A Future That Works

A Future That Works
NO2aTory/Liberal coalition - Vote with your feet for an alternative to a neo-liberal economy and neo-conservative state Yes2aLeftFront and a Red/Green Left Alliance

Tuesday 19 July 2011

NHS services to be opened up to competition

Shadow Health Secretary John Healey questioned the policy saying it was ‘‘not about giving more control to patients, but setting up a full-scale market’’

4 comments:

  1. The Tory/Liberal government will open up more than £1bn of NHS services to competition from private companies and charities, the health secretary announced.

    In the first wave, beginning next April, eight NHS areas – including muscular-skeletal services for back pain, adult hearing services in the community, wheelchair services for children and primary care psychological therapies for adults.

    From 2013 ‘‘any qualified provider’’ non-NHS bodies will be allowed to deliver more complicated clinical services in maternity and ‘‘home chemotherapy’’.

    Unison union warns that ‘‘patients will be little more than consumers, as the NHS becomes a market-driven service, with profits first and patients second’’.

    John Healey has said ‘‘The Tory-led government is pushing ahead with its wasteful and unnecessary NHS reorganisation, rather than focusing on improving patient care. David Cameron's plans for the NHS are not about giving more control to patients, but setting up a full-scale market’’.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. David Cameron breaks another election pledge

    David Cameron has been caught red-handed shattering yet another ­election promise.

    This time it is the Prime Minister’s vow to keep pumping money into health.

    When the Mirror previously reported that Mr Cameron had broken his pledge of real terms rises, a Government spin doctor tried to deny it.

    Now official Treasury figures prove that funding for the NHS has fallen on the PM’s watch while he pressed ahead with his hated privatisation plans.

    This shabby treatment of the health service dwarfs all the other broken promises like protecting Sure Start and winter fuel payments and getting tough on knife crime.

    Mr Cameron put the issue at the heart of his pitch for power, claiming his priorities could be summed up in three letters: N-H-S.

    The next time he asks voters to trust him with this country’s most cherished institution they must have one message: NO

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/2011/07/29/david-cameron-breaks-another-election-pledge-115875-23304296/

    ReplyDelete
  4. NHS suffers as primary care trusts delay treatment

    Campaigners warned that the money-saving tactics used by some primary care trusts to keep patients waiting for treatment could inadvertently prop up the private sector at the expense of the NHS.

    Independent watchdog accused trusts of deliberately making patients wait for treatment to save money. The Co-operation and Competition Panel suggested that some trusts were refusing to operate before 15 weeks, forcing patients to remove themselves from waiting lists by either going private, no longer needing treatment or dying and thereby saving NHS cash.
    Patients Association chief executive Katherine Murphy says ‘‘The suggestion that it could save money because patients will remove themselves from the list by going private or dying is a callous and cynical manipulation of people's lives and should not be tolerated….What right do they have to say people should wait longer for treatment just because it might save money?’’.

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.