'No NHS in England from 2013'. Is there anything we can do to save it?

[Solopower]

'In 2012, parliament in England passed a law effectively ending the NHS by abolishing the 60-year duty on the government to secure and provide healthcare for all. From 2013, there will be no National Health Service in England, and tax funding will increasingly flow to global healthcare corporations. In contrast, Scotland and Wales will continue to have a publicly accountable national health service.

NHS hospitals and services are being sold off or incorporated; land and buildings are being turned over to bankers and equity investors. RBS, Assura, Serco and Carillion, to name but a few, are raking in billions in taxpayer funds for leasing out and part-operating PFI hospitals, community clinics and GP surgeries that we once owned.'

Allyson Pollock in The Guardian.

Well I'm scared. Life is going to get so much harder for the vast majority of us. I'm grateful to people like Pollock and Dr Mark Porter for trying to alert us to what is happening, but what can we do about it?

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/27/nhs-privatisation-toxic-world-healthcare

Thank you Leonie.

AFAIK this hasn't happened - yet - in Scotland. Although I suspect that Alex Salmond is watching and waiting to see how it all pans out.

In the meantime, maybe people from England will be able to get free health care in Scotland??

Thanks Solo.

I'm hoping, strongly, that Scotland and Wales keep the NHS so at least it becomes increasingly embarrassing for the government in England, as waiting lists climb and more and more stories emerge of rationing. Sadly there will be people who suffer terribly before the government will be shamed into admitting what they have done.

"I don't want my taxes going to private companies I want it going to the NHS."

The NHS is mostly a procurement organisations. It doesn't make X-ray machines, prosthetic limbs or drugs, private companies do. They're also funding the investment and research. Your taxes are already paying private companies

We know our taxes are paying private companies. That's what this thread is about. We want our taxes to go to the NHS. Don't you? It was a perfect arrangement. We paid our taxes, we got free health care when we needed it, wherever we lived in the country. What on earth was wrong with that?

I don't have a problem with a private company making machines or building things - that's not what the NHS is supposed to do. I wouldn't expect the NHS to do the catering or plumbing or anything like that. I just want them to provide free health care, nationally.

And don't get me started on the drugs companies!

My brother-in-law is a prosthetist, btw. He works for the NHS, afaik.

Thanks for the links Edam, I'm going to have to put aside some serious time aside to do some reading. I'm ashamed to say that I hadn't realised how far things had gone and so quickly.

SHit, thats bad. :( Also, what happens to all the NHS workers?

omg is this real? How are families on low incomes or benefits going to be able to afford healthcare? It will leave my family with no health care

Well thats me voting them out in the next election-never wanted them in the first place. Just look what they are doing with Tax Credits & the CSA, now they are ruining the NHS too

The principle of free healthcare is not changing. Quite honestly I don't particularly care what route the cash takes from the exchequer to the supplier for the best treatment, whether that's via the NHS, a hospital trust, a BUPA-type operation or a conglomeration of GPs. We all deserve the advantages of 'going private' & not the two-tier system we have at present. Besides which, the procurement record of the NHS isn't actually that efficient, it's notorious for duplication and waste, and if a different structure means we get a better health service that makes better use of the funds available, why stay wedded to the 1948 model?

It is scare mongering and happens all the time and the Guardian get readers.
I am sat here gasping for a drink, fasting for a blood test tomorrow - and I am not even ill....
I have been called for a screening programme - they don't seem to be cutting things here.

Right, I wade into this slightly reluctantly as I work for the NHS, I oppose the changes, and I have a chronically ill DH who could in a future model of the NHS, be unable to register for NHS care because he is too much of a liability.

I stress the word 'could', though - the article in question is an opinion piece, it is not stating facts. (Otherwise the Guardian would get sued for the opening paragraph).

I would strongly recommend everyone who has concerns about the future of the NHS speaks out - to their MP, to the action groups, to their local CCG. But there is currently nothing in the revised model of the NHS that suggests that patients are going to be required to take out health insurance before they can be treated.

Perhaps MNHQ would like to suggest another webchat with one of the health ministers?

Cogito you sound very much like you are the one in the know on this thread. Free healthcare is not disappearing, it's just the way the money is organised and who has control of it is changing. In a current climate of constant criticism regarding unnecessary waste in government organisations, surely this is no bad thing? Don't believe every hyped-up one-sided article you read!

SO we wont have to pay at point of use?

I'm absolutely terrified. To the point of actually weighing up the benefits of ending things. I have a handful of chronic health conditions, no chance of ever being well enough to work, at least not for a long time - and especially not likely because, due to the cuts, I can't get to see the specialists I need to manage my condition.

Really am so scared.

There is nothing to suggest patients will be expected to pay directly for healthcare. And SirBoobAlot, please be assured I shall be watching for this particularly carefully as my DH is in your same situation.

"The NHS is mostly a procurement organisations"

No it isn't.

Of course it buys in toilet roll and drugs rather than make its own. Those are products. But until recently it delivered its own services.

(There's a hazy area where the NHS has for some years been made to buy in services to the NHS, not directly to patients, such as cleaning and portering. This is controversial, as primarily it's reduced costs by cutting wages, while reducing responsiveness to NHS needs: the private contractors point at the letter of the contract rather than adjust with NHS needs.)

I'm not 'in the know', I just take an interest in the subject and can spot an agenda when I see one. Can you imagine how high Milliband would be jumping up and down if the principle of free healthcare was actually being abandoned?

I wasn't being sarcastic cogito! Just meant I agree with you!

This isn't just a minor adjustment - the more potentially profit-making parts of the NHS are grabbed by the private sector, the harder it will be to meet the needs of the remaining patients. OK the NHS as it was wasn't perfect, but it's going to be much less transparent and accountable, and unless Labour gets in at the next election and reverses the changes to put a brake on, I can't see anything but a gradual slide for the worse. Perhaps that's something to work for - Labour might not bother if they don't think people care.

Next step for me - look properly at the Keep our NHS Public site...

At the moment you won't have to pay at point of use.

But another part of the plan is individual health budgets - ie healthcare vouchers. You the consumer will be allocated vouchers and can choose how to spend them. This will be described as "fair".

But of course an equal allocation won't work in practice, because rather obviously healthcare isn't something people need the same amount of. So there will be complicated allocations of, "if you get assessed like this, you get allocated that". And then if you don't like it, you can go through some complicated appeals procedure to be reassessed and ask for more vouchers. The simple early stages of this are being trialled in some areas already.

Most of us would find it hard to say, "X shouldn't have cancer treatment because they're poor."

But people find it a lot easier to say, "X shouldn't have cancer treatment because they've use all their vouchers. They should have taken personal responsibility and used them more wisely."

So it will make withholding treatment easier to swallow for onlookers.

It will also add a huge unwieldly layer of bureaucracy to assess, allocate and appeal about the vouchers.

OrangeKipper - some information on personal health budgets here. It is aimed primarily at managing long term conditions not cancer treatment.

"Understanding Personal Health Budgets, Dept of Health.

The system is currently just being used for peripheral services. But of course once the structures are established they can be rolled out and made mandatory for all access to NHS care.

There's actually a lot of this Yes, Minister salami-slicing going on.

Phase 1: "It's a change in principle, but the practical change is small, so you can't complain."
Phase 2: "It's a large-scale change in practice, but there's no change in principle, so you can't complain."

And in fact we've already seen cogito trying it on this thread (paraphrasing): "you buy toilet roll from private companies, so the principle is already there; so you can't complain about buying all medical services from private companies".

X-post with Tripbot.

Cancer was just an example - and actually one that can have long-term aftermaths. But choose your own current example if you like.

More to the point, there's absolutely nothing to stop the voucher structure being fully rolled out once it's established.

Marking so I can read properly later

It's a gross misrepresentation to say that vouchers mean 'people will be turned away for treatment when their pot of cash runs out' (I paraphrase). Sometimes I think people on these boards get a sadistic kick out of scaring others.