A letter to my MP

[Dutto]

I sent this letter to my MP this morning. The subject matter may be news for some people on the Forum so I thought I would share it with you.

"Stop the privatisation of NHS services - Petition

Mr. Warman,

Dear Sir,

I have today signed the above Petition, with particular regard to the changes that are apparently to be proposed by the Secretary of State for Health Mr. Jeremy Hunt in the near future.

I can see no merit whatsoever in any proposal that will allow multinational health conglomerates to provide NHS services; especially if such contracts are to run for up to 15 years!

I would like to point out that the primary duty of ALL commercial companies is to maximise their profits, so I fail to understand how exposing the NHS to the control of an overseas company will in any way benefit the population of this country.

May I also point out:

1. As recently as the 5th February 2018 the President of the United States stated the NHS is "going broke and not working". At this point, the UK's Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Health both defended the NHS.
2. In the USA, unsubsidised family Health Care in 1917 apparently cost on average £735 per month with a £950 "excess" payment.

So, from these two items we can assume that:

• The President of the USA fails to appreciates that the NHS is not designed or expected to make a profit.
• The Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Health have defended the NHS whilst at the same time planning to introduce fundamental changes.
• All privatised health services (especially those of the USA) are motivated by profit.

I therefore request that, on my behalf, you oppose any proposal put forward by the Secretary for Health that increases the privatisation of NHS management and services; with particular regard to any proposal that may allow or encourage overseas companies to bid for work within the NHS.

Best regards,"

This is a link to the Petition that I signed ...

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/205106

... and the source from where the Petition started ...

https://www.jamiesnape.com/blog/politics/nhs-privatisation/

They both make for uneasy reading

BTW, remember Carillion? It was another company where the government handed over control of major projects to a private company.

It has just been revealed that the Finance Manager of the Company sold off ALL of his Shares last year for just under £776,000; and today the same shares are worthless!

Of course, the ex-Finance Director did nothing illegal, but his moral values must be somewhere below those of a garden slug; and these are the people that I don't want getting control of our NHS.

For the people who think "Same old, same old." I agree entirely because now is the time to stop these changes and not when it will cost us billions of pounds to get them cancelled when we discover that they don't work.:thumb:

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...on-cfo-sold-800000-in-shares-after-retirement

 

[BarnBrian]

At this point, the UK's Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Health both defended the NHS.

Surely you're not implying that PM has lied to us. She's never been known to do that. (sic)

 

[marshbrewer]

Oh dear. Its THAT lie again ~ 'if we don't have state monopoly provision, we will all DIE in an AMERICAN STYLE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM. DIE! DIE! AAAAaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!'

Which is why everyone in every country that has state funded, free at the point of delivery, healthcare with multiple providers is dead.

Oh no, wait, they aren't........ in fact they enjoy better health outcomes than us.

 

[BarnBrian]

Oh dear. Its THAT lie again ~ 'if we don't have state monopoly provision, we will all DIE in an AMERICAN STYLE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM. DIE! DIE! AAAAaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!'

Which is why everyone in every country that has state funded, free at the point of delivery, healthcare with multiple providers is dead.

Oh no, wait, they aren't........ in fact they enjoy better health outcomes than us.

Looks like you didn't take your medication today!!

 

[Saisonator]

That letter will be filed in the waste paper bin like all the others

 

[marshbrewer]

Looks like you didn't take your medication today!!

Yes, because anyone who critisises the religion of the NHS, or dares to suggest there may be better alternatives, must have some kind of illness. Mine manifests itself an an insane desire to have a public funded healthcare system that is among the best in the world; rather than one that's performance is costing thousands of lives a year. Crazy, huh? Wibble wibble.... :wave:

 

[Sheepish]

Oh dear. Its THAT lie again ~ 'if we don't have state monopoly provision, we will all DIE in an AMERICAN STYLE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM. DIE! DIE! AAAAaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!'

Which is why everyone in every country that has state funded, free at the point of delivery, healthcare with multiple providers is dead.

Oh no, wait, they aren't........ in fact they enjoy better health outcomes than us.

So, quick question, for a given service with equal funding provided by a NHS trust or a profit making private healthcare company, which spends more money on treating patients?

 

[marshbrewer]

So, quick question, for a given service with equal funding provided by a NHS trust or a profit making private healthcare company, which spends more money on treating patients?

You would need to measure the relative efficiencies of each organisation to answer that. However, I'm going to say something really revolutionary here ~ I don't care

If I give the NHS £10 per person to cure a people of illness 'x', and I give a private company the same rate, I only care about the outcomes. If the NHS spends £9.50 per £10 of that cash directly on the patients healthcare, and cures 60% of its patients, and the private company spends 50p per £10 of that cash directly on each patients healthcare, and the MD drives around in a Ferrari, but it cures 90% of its patients, the evil capitalist pig in the Ferrari gets my vote each and every time.

Made up figures, you understand, but you see my point.

 

[Cwrw666]

That letter will be filed in the waste paper bin like all the others

Not necessarily, thirty odd years ago I was living in Hampshire and wrote a robust letter to my MP (a Tory would you believe). A few days later there was a knock on the door and I answered it to find a couple of `men in black' on my doorstep who wanted to know if I'd written to my MP recently. I said yes. There was a pause and I said `haven't you got something more important to be doing?' and they said yes and got in their car and drove off.
Marvelous thing democracy.

 

[Nicks90]

Interestingly, my private healthcare insurance costs me less than my proportion of taxation that goes towards the NHS.
I am treated in private hospitals and my healthcare is far better than the NHS could ever provide.
So why does my private cost less,but provide better care- and still provide a profit for the parent company?

I would hazard a guess at efficiency - something every government agency is equally incapable of doing.
I have worked in govt and for govt contracts, and the scale of waste and pathetic frankly disgusting mismanagement and waste would make most of you think I was lying or on drugs...

 

[Clint]

What puzzles me is why do hospitals have different buyers and suppliers for their consumables...all at different prices? You'd think someone in charge would put the tender out for the best suppliers at the best rate....for the whole nhs. I seen a TV report that one hospital was buying a product for several pounds per pkt when the equivalent was in the supermarket for under a quid...

 

[Sheepish]

You would need to measure the relative efficiencies of each organisation to answer that. However, I'm going to say something really revolutionary here ~ I don't care

If I give the NHS £10 per person to cure a people of illness 'x', and I give a private company the same rate, I only care about the outcomes. If the NHS spends £9.50 per £10 of that cash directly on the patients healthcare, and cures 60% of its patients, and the private company spends 50p per £10 of that cash directly on each patients healthcare, and the MD drives around in a Ferrari, but it cures 90% of its patients, the evil capitalist pig in the Ferrari gets my vote each and every time.

Made up figures, you understand, but you see my point.

Nice idea, however completely flawed. I don’t know if you have any experience of outsourcing, but it works on the principal of economy of scale. The NHS is the 5th largest organisation on the planet, so if anyone, like Richard Branson for instance, tells you that breaking up services to be contracted out to much smaller private companies is more efficient, they’re lying to you.

Contracting services out to private providers isn’t the end, it’s merely one step closer to full privatisation and ending up like the dreaded US style of healthcare. Take a look at the Tory cabinet, half of them at one time or another have publicly stated that people should pay for their healthcare. And they’re offering 15 year contracts? No one in their right mind offers a 15 year contract for that style of outsourcing ...just long enough for the Tories to loose the next two elections and scrape back in in the third?

The entire Tory cabinet is made up of millionaires, every single one of them. Ask yourself, what does a millionaire care about the NHS? ...the answer is not one jot, they can afford to pay for the best care available, so the NHS is merely one unnecessary contribution to their tax liability ...but if it’s privatised, you can make money from it, and better still remove it as a liability all together. You can apply the same principal to the Police (figures which May and her minions repeatedly publicly lie about), the Fire Brigade, in fact any public service...

One last thought for you, if there’s an annual budget of say £10m for treating breast cancer (for a given region), and after 10 months the £10m has been spent treating cancer patients, an NHS trust would go over-budget and run a deficit, a private healthcare provider would not!

 

[Sheepish]

Interestingly, my private healthcare insurance costs me less than my proportion of taxation that goes towards the NHS.
I am treated in private hospitals and my healthcare is far better than the NHS could ever provide.
So why does my private cost less,but provide better care- and still provide a profit for the parent company?

I would hazard a guess at efficiency - something every government agency is equally incapable of doing.
I have worked in govt and for govt contracts, and the scale of waste and pathetic frankly disgusting mismanagement and waste would make most of you think I was lying or on drugs...

Lifetime cost. I don’t know how old you are, but get a quote for full cover, including drugs, aftercare, cancer cover including chemo, and so on, but put your age a 70, and add a pre-existing condition, say a heart attack or prostate cancer, and I think you’ll find things very different.

 

[marshbrewer]

Nice idea, however completely flawed.

How is being only concerned with health outcomes for a given expenditure a flawed idea? I'm interested. Please explain. Explain to me the logical flaw in the example given.

I don’t know if you have any experience of outsourcing, but it works on the principal of economy of scale.

No, I don't believe it does, nor do I think outsourcing, and opening up a monopoly to competition are the same thing at all, but then I don't regard myself as an expert, having only worked in the outsourcing / service provision sector for about 25 years (not, I hasten to add, in the healthcare sector). However, as your reply then morphs into a massive anti Tory conspiracy theory, I guess this is party political for you. It isn't for me.

I'm not party political. I just want the best healthcare system for the UK. As the report I linked to points out, there are a number of alternatives, that don't have a monopoly provider, and achieve better outcomes.

 

[Saisonator]

Interestingly, my private healthcare insurance costs me less than my proportion of taxation that goes towards the NHS.
I am treated in private hospitals and my healthcare is far better than the NHS could ever provide.
So why does my private cost less,but provide better care- and still provide a profit for the parent company?

I would hazard a guess at efficiency - something every government agency is equally incapable of doing.
I have worked in govt and for govt contracts, and the scale of waste and pathetic frankly disgusting mismanagement and waste would make most of you think I was lying or on drugs...

I worked as a sub-contractor in the building trade for years then decided I didn't fancy being 60 years old bloke with knackered knees and back on a building site. So 18 months ago a I a maintenance job in the public sector.
Money is less but the work load is about 1/4 and 10% of the stress. If I someone is off sick on a Monday the supervisor expects they will see the week out and questions why they come back any earlier. If I order materials and it's below the minimum for delivery, instead of waiting for other materials later or from other staff to add to the order, to make paperwork less complicated they just double order the item.
There are people off with stress for months on end that don't have vaguely stressful jobs. Two young blokes who have been there from school, fold and go off with stress if the supervisor even tries to get half a day's work out of them.
The place really sounds out alarm signals for me when I think of a Corbyn and comrades run country. It's no wonder socialism tends to wreck countries.
But if course that was not real socialism and round and round we go

 

[terrym]

Ahh, another post on the the NHS. Time to get to your respective corners.
Most people in the UK want an NHS, including me. But do they want an NHS at any cost? In its current form it consumes £120bn a year, and rising. At its best it's probably world class, at its worst it is inefficient and overmanned. It needs a shake up, not yet more money without proper justification, and a mandate to keep it all 'in house' driven by political dogma. So if part of the solution is to outsource some of its services to deliver the same or better outcomes at a better use of funding, or because in house resources are stretched which enables it to meet its targets within budget, I'm all for it provided its managed properly. And the management of that situation is down to NHS management, which is, at the end of the day, what they are paid to do.

 

[BeerCat]

Dutto i think you forgot to use the words traitor and parasite. Always goes down well.

 

[Sheepish]

How is being only concerned with health outcomes for a given expenditure a flawed idea? I'm interested. Please explain. Explain to me the logical flaw in the example given.

Erm, now I’m not sure whether you’re joking or not? ...because your premise of outcomes for a given expenditure is not based on the same expenditure and is therefore, at best, flawed ...even the article you linked to relates the poorer outcomes in the UK, to the UK spending less on healthcare than the countries it’s being compared to. The article also admits improvements in the NHS over the last 20 years, in the same breath as criticising is for not being as good as all the best bits of every other healthcare system, acknowledging ALL other systems have their faults.

You’re rather naive to believe this is not a political issue... it is a political decision to underfund the NHS, it is a political decision to spend £1b to buy 10 DUP votes, it is a political decision to cap public sector pay rises at 1% (whilst inflation is currently 3%), it is a political decision to cut police numbers 21,500 since 2010, it is a political decision to spend £840b to bail out banks, etc... ignoring something does not make it untrue or go away...

 

[Dutto]

.............

....... I just want the best healthcare system for the UK. ............

Please explain how outsourcing the provision of goods and services to a profit making company will result in "the best healthcare system for the UK".

This is especially relevant if the company concerned is based overseas and immediately removes all profits from its UK operations to enhance the lives of the Shareholders of the parent company.

Sorry, but if someone is going to steal from me or waste my money I would much rather it was an entity over which my government had control.:wave:

 

[marshbrewer]

Erm, now I’m not sure whether you’re joking or not? ...because your premise of outcomes for a given expenditure is not based on the same expenditure and is therefore, at best, flawed

Erm, OK. Let's recap.

If I give the NHS £10 per person to cure a people of illness 'x', and I give a private company the same rate, I only care about the outcomes.

So, in the example, £10 is given to two organisations per patient with illness 'x'. The same expenditure.

My argument is that I care not how that money is spent, I care only about the outcome. So, if the evil capitalist fat cat apparently has enough spare cash to buy a shiny Ferrari, I care not a jot, as long as his outcomes are superior to giving £10 per patient to the other organisation.

I cannot see how you can dispute that is the same expenditure. Sure, the two organisations have different costs (50p and £9.50 respectively suggesting one is vastly more efficient than the other) but costs are not the same thing, are they?

So, again, how is being only concerned with health outcomes for a given expenditure a flawed idea? I'm interested. Please explain. Explain to me the logical flaw in the example given.