The NHS is a private affair

Image from: https://www.thinkingbob.co.uk

The National Health Service (NHS) has been at the centre of ongoing controversy for over a year.

All national newspapers, regardless of their specific point of view, have highlighted budget cuts and unprecedented number of patients visiting A&E, as well as the longest waiting times since record began, which means hospitals have been missing A&E targets for over a year.

At the heart of the public health-care crisis is the privatisation process of the National Health Service. Every year thousands of NHS patients are treated by the private sector for routine appointments and post-surgery treatments. Many independent care providers have won up National Health Service contracts: Circle Healthcare, Bupa, Pathology First LLP and Facilities First LLP are just a few of the private companies that are taking over the NHS.

People are provided with a fragmented service, as money are moved from the local hospitals to the private providers competing against it. This is not the result of the NHS hospitals being unable to treat patients, it is because both the last Labour government and the present coalition have encouraged private firms to get involved in order to reduce waiting times and offer patients choice, instead.

As we near the UK General Election, all political parties talk about NHS and their plan to reduce the intrusion of the private sector and ring-fence the budget for public health-care.

Anyway, less than a month ago the coalition government has opened the door to a radical shake-up of the National Health Service, creating over 200 new organisations, including a network of GP-led groups to manage the budget and NHS England.

However good the intentions of the other political parties may be, they are realistically far from being put into practice. Ring-fencing a budget, in fact, is anything but easy when the institution we are talking about is influenced by each and every sector in government. Therefore, as soon as the other less protected departments face significant cuts, the NHS will be affected as well.

From whichever point of view we look at it, the NHS does not seem to be in good hands right now.