so complicated just so they'll get the most money out of us. There must be armies of little people sitting at their desks late at night whose whole job is to work out just how to trick and confuse people out of their cash.

And now the health service is going to be the same: fragmented, compartmentalised and incomprehensible to most of us.

AHAHAHAHAHAHA

Would that be the same KPMG which 6 days ago landed a contract to provide private business services to a brand new GP consortia?

Wow, even Halliburton could learn from these guys!

KPMG UK - What we do ? Market Sectors ? Healthcare

Is KPMG as big as Tesco's? The way things go nowadays, laybe they'll buy up all the GP consortia and the NHS will all be under one roof again, one big monopoly. National Health Supermarket. Won't even need to change the logo.

'NHS London has signed a deal with the KPMG Partnership for Commissioning, which comprises the National Association of Primary Care, Healthskills, Primary Care Commissioning, UnitedHealth UK and Morgan Cole. KPMG is better known as one of the 'big four' consultancy, audit and tax firms in the UK.'

All these organisations! 'Comprises' means it owns them all, right? So will there be any effective watchdog to prevent health care monopolies? I was joking before, but am now uneasy.