The Destroy the NHS / Health and Social Care Bill is due it’s third (final) reading in Parliament tomorrow and Wednesday. It will then pass to the House of Lords.
Spinwatch has revealed that the Department of Health has been negotiating the running of hospitals by foreign companies. The Guardian identified the German company Helios. This clearly discredits government assurances that there is no intention to privatise the NHS.
There are proposals to sell St Mary’s, Paddington teaching hospital to property developers.
The Royal College of Nursing, the union Unite, and the umbrella group for health service managers, the NHS Confederation, warn about the complex tangle of management and quangos proposed by the ‘reforms’.
I suggest that Liberal-Democat members seriously consider dumping their Tory leader Clegg. Clegg has supported privatisation of the NHS from the very outset, engaged in the sham of the listening exercise, not followed direction from the Summer conference and even now still supports the shambolic Destroy the NHS Bill. Liberal-Democrats should be the stronger coalition partner since their support is essential.
- Conservative election poster 2010
A few recent news articles about the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.
DoH email exchange stokes NHS reform fears – Channel 4 News
Fears that the Government’s health reforms will mean the privatisation of the NHS are reinforced by an email exchange in which health officials consider private firms running up to 20 hospitals.
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Concerns about the privatisation of the NHS were reinforced today when it emerged that emails between the Department of Health and an international consulting firm discussed the possibility of private companies taking on the running of up to 20 NHS hospitals.
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German company involved in talks to take over NHS hospitals | Society | The Guardian
Helios involved in discussions about ‘potential opportunities in London’ with officials from the health department
A German company has been in talks to take over NHS hospitals, the first tangible evidence that foreign multinationals will be able to run state-owned acute services, a market worth £8bn, the Guardian can reveal.
On the eve of the last Commons vote on the government’s bill before it heads to the Lords this week, freedom of information requests reveal a series of meetings focused on “potential opportunities in London” between officials from the Department of Health, the NHS, the management consultant McKinsey and one of the largest German private hospital chains, Helios.
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A leading teaching hospital faces closure as a result of the financial crisis gripping the NHS. Managers at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs three major hospitals in London and two smaller units, is considering a proposal to shut St Mary’s, Paddington, and sell off the site to property developers.
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New NHS could be more complex and costly, warns nursing chief – Telegraph
Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said the introduction of new levels of management and quangos could “tangle” the health service in “more red tape and bureaucracy”.
His concerns are echoed by the leading public sector trade union, Unite, and the umbrella group for health service managers, the NHS Confederation, which has raised concerns over “confusion and duplication” among newly created quangos.
Their comments come in another wave of opposition to the Government’s biggest upheaval in the 63-year history of England’s National Health Service, which aims to hand control of buying treatment to GPs while giving private companies and voluntary groups more opportunity to run services.
The leading doctors’ union, the British Medical Association, is still calling for the entire Bill to be withdrawn despite the concessions made earlier this year and it faces opposition from peers when it reaches the House of Lords as well as Labour MPs who fear it spells the backdoor privatisation of a key public service.
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27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.
I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.
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dizzy