Parts of the NHS to be privatised?

A Department of Health official admitted at a meeting I attended that the current White Paper was intended to privatise swathes of the NHS, with money going to shareholders, who also by law have to take first priority over patients. Anyone have any comments on this? - I would be interested to know what you think?

"If you read some of the papers by Malcolm Alexander you will get some idea. Basically commissioning for all services, etc, which was previously done by the soon to be defunct PCTs, is going private in most GP consortia, from what we can gather from their initial responses. GPs have been given no choice as to joining consortia, but don't have the infrastucture for commissioning. Hospitals must become foundation trusts and the cap on their private work is likely to be revoked. The private sector will therefore be very influential re GPs, and can take over practices that do not conform to the financial saving model. The private sector by law has to put their shareholders first - and not patients!! My groups (who represent the older people in England) are very worried about this, but some, not all and maybe not most, GPs see it as a way to increase their income. It is being sold by the Government as increasing patient choice and voice. It is good that the public will have more say, but GPs are increasingly convinced they are being set up as the fall guys for the inevitable cuts in services to the public due to the recession leading to less, not more, choice. NHS privatisation is being kept very quiet by the media, and it was actually started (not all that sucessfully) by Labour. Landsley was bankrolled by private health companies for the election!!"

AnnaEsse wrote:OK, here is my friend's reply to my question about areas of the NHS to be privatised.

"If you read some of the papers by Malcolm Alexander you will get some idea. Basically commissioning for all services, etc, which was previously done by the soon to be defunct PCTs, is going private in most GP consortia, from what we can gather from their initial responses. GPs have been given no choice as to joining consortia, but don't have the infrastucture for commissioning. Hospitals must become foundation trusts and the cap on their private work is likely to be revoked. The private sector will therefore be very influential re GPs, and can take over practices that do not conform to the financial saving model. The private sector by law has to put their shareholders first - and not patients!! My groups (who represent the older people in England) are very worried about this, but some, not all and maybe not most, GPs see it as a way to increase their income. It is being sold by the Government as increasing patient choice and voice. It is good that the public will have more say, but GPs are increasingly convinced they are being set up as the fall guys for the inevitable cuts in services to the public due to the recession leading to less, not more, choice. NHS privatisation is being kept very quiet by the media, and it was actually started (not all that sucessfully) by Labour. Landsley was bankrolled by private health companies for the election!!"

buildersbum wrote:

AnnaEsse wrote:OK, here is my friend's reply to my question about areas of the NHS to be privatised.

"If you read some of the papers by Malcolm Alexander you will get some idea. Basically commissioning for all services, etc, which was previously done by the soon to be defunct PCTs, is going private in most GP consortia, from what we can gather from their initial responses. GPs have been given no choice as to joining consortia, but don't have the infrastucture for commissioning. Hospitals must become foundation trusts and the cap on their private work is likely to be revoked. The private sector will therefore be very influential re GPs, and can take over practices that do not conform to the financial saving model. The private sector by law has to put their shareholders first - and not patients!! My groups (who represent the older people in England) are very worried about this, but some, not all and maybe not most, GPs see it as a way to increase their income. It is being sold by the Government as increasing patient choice and voice. It is good that the public will have more say, but GPs are increasingly convinced they are being set up as the fall guys for the inevitable cuts in services to the public due to the recession leading to less, not more, choice. NHS privatisation is being kept very quiet by the media, and it was actually started (not all that sucessfully) by Labour. Landsley was bankrolled by private health companies for the election!!"

Listening to the evening news, its seems to me that there is trouble brewing with the trade unions threatning to strike, imo I think the Government are going to have alot on with this in the near future, with the UK's ongoing ressesion I have a feeling we are going to have unions taking over again, but will be interesting to see how this PCT pans out, because if this Government goes with this, plus with all the other cuts they are making, we will have a copy of the poll tax riots we had back in the 80's with Maggy and she had to BACK DOWN, what is it with these "newly" elected governments they seem to think they are invincible.