Vultures circle as NHS falls (privatizing of health care in the UK)

[IndianaGreen]

Creation of the National Health Service was the greatest contribution of the Labour Party to the British people. NHS is now under assault, even from the neoliberals that comprise what's left of Blair and Brown's New Labour.

Vultures circle as NHS falls

Friday 19 February 2010
by Will Stone

One of five firms is set to carve a damaging scar onto the face of the NHS by becoming the first private operator of a general hospital - a prospect experts have labelled as "the last nail in the coffin" for the health service.

Hinchingbrooke in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, lost its only NHS bidder earlier this week in the Cambridge University Hospitals Trust, whose withdrawal has opened the way for one of five private health providers to take control.

Once the contract is awarded by the East of England health authority, Hinchingbrooke will become the first NHS hospital of its kind in Britain to be operated by a private firm.

The hospital has been labelled as "debt-ridden" with a deficit of around £40 million, but Unison head of health Karen Jennings claimed the debt is "no worse than many other trusts" which are bogged down in private contracts.
She described plans to hand over the running of the hospital to a private company as a "dangerous experiment" which flew in the face of the government's insistence that the NHS is its preferred provider.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/87064

[maryf]

1. Damn.nt

[Go2Peace]

7. The UK has a system closer to the US than to Europe, this does not surprise

[HCE SuiGeneris]

2. Healhcare only for the wealthy... coming soon to the world near you.

My pitchfork tines are well honed.

[elehhhhna]

3. how is a p[rivate forprofit co going to make money on a debt-saddled

non-profit service organization?

LOL maybe the'll give the contract to CIGNA. If our model's so great, why doesn't every (ANY!) country in the WORLD want to emulate it?

[ananda]

4. Sad for the UK.

We should know.

[DavidDvorkin]

5. It was Churchill who started the ball rolling for the NHS

And Thatcher's cuts that led to this situation. I gather those cuts haven't been reversed, or not fully.

[marmar]

6. New Labour.....sound a lot like "New" Democrats.

nt

[Puzzler]

8. I don't think this effects the national health insurance system the UK has.

This is about the running of some of the hospitals, which is not quite the same thing.

(still a bad idea, IMO)

[Ebadlun]

9. Don't panic..

First of all, the Morning Star is a communist newspaper (that's not freeper-speak - it actually is a mouthpiece of the British Communist Party), and given to rather apocalyptic language.

The NHS, far from having the last nails hammered into its coffin, is still kicking, extremely popular, far more efficient than many would have you believe, and the concept of being free at the point of delivery is pretty much inviolable.

Whilst the extent and manner of private involvement remains contraversial, the above is not likely to change any time soon, even under a Tory government.