3 ms·

When people claim the NHS is going to be privatised I think it is either deliberate scaremongering or they just don't realise how politically impossible it is.

When people claim the NHS is going to be privatised I think it is either deliberate scaremongering or they just don't realise how politically impossible it is. What probability would you assign this happening in the next 10 years conditioned on Brexit happening? I would assign less than 5% chance that this would happen.

DanBC 7y ago
> When people claim the NHS is going to be privatised I think it is either deliberate scaremongering or they just don't realise how politically impossible it is. I'm not so sure. People talking about private provision in the NHS are just looking at the several billions of pounds that the NHS already spends on private provision for NHS services, and at how the Health and Social Care Act works. We already have large NHS services delivered by private, non-NHS providers. Livewell South West is one example - 2800 staff. Priory Group and Cygnet are two other notable examples. Here's Livewell's page: https://www.livewellsouthwest.co.uk/ https://www.livewellsouthwest.co.uk/ Here's a list of Cygnet hospitals: https://www.nhs.uk/Services/Trusts/HospitalsAndClinics/DefaultView.aspx?id=46738 https://www.nhs.uk/Services/Trusts/HospitalsAndClinics/Defau... Priory Group and Cygnet are involved in some "specialist commissioning" services - low secure and medium secure forensic MH services, in-patient eating disorder services. These are expensive services. Everything needed for NHS privatisation is already in place after the Lansley reforms. There is nothing stopping large US firms coming over and putting in bids to run NHS services. If they put the right bid in CCGs are compelled by law to accept it, a CCG isn't allowed (by law) to prefer an NHS provider. The reason they haven't already done this is because they can't afford to do it on the money an austerity-funded NHS system is offering. Of course, this isn't the type of privatisation that parent post is talking about. But if we look at the reduction in provision of drug and alcohol services; of child and adolescent MH services; of adult acute MH services; of community based psychological therapy (unless you want IAPT); well, there are loads of things that people either just do without or they pay for from their own pocket. Some politicians have already said they want to charge people for GP visits or for ambo use. And all of this is ignoring the group of people who now have to pay for healthcare when they didn't before: the Overseas Visitors Charging Regulations.

DanBC 7y ago

> When people claim the NHS is going to be privatised I think it is either deliberate scaremongering or they just don't realise how politically impossible it is. I'm not so sure. People talking about private provision in the NHS are just looking at the several billions of pounds that the NHS already spends on private provision for NHS services, and at how the Health and Social Care Act works. We already have large NHS services delivered by private, non-NHS providers. Livewell South West is one example - 2800 staff. Priory Group and Cygnet are two other notable examples. Here's Livewell's page: https://www.livewellsouthwest.co.uk/ https://www.livewellsouthwest.co.uk/ Here's a list of Cygnet hospitals: https://www.nhs.uk/Services/Trusts/HospitalsAndClinics/DefaultView.aspx?id=46738 https://www.nhs.uk/Services/Trusts/HospitalsAndClinics/Defau... Priory Group and Cygnet are involved in some "specialist commissioning" services - low secure and medium secure forensic MH services, in-patient eating disorder services. These are expensive services. Everything needed for NHS privatisation is already in place after the Lansley reforms. There is nothing stopping large US firms coming over and putting in bids to run NHS services. If they put the right bid in CCGs are compelled by law to accept it, a CCG isn't allowed (by law) to prefer an NHS provider. The reason they haven't already done this is because they can't afford to do it on the money an austerity-funded NHS system is offering. Of course, this isn't the type of privatisation that parent post is talking about. But if we look at the reduction in provision of drug and alcohol services; of child and adolescent MH services; of adult acute MH services; of community based psychological therapy (unless you want IAPT); well, there are loads of things that people either just do without or they pay for from their own pocket. Some politicians have already said they want to charge people for GP visits or for ambo use. And all of this is ignoring the group of people who now have to pay for healthcare when they didn't before: the Overseas Visitors Charging Regulations.