nhs privatisation
-
On TTIP and the NHS, they are trying to bamboozle us By John Hilary
The TTIP trade treaty talks re-open in Brussels this week. We should not be reassured by the convenient ‘leak’ of a private letter between key TTIP advocates claiming the treaty poses no threat to the NHS. Continue reading
-
Cameron government steps up drive to sell UK public assets By Allison Smith and Paul Bond
A proposed bill will make it even easier for the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government to sell off high-value public land. The National Health Service (NHS) is expected to be one of the social services hardest hit. Continue reading
-
“Save our Surgeries” call goes out on NHS birthday By Doctor Ron Singer
As the NHS turned 66 on Saturday, patients and health workers marched through the streets of East London in protest at the threatened closure of scores of GP surgeries. Continue reading
-
Destroying the NHS: Time to get even with Stevens By John Lister
New NHS boss Simon Stevens has revealed his true privatising colours with this week’s announcement on personal health budgets – which would wreck NHS services and leave the field clear for big business. We have been waiting to see whether – and how – new NHS boss Simon Stevens would work round to furthering the… Continue reading
-
“Handing patients NHS cash” is just rebranding cuts By Peter Beresford
Personal health budgets are to be rolled out to many more patients and combined with social care personal budgets, Simon Stevens, NHS England’s new Chief Executive announced yesterday. But as spending on both social care and the NHS contracts, what is the evidence underpinning this massive shift in resources? Continue reading
-
Britain’s National Health Service “fraying at the edges” By Paul Mitchell
In 2012-2013, one in four A&E visits (nearly 6 million) took place after patients had been unable to get an appointment with a GP. Previous research has shown that the reasons include the change to GP contracts in 2004 allowing them to opt out of providing night and weekend cover, leaving it to other agencies… Continue reading
-
Cameron is wrecking our world-beating health system By James Lazou
After all the negative headlines over the last few years you would be forgiven for thinking that the NHS was a mediocre, failing, bureaucratic service destined to collapse. That is the message that Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, would like you to believe. Since becoming Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt has seen it as… Continue reading
-
London: A talk on the politics of cancer in an age of austerity
On 2 July Wendy Savage and Hilary Wainwright join Mike Marqusee to launch his new book on the politics of cancer and NHS privatisation at Housmans bookshop in London. Continue reading
-
Held hostage by Big Pharma By Mike Marqusee
In an exclusive extract from his forthcoming new book Mike Marqusee slams the drug companies exploiting his cancer to gouge the public purse. Continue reading
-
Scots NHS satisfaction soars as England’s falls By Dave Watson
Since devolution, the NHS in Scotland has taken a very different path to that of NHS England. It has embraced co-operation rather than competition. And new figures show that Scots reckon that it delivers for them. Continue reading
-
Nurses fight back against trade treaty that threatens NHS By Martin O’Beirne
The fight against an international trade treaty wrecking our NHS receives a boost from the nurses and activists, though most party leaderships are strangely quiet. Continue reading
-
The Labour government was to blame for the NHS’s biggest disgrace – why should we listen to them now? By Caroline Molloy
The latest ex-Blair advisor to lambast the NHS for being ‘slow’ to adopt privatisation is Paul Corrigan. But his past hastiness had a little-noted role in the NHS’s darkest episode. If you were going to release a report arguing for the UK’s health system to become more like that of the United States, you probably… Continue reading
-
Personal Health Budgets lead to individualism and isolation By Richard Blogger
A Thatcherite ‘voucher’ system is being imposed on the NHS is the worst way to deliver ‘personalisation’. From April 2015 all Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) must be able to offer Personal Health Budgets (PHBs) to all patients who have a long term condition (LTC). Personal Budgets were mentioned in the Conservative 2010 manifesto, but the… Continue reading
-
How to commercialise and cut health and social care without anyone noticing By Jenny Shepherd
Plans to ‘create a local market’ in health and social care, including personal budgets, threaten to undermine our collective rights and our systems based on social solidarity. The final part in our View from the Grassroots series. Over the last week our ‘View from the Grassroots’ series has been looking at an interlocking set of… Continue reading
-
What might a trip to your GP look like in future By Jonathan Tomlinson
The government’s plans for the future of primary care are long on gimmicks, but short on cash. Jonathan Tomlinson sees a more interesting vision of the future – if sufficient funding is there. Continue reading
-
Will volunteers become the sticking plaster holding the NHS together? By Jenny Shepherd
Not a week goes by now without some part of the establishment warning us that the NHS is ‘unaffordable’ in its current form. This austerity mood music struck up in 2008 when New Labour asked the American management consultants McKinsey for advice on how to run the NHS more cheaply, after the government had spent… Continue reading
-
Saving NHS money – or a bonanza for Big Pharma and Big Tech? By Jenny Shepherd
Are big NHS changes in England including local closures and more ‘care at home’ driven by the need to save money – or something else? The second of our View from the Grassroots series. Continue reading
-
Are plans to move the NHS ‘into the community’, a wolf in sheep’s clothing? By Jenny Shepherd
Plans to close swathes of Yorkshire hospital services will ‘improve care’, say local NHS bosses. Campaigners are unconvinced. In the first of a four-part series Jenny Shepherd asks who – and what – is really behind similar claims being made across the country. Continue reading
-
British NHS patients left without medications by private contractor By Tony Robson
The failure of UK private contractor Healthcare at Home (HaH) to provide the home delivery of medications correctly and on time has placed thousands of National Health Service (NHS) patients at risk…As many as 7 percent of patients have not been delivered their medications on time. In addition to the risk and anxiety these patients… Continue reading
-
British care home scandal deepens By Mark Blackwood and Ajanta Silva
In a letter to the Daily Telegraph on May 30, the families of those abused in Winterbourne View said, “Today we have seen the appalling failure of the Government, the NHS [National Health Service] and Local Authorities to meet their own deadline for moving people with a learning disability out of places like Winterbourne View. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 