Tag: nhs privatisation

US Empire Seizes UK’s National Health Service

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6 December 2021 — Consortium News

It is safe to say that, far from being overstated, the Americanization of the NHS is very nearly complete, write Stewart Player and Bob Gill.

Headquarters of NHS England. (Lad, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)

By Stewart Player and Bob Gill
Special to Consortium News

One of the recent roles of the Parliamentary Healthcare Committee has been to reassure the British public that any claims regarding the ‘Americanization’ of the National Health Service (NHS) were wildly overstated, “creating a climate that risks blocking the joining up of services in the interests of patients.”

In fact, the penetration of the healthcare system by the giant U.S. insurer UnitedHealth reveals the opposite to be true, with the full extent of its influence capable of surprising even seasoned NHS watchers.

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Go private for the treatment you need, NHS tells patients

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23 November 2021 — OurNHS

Patients are being refused treatment, discharged too early and pushed towards private referrals, openDemocracy’s largest-ever reader survey has found

caroline m.jpg Caroline Molloy 

Both patients and staff have reported an increasing reliance on the private sector to plug NHS gaps | Nick Moore / Alamy Stock Photo

One in five patients has been told by a doctor or another NHS professional that they would have to go private to get the treatment or test they need. That’s just one of the shocking results from a survey of nearly 7,000 openDemocracy readers – backed up by separate polling commissioned by openDemocracy.

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Sicko UK

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14 July 2021 — Consortium News

Bob Gill describes how an admired public health service is secretly being changed to for-profit American-style “managed care.”

Boris Johnson chairs daily Covid-19 press conference at 10 Downing Street, April 2020. (No. 10/Flickr)

By Dr. Bob Gill
in London
Special to Consortium News

On the 73rd birthday of the National Health Service, the queen awarded the beloved NHS the George Cross for the valor of its staff during the Covid-19 pandemic.

No one doubts the dedication of NHS staff, and its worthiness for the highest honor, but this medal now serves to cover the insidious dismantlement of the NHS.

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NHS: ‘Centralised and secretive’ medical industrial complex being constructed

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19 April 2021 — True Publica

NHS: 'Centralised and secretive' medical industrial complex being constructed

By TruePublica Editor: The mainstream media has remained silent with perhaps only The Guardian scratching the surface of what the government has planned for the NHS – by reporting that – “a new organisation is being set up with the aim of halting future pandemics.” It’s not as it seems though.

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Palantir – UK Gov’t sued for selling critical NHS database to foreign power

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31st March 2021 — True Publica

UK Gov't sued for selling critical NHS database to foreign power

At TruePublica, we took the view that Britain should not be ‘world-beating’ at being the most surveilled nation of any Western democracy in the world. For five years we reported with our partners that state surveillance and the ending of privacy was a matter of public interest, not a political plaything for some politicians to line their pockets with.

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NHS: “Maybe we will never catch up”

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23 March — NHS Support Federation

Evidence-based journalism and research on the NHS to create change.

This week the worry of NHS staff is clear; like the eye surgeon who believes that it will take over two years to work through the backlog of operations and suggested: ” maybe we will never catch up.” Similarly, an NHS trust boss says cancer and heart surgery will take many years to work through. It is more important than ever to raise the pressure to get the right NHS policies in place: on funding, staffing, organisation, outsourcing, and accountability. and this reality is ver much guiding our work, please share it where you can.

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US spy firm at centre of sensitive NHS patient data grab

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8 March 2021 — True Publica

US spy firm at centre of sensitive NHS patient data grab

The story below tells of alarming backroom deals being done without public or parliamentary scrutiny into the highly sensitive (and extremely valuable) NHS patient data system.  The company involved is Palantir, a highly controversial American company that TruePublica has reported on several times in the last few years – that was at the centre of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica Brexit scandal.

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NHS: Leaked this week

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9 February 2021 — NHS Support Federation

Evidence-based journalism and research on the NHS to create change.

Documents passed to the Lowdown reveal how US company, Centene is expanding its interests in the NHS by buying up a network of GP practices.

And in the same week the BBC report a likely fall in private sector involvement, as after years of public campaigning leaked details emerged of the government’s plan to remove NHS competition rules, so what is going on, is this really the end of NHS outsourcing? And what does the leaked white paper really mean for the NHS? We take a look.

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Revealed: Boris Johnson’s controversial policy chief leading secretive NHS task force

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19 November 2020 — Open Democracy

Munira Mirza heading up group meeting ‘daily or weekly’ to plan ‘radical NHS shakeup’

caroline m.jpg

Caroline Molloy

Boris Johnson’s government has for the first time confirmed the existence of a prime ministerial task force which is reportedly planning a “radical shake-up of the NHS”.

Freedom of Information disclosures to openDemocracy show the new “No.10 Health and Social Care Taskforce” reports to a Steering Group chaired by Munira Mirza, the influential head of Boris Johnson’s policy unit, and that it “met weekly” from July to September with a further meeting in October.

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Deloitte gets another huge COVID contract – for ‘crazy’ plan to test millions each day

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21 August 2020 — Open Democracy

Operation Moonshot could be the biggest NHS privatisation in history, and civil servants are shaking their heads in disbelief.

One down, 3,999,999 to go – Andrew Milligan/PA Wire/PA Images. All rights reserved

The British government had plans to test everyone in the country for coronavirus every week by October – and it’s handed most of the work to the global accountancy firm Deloitte, openDemocracy can reveal. Labour MP Clive Lewis has dubbed the deal “potentially the biggest NHS privatisation in history”.

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HOW BRITAIN COULD HAVE DEFEATED COVID. YOU CAN NOW WATCH “THE DIRTY WAR ON THE NHS” HERE, FREE

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12 August 2020 — John Pilger

DirtyWarupdated.jpg

The Dirty War on the NHS was first broadcast in Britain on the ITV Network on 17 December, 2019. It was shown following the general election that saw Boris Johnson become prime minister – even though the future of the NHS was a major issue in the campaign.

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Britain’s government – entangled in its own corruption

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10 June 2020 — True Publica

By Rob Woodward – TruePublica: Thatcherism, as it is known, was made of up of principles comprising economic, social and political ideals that described the Conservative Party that undoubtedly shaped Britain for nearly fifty years. The economic policies that came with Thatcherism really amounted to little more than deregulation. It was and still is a total rejection of the ‘post-war consensus’ that drives privatisation, nationalisation and unleashes ‘corporatism’ – the so-called efficiency of the free-market and the fiction sold to everyone as a ‘trickle-down’ effect.

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“Unprecedented” transfer of personal NHS information to shady tech Co’s

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8 June 2020 — True Publica

"Unprecedented" transfer of personal NHS information to shady tech Co's

By Mary Fitzgerald and Corri Crider: Hours before facing court proceedings from openDemocracy over its massive NHS COVID-19 data deal with private tech firms, the UK government has caved to pressure and released all the contracts governing its deals with Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and controversial AI firms Faculty and Palantir.

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The Lowdown: What’s the limit on care now?

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28 May 2020 — The Lowdown

The NHS Support Federation

This week we can reveal that almost a billion pounds worth of debt is weighing down local commissioners as they start to plan care for the next year – with 7 million patients now on growing waiting lists. This week, we also follow-up on the under the radar plans to bring in major NHS changes without proper public scrutiny, look at the mental health services that are crying out for better support and publish a call to nationalise care homes.

Please share our content and do let us know if you have a story you think we should cover from your area.

Thank you for your support.

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Plans for post Covid NHS hatched behind the lockdown

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20 May 2020 — The Lowdown

John Lister

Debates over relaxing the lockdown and whether or not the peak of the Covid-19 crisis may now be behind us have run alongside fleeting glimpses of the surreptitious plans being laid to exploit the continued lockdown on NHS public meetings and spring a succession of unpleasant surprises on the NHS as soon as any recovery period begins.

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Johnson to ‘seize NHS’ in bid to further privatisation ready for Brexit

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22 April 2020 — True Publica

Johnson to 'seize NHS' in bid to further privatisation ready for Brexit

By TruePublica Editor: There is a point when you read something and realise that all is lost. One Nation Conservatism is dead – they are no longer a centre-right political party but little more than a death cult. Their policies since arriving back into power after the Blair years has taken them back to a time which no longer has a place in any modern society – but here they are.

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Worshiping and Defiling Britain’s NHS

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13 April 2020 — Counter Currents

by

Tories worshipping Britain’s National Health System are akin to fanatical carnivores who suddenly extol the virtues of vegans.  Has the grave response to COVID-19 signalled a change of heart?  In the case of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, it was all heart, quite literally.  It might have stopped beating and that scruffy, buffoonish essence of a man, a compulsive hand shaker with those who had contracted the coronavirus, might have been snuffed out.  But in a message on social media, he was grateful.

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