Privatising the NHS

[El-loco]

Have a look at this: http://www.channel4.com/news/proof-g...-privatise-nhs

(Note - the page keeps being updated - a video has now been added.)

Exclusive: GPs say they have firm evidence now that the government is planning to privatise the National Health Service as part of its reforms.

In a document seen by Channel 4 News, plans are laid out for how services will be bought for patients.

And family doctors say the details show for the first time the scale of the involvement of private companies. The document, Developing Commissioning Support: Towards Services Excellence, is a draft sent out to various health organisations.

Under the NHS reforms, GP practices will form consortia and they will manage about 60 per cent of England's NHS budget. But it has been acknowledged that some GPs will not want to - or be capable of - managing such huge enterprises.

Richard Vautrey, deputy chair of the British Medical Association's (BMA) GP committee, said that the document was quite explicit in suggesting that the government was going to create a market for private companies to come in and take over these services and that commissioning groups would be too small do without support.

The BMA and the RCGP are incandescent.

What is the RPS doing? ("Oh, but the government will treat us better if we support them.")

[LeftArm]

Pharmacies are private companies?

[El-loco]

Pharmacies are private companies?

So are G.P.s. Doctors and pharmacy contractors have contracts from the NHS to provide services. They then have to attract customers and provide them with a service for which the NHS pays them according to those contracts.

The difference with what is being proposed is that 60% of public money for all health services in England be handed over to private companies who then decide what services they will commission and pay for.

The doctors are up in arms but pharmacists are (yet again) silent. How many of the new and proposed clinical services do you think these private companies will be prepared to pay pharmacists to do?

[johnep]

They will respond as Drs do. Nothing done unless paid for.
johnep