Union Safety - Official Website of NW BT Union Health and Safety Coordinators Committee: Make No Mistake NHS Is Now Run By US And UK Private Healthcare Companies

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Make No Mistake NHS Is Now Run By US And UK Private Healthcare Companies

Elective Recovery Taskforce of private healthcare companies is now responsible for the future of the NHS

There is absolutely no truth coming from UK politicians concerning the state of the NHS and the plans for its recovery or, in this case, the true intentions of politicians to turn the NHS into a US model of healthcare, and maximising the profit from sickness and ill-health. The current model puts patients first, and is not a system with the principle of profit making.

Thatcher started the privatisation by closing down NHS mental health hospitals, relying on local and private services to provide the required healthcare, and closing down majority of state-run elderly care homes, transferring them to the private sector.

Tony Blair further added to this situation by putting in place foundation trusts and converting all hospitals onto that model, again with the private sector being part of the new model for hospitals. PFI then added further to the financial problems having to be borne by the NHS, and utilised the private healthcare sector to cut waiting lists.

Since the Tories took over Government, the whole principle of the NHS, its organisation and clinical services have been handed over to the private sector with two major pieces of legislation, the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and the Health And Care Act 2022 which removed the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Health to provide a health service handing it over to quango called NHS England, disintegrated the NHS as a national service and split it up into 42 autonomous organisations of US healthcare based models entitled Integrated Care Services (Accountable Care Organisations in the US) and run by Integrated Care Boards that have their own constitutions, private healthcare board members, and answerable to no one other than the NHS quango NHS England.

The Covid-19 epidemic was then used as an excuse to deny additional funding of the NHS which for the last 14 years has been starved of the funding needed to maintain the levels of service it offered in 2010, resulting in it being in a terminal conditions as a result of specific decisions made by politicians, including those from ALL parties; to argue for the ending of the NHS principles of public ownership.

Instead the whole of the NHS is now being transferred to private ownership, with the aim of making profit by cutting corners in training of clinical staff, sharing of buildings and personnel, denying healthcare and handing clinics, diagnostics, medical equipment and clinical expertise to the private sector companies from both the USA and the UK.

Your taxes that go into the NHS are now being given to the private healthcare sector of the US and the UK. Whilst the Government spent £10 Billion from the NHS budget to bail out private healthcare sector during the Covi-19 pandemic, the Labour Government continues with the legacy of both the Tory legislation that abolished the NNS as a national service; and the transfer of clinical NHS services to the private sector.

The unmistakable evidence of this is the fact that the new plans for the NHS are run by five major for-profit companies, with contracts awarded to just those five profiteers: Bridgepoint, BUPA, Centene Corporation, Spire Healthcare and UnitedHealth Group (UHG).

Further all five of them sit on the Government's panel formulating the next stage of changing the NHS into the US model based on the needs to maximise profit and to introduce medical insurance companies from the US into the UK's healthcare system - the Independent Healthcare Providers Network.

A more recent example is that of the North West London Integrated Care Board (ICB), headed by Penny Dash, a former health adviser and McKinsey & Co partner who is also leading ongoing government-commissioned reviews of patient safety regulation and care quality.

They are introducing 'Integrated Neighbourhood Teams' with the aim of moving all patient care into community hubs, and creating what Wes Streeting calls a "neighbourhood health service” - another McKinsey & Co idea of rationalising healthcare into centres/hubs, in order to reduce costs and increase profits. But the new Labour government has promised a “move to deliver plans for new neighbourhood health centres [where] patients will be able to see family doctors, district nurses, care workers, physiotherapists, health visitors, or mental health specialists, all under the same roof”.

Of course with the private sector delivering the services as opposed to the NHS!

With the Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN) running Labour Government policies, the overall encroachment of every aspect of healthcare delivery in the UK will very quietly and quickly deliver the American model of healthcare provision and then through NHS patients private healthcare data harvesting via the NHS App and dictates to GP surgeries to send their patient medical records to NHS England; the final move to healthcare insurance system of the US will be completed.

The Tory Government set up its post-pandemic Elective Recovery Taskforce which effectively ‘turbo-charged’ private healthcare capacity to put NHS privatisation on full acceleration, with all five leaders of those companies involved in the planning for 'change' as Starmer likes to call it; and the awarding of major NHS contracts to their private healthcare interests and companies.

The ongoing cuts and privatisation efforts within the NHS have indeed raised significant concerns about the sustainability of public healthcare in the UK. Corporate Watch's investigation highlights a critical aspect of this situation: the substantial profits made by private healthcare providers from NHS contracts. The reported £4.6 billion in profits, alongside the potential £61.87 billion in future tenders, underscores the financial motivations driving privatisation.

This trend poses questions about the implications for public health, equity, and access to care. As the NHS faces increasing pressure, understanding the extent of private sector involvement is crucial for informed discussions about the future of healthcare in the UK.

Right now, NHS patients do not know just which rpivate healthcare company is deelivering their care - NHS or US owned company?

The investigation sheds light on the need for transparency and accountability in public health contracting, as well as the long-term effects of privatisation on patient care and outcomes.

Understanding these facts is crucial to the public's response to Wes Streeting's diversionary tactic of his 'NHS Conversation' with the public via his 'Change: Help Build An NHS Fit For The Future'.

Despite their being no real open questions and with those questions leading to a conclusion he has already made in terms of the Labour Government's. Through these already formulated policies, he is driving forward towards an American Healthcare system which will ensure profits to him and shareholders of the private equity and private healthcare companies taking over the skeletal NHS that is left.

Source: Corporate Watch / McKinsey & Co / NHS / unionsafety