Labour considers expanding private sector role in NHS, undermining the already fragile public health system

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Original article by Peoples Health Dispatch republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Protest against privatization of the NHS in the UK, February 25, 2023. (Photo: We Own It) 

The UK Labour government is considering increasing the role of private healthcare providers, weakening NHS capacities

The Labour Party is considering a major expansion of the private sector’s involvement in the National Health Service (NHS) as it attempts to reduce waiting lists in the United Kingdom. Recently, the Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN) wrote to Keir Starmer’s government, stating that private providers are ready to spend £1 billion to accommodate more NHS patients—if the government guarantees them long-term work.

While the offer has been welcomed by officials from the Department of Health, health activists have raised alarms over the plan. The We Own It campaign warned that a resurgence of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) policy, as essentially proposed by the private sector, would lead to higher debt, staffing shortages, and diminished NHS training capacities.

Read more: The NHS at 75 years: A sharp turn needed to fight health inequities

This wouldn’t be the first time private capital has been welcomed by a Labour administration. When Tony Blair was Prime Minister, PFI entrusted the private sector with financing the construction of hospitals to fill gaps in the NHS network. The NHS would then pay back the costs of building such infrastructure—with interest—over the course of 25 years or more, eventually becoming the owner.

However, earlier reports indicated that while the NHS gained £13 billion in assets through PFI, it also ended up with £80 billion in debt. This meant that until at least 2022, some NHS trusts spent more on servicing debt to the private sector than on medical supplies.

There is no indication that the current government would introduce stronger safeguards when implementing a new phase of the initiative, dubbed PFI 2.0. If anything, the situation might worsen. While the previous round of PFI left some infrastructure for the public sector, PFI 2.0 foresees nothing of the sort. The additional capacities would be entirely private, with the only public involvement being the money paid to them.

“PFI 2.0 would not only drastically expand private provision in the health service, it will also dramatically increase how much is sucked out of the NHS in profits,” We Own It suggested in its analysis. Currently, private companies siphon £10 million weekly from the NHS. Guaranteeing even more private contracts would add to that burden, leaving fewer funds to invest in the NHS’s own capacities.

Labour fails to grasp importance of publicly-owned NHS

According to a recent inquiry, these capacities are in dire need of strengthening, as health activists have claimed for decades. The inquiry indicated that years of austerity have left a deep mark on the NHS, and it was this—not staff inefficiency—that led to the crisis. Unfortunately, the inquiry failed to underline the importance of breaking ties with the private sector and keeping the NHS publicly-owned, according to the group Keep Our NHS Public.

Even if it did, it is highly likely that Health Secretary Wes Streeting would not understand the importance of such a strategy. Speaking at a party conference in September, Streeting expressed enthusiasm about “reform,” a code word used by governments for “anything but public investment in public capacities.”

“Reform or die. We choose reform,” the Health Secretary said. His approach has left activists understandably worried that the government is sticking to a vague health reform agenda instead of making material commitments to protect the NHS.

Rather than pursuing a shift from “analog to digital,” Keep Our NHS Public argued, the government should pledge to move away from underfunding, fragmentation, and outsourcing. As health workers and their trade unions have raised multiple times, a true strategy to protect the NHS must also include a commitment to improving working conditions and ensuring fair salaries.

If the private sector’s role is expanded, this would not be a realistic option. “The private sector does not have its own staff,” We Own It warned. “They steal staff, trained at huge public expense, from the NHS.”

Further involvement of the private sector would also reduce the NHS’s capacity to train new staff, the group stated. The procedures usually handled by the private sector are often critical for the hands-on experience needed by medical trainees. With fewer procedures of this kind being performed in NHS hospitals, these learning opportunities would disappear, condemning new generations of health workers to lower-quality education and undermine patient care.

“If PFI 1.0 was one of the nails in the coffin of the NHS as we know it, PFI 2.0 is the true end of our NHS as a public service that works for patients, not profit,” We Own It warned.

People’s Health Dispatch is a fortnightly bulletin published by the People’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch. For more articles and to subscribe to People’s Health Dispatch, click here.

Original article by Peoples Health Dispatch republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingLabour considers expanding private sector role in NHS, undermining the already fragile public health system

For-Profit US Healthcare System—Once Again—Ranks Dead Last Among Its Peers

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Medical staffers tend to patients at a hospital in Houston, Texas on August 18, 2021. (Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

“Our private, profit-driven system means that we are paying more for less,” said one progressive activist.

A report out Thursday shows that the United States’ for-profit healthcare system still ranks dead last among peer nations on key metrics, including access to care and health outcomes such as life expectancy at birth.

The new analysis from the Commonwealth Fund is the latest indictment of a corporate-dominated system that leaves tens of millions of people uninsured or underinsured and unable to afford life-saving medications without rationing doses or going into debt.

“Despite spending a lot on healthcare, the United States is not meeting one of the principal obligations of a nation: to protect the health and welfare of its residents,” the report states. “Most of the countries we compared are providing this protection, even though each can learn a good deal from its peers. The U.S., in failing this ultimate test of a successful nation, remains an outlier.”

People in the U.S., which spends roughly twice as much per capita on healthcare as other rich nations, “live the shortest lives and have the most avoidable deaths,” Commonwealth noted, pointing to frequent “denials of services by insurance companies” and other systematic defects of the American system, including massive administrative costs.

Meanwhile, insurance giants and pharmaceutical companies are raking in huge profits, benefiting in particular from the growing privatization of Medicare. More than half of the Medicare-eligible population in the U.S. is currently on a privately run Medicare Advantage plan.

“Our private, profit-driven system means that we are paying more for less,” progressive activist Jonathan Cohn wrote in response to the Commonwealth report.

Americans live the shortest lives and have the most avoidable deaths.

Note: To normalize performance scores across countries, each score is the calculated standard deviation from a nine-country average that excludes the US. See “How We Conducted This Study” for more detail.

Data: Commonwealth Fund analysis.

Source: David Blumenthal et al., Mirror, Mirror 2024: A Portrait of the Failing U.S. Health System — Comparing Performance in 10 Nations (Commonwealth Fund, Sept. 2024). https://doi.org/10.26099/ta0g-zp66

The Commonwealth Fund’s findings bolster progressives’ case for transitioning to a Medicare for All system that would provide comprehensive coverage to everyone in the country for free at the point of service. Studies have repeatedly shown that such a program would cost less than the immensely wasteful for-profit system—which is set to drive national healthcare spending to $7.7 trillion per year by 2032—while saving lives.

Commonwealth observed Thursday that while affordability “is a pervasive problem” in the U.S., Australia “offers free care in all public hospitals, and the nation’s universal Medicare system provides all Australians with coverage for all or part of the cost of [general practitioners] and specialist consultations and diagnostic tests, with additional subsidies available for private hospital care.”

“The U.S. continues to be in a class by itself in the underperformance of its healthcare sector,” the report continues. “While the other nine countries differ in the details of their systems and in their performance on domains, unlike the U.S., they all have found a way to meet their residents’ most basic health care needs, including universal coverage.”

Americans face the most barriers to accessing and affording health care.

Note: To normalize performance scores across countries, each score is the calculated standard deviation from a nine-country average that excludes the US. See “How We Conducted This Study” for more detail.

Data: Commonwealth Fund analysis.

Source: David Blumenthal et al., Mirror, Mirror 2024: A Portrait of the Failing U.S. Health System — Comparing Performance in 10 Nations (Commonwealth Fund, Sept. 2024). https://doi.org/10.26099/ta0g-zp66

With the U.S. presidential election less than two months away, neither 2024 candidate for the two major parties has outlined a detailed healthcare proposal thus far.

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, said during last week’s debate in Philadelphia that he merely has “the concepts of a plan,” while Harris—who once co-sponsored Medicare for All legislation in the Senate—said she “absolutely” supports “private healthcare options” and wants to “maintain and grow the Affordable Care Act.”

Just days after the debate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio)—Trump’s running mate—said the Republican nominee prefers a system in which “a young American” and a “65-year-old American with a chronic condition” are not placed in “the same risk pools,” suggesting a rollback of the ACA’s protections for people with preexisting conditions.

“You can’t really say people with preexisting conditions are protected if they are in a separate insurance risk pool and can be charged exorbitant premiums,” Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the research group KFF, wrote in response to Vance’s comments.

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingFor-Profit US Healthcare System—Once Again—Ranks Dead Last Among Its Peers

Labour admits super-rich are propping it up as member numbers collapse again

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Original article republished from the Skwawkbox.

Record fall in membership despite earlier claims of increases from right-wing figures

Labour has admitted it is only kept afloat by the money of the mega-rich, after yet another massive fall in party membership numbers – to a level lower than its peak under Ed Miliband and far below the almost 600,000 when Jeremy Corbyn was leader.

According to its latest official figures, the party suffered a net loss of 37,000 members, 9% of its total, by the end of 2023 compared to a year earlier – the biggest year-on-year loss since 2003 when Labour haemorrhaged members during Tony Blair’s illegal war in Iraq. Even the claimed latest membership of 370,000 is suspect according to party insiders, as Labour under Keir Starmer has long padded its figures by continuing to count lapsed members – and its records were long in chaos after outsourcing led to a massive hack and the freezing of its membership administration systems.

Leading right-wing Labour figures have repeatedly briefed that members were pouring in and numbers were rising, attributing this to Starmer. In fact, given Starmer’s deep personal unpopularity, it makes far more sense to attribute the collapse in membership to him, his support for Israel’s genocide, his cowardly assault on left-wing MPs and members and his dog-whistle red-Tory ‘policies’.

And the party has inadvertently admitted that it is only propped up by donations from the super-rich. Party general secretary David Evans has said that the party losing less than the expected £2.5m during the general election campaign was because of “an increase in high-value donations”. Under Corbyn, large numbers of ordinary people chipped in what they could afford – so many that Labour’s debts, grown huge under previous leaders, were wiped out.

Now, even kept afloat by billionaires – and clearly beholden to them, given Labour’s atrocious announcements penalising the poor since Starmer was ushered into Downing Street by the fascist Reform ‘party’ – Labour is still losing money, just less than it would have without the huge donors wanting payback for their investment.

Original article republished from the Skwawkbox.

Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.
Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.
Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted "I support Zionism without qualification." He's asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
Continue ReadingLabour admits super-rich are propping it up as member numbers collapse again

New Popular Front gains support from French health activists

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Original article by Peoples Health Dispatch republished from peoples dispatch under a CC licence.

French health activists stage a protest.

Social movements and trade unions in France are rallying behind the New Popular Front, which promises a genuine alternative to the far-right and liberal health policies

Trade unions and activists warn that a National Rally victory would spell disaster for public healthcare in France. If the far-right wins the upcoming election, as polls currently predict, changes would come at the expense of sexual and reproductive health services and migrant health, among other things.

Marine Le Pen’s party recently dominated the European Parliament elections, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to call for a snap election, hoping to mobilize voters against the far-right. According to analysts, Macron gambled that the people of France would go to great lengths to keep the National Rally out of power, perhaps even reaffirming his mandate.

However, Macron’s policies, including privatization and commodification of health services, have fueled the far-right’s growth. His administration has caused closures of local hospitals, creating health deserts, and continues to push for more privatization, causing patient suffering. Despite the failures of this approach, liberals continue to pursue the same strategy in the current campaign, advocating for a more profit-driven logic in healthcare. The Trade Union of Health Centers’ Physicians (USMCS) stated: “We are experiencing the consequences of this policy on a daily basis. Patients suffer. We want no more of it.”

The far-right is expected to continue liberalizing the sector while introducing intolerance and xenophobia by prioritizing French citizens and marginalizing other residents. “If implemented, the [far-right policies] will pose a major risk to public health, not only for these ‘excluded’ individuals but also for the population as a whole,” USMCS warned.

“Abandoning the values of solidarity and universalism that underpin our healthcare system, a right-wing program will worsen social and territorial inequalities. We reject any program that proposes a healthcare policy based on exclusion and discrimination.”

Trade unions and organizations, united under the Tour de France pour la Santé, are backing the New Popular Front (NFP), a left-wing coalition opposing Macron’s policies as much as the far-right. The NFP plans to retract the controversial pension reform, curb living costs, and rebuild the healthcare system by recruiting healthcare workers, increasing incomes, and regulating the private sector. For example, the program states that new private clinics will only be allowed if they provide guarantees that patients will not face any out-of-pocket costs.

Read more: Left and progressives form New Popular Front to counter far-right in French elections

The USMCS emphasized that the NFP’s program is the only one to offer real prospects for healthcare reform. To support this, the Tour de France pour la Santé announced a series of actions during the election campaign, starting with an assembly in Lille on June 27, where activists will discuss the importance of resisting the far-right. Speakers will include Françoise Nay from the People’s Health Movement (PHM) France and Ramon Vila from the trade union SUD Santé Sociaux.

“Confronted with the threat of the extreme right, now more than ever, we urge citizens, trade unions, associations, mutual insurance societies, and progressive parties to unite in defending the right to health for all,” the platform said in its press release.

Ahead of the first round of the election on June 30, the National Rally leads with approximately 35% in polls, followed by the NFP at more than 29%, and Macron’s party at 19.5%. Bridging the gap between the far-right and the progressives might be possible with strong social movement support.

People’s Health Dispatch is a fortnightly bulletin published by the People’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch. For more articles and subscription to People’s Health Dispatch, click here

Original article by Peoples Health Dispatch republished from peoples dispatch under a CC licence.

Continue ReadingNew Popular Front gains support from French health activists

Reaction to Wes Streeting comments on NHS reform and private sector involvement

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Image of the Green Party's Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.

Responding to comments by the Shadow Heath Secretary saying that under a Labour government investment in the NHS would be dependent on reform and that there would be an increased role for the private sector, co-leader of the Green Party, Carla Denyer, said: 

“Wes Streeting says that if the NHS doesn’t change, it will die. But it is inadequate funding that has left our NHS in a poor state of health, not lack of reform.  

“Between 2010 and 2019 the UK had a lower level of capital investment in health care and 18% lower average health spending than 14 EU countries. 

“So to say that the public is paying a heavy price for failure is an insult to hard-working NHS staff, who are doing their level best despite being overworked and underpaid. It is the failure to invest adequately and pay staff properly that is at the root of dissatisfaction with the NHS. 

“The public agrees. They don’t want endless reforms; neither do they share the Conservative or Labour appetite for creeping privatisation. They want the current model to work and to see the NHS available to everyone free of charge and primarily funded through taxes. A tax on the super-rich billionaires and multi-millionaires can provide the funds needed to fix our cherished NHS.    

“The Green Party has never had any truck with the profit motive in health care and will continue to push for a fully publicly funded NHS.” 

Continue ReadingReaction to Wes Streeting comments on NHS reform and private sector involvement

Natalie Bennett: The state of our NHS is down to long-term political failure

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/02/natalie-bennett-the-state-of-our-nhs-is-down-to-long-term-political-failure/

The Green Party holds that the profit motive should have no place in our health care – in any form of care

Natalie Bennett is a Green Party member of the House of Lords. She was leader of the Green Party of England and Wales from 2012-16.

Perhaps because it is a continuing story of disaster, there’s few stories now also about the impact of privatisation, despite the level continuing to rise. In 2022 nearly 10 per cent of treatments for NHS patients, more than 2 million people, were provided by private companies, up from 3 per cent in 2011. Yet there’s evidence that in areas where privatisation is at the highest levels the outcomes are dire – in the form of more people dying from treatable causes.

In mental health care – in the face of terribly tragedies, and much higher levels of privatisation, with public provision gutted – there’s been more attention. Now 55 per cent of under-18 inpatient mental health care is delivered by for-profit providers.

Meanwhile, we are all continuing to pay for the disaster of Labour Party-promoted Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes. That sees some hospitals paying a sixth of their total budget on payments, frequently to offshore hedge funds, and from a £13 billion original investment a final bill that will reach £80 billion, the equivalent of £1,200 for each person in the UK.

The Green Party holds that the profit motive should have no place in our health care – in any form of care – but the current largest opposition party, Labour, appears to be a fan of even further steps of privatisation.

There’s also long term underfunding, with austerity in the face of a growing and ageing population having disastrous impacts. Provision for investment on infrastructure and technology collapsed; the RAAC crisis was just one visible tip of a very large iceberg of decline.

And that austerity saw a collapse in real terms of the pay of nurses and doctors, which has seen a huge exodus overseas and to other jobs, meaning huge understaffing, which puts massive pressure on remaining staff.

Make no mistake. The state of the system is not the fault of medical staff. It is not the fault of managers. It is a long-term political failure, the application of ideology over evidence, the interests of private companies over public good.

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/02/natalie-bennett-the-state-of-our-nhs-is-down-to-long-term-political-failure/

Continue ReadingNatalie Bennett: The state of our NHS is down to long-term political failure

NHS to investigate Palantir after spy tech firm plotted influencer marketing campaign to counter critics

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/nhs-investigate-palantir-spy-tech-firm-plotted-influencer-marketing-campaign

Health workers form a blockade in Soho Square during a protest outside the London headquarters of US tech giant Palantir, which was awarded a £330 million contract by NHS England last month to create a new data management system called the Federated Data Platform, December 21, 2023

THE NHS is set to probe potential contract breaches by US spy tech firm Palantir after the company plotted an influencer marketing campaign to shut down criticism from campaigners.

Palantir failed to seek prior approval from NHS England for a marketing campaign promoting its £330 million contract to run a data platform for the health service.

The contract sparked fierce criticism from campaigners who cited privacy concerns over sharing medical data with the secretive firm, which was first funded by the CIA.

According to leaked emails, Palantir hired PR agency Topham Guerin, which previously ran campaigns for the Conservative Party, and marketing agency Disrupt, to approach influencers.

The brief outlined a campaign to “clear up misinformation relating to some recent data privacy concerns that were shared in the UK press.”

It went on to accuse The Good Law Project, which flagged concerns over safeguarding data, of “spreading fear.”

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/nhs-investigate-palantir-spy-tech-firm-plotted-influencer-marketing-campaign

Continue ReadingNHS to investigate Palantir after spy tech firm plotted influencer marketing campaign to counter critics

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party Wants to Continue Destroying the NHS

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https://jacobin.com/2023/06/labour-party-uk-nhs-health-care-privatization/

NHS sign

If it wins the next general election in the UK, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party could try to fix the damage inflicted on the National Health Service by years of Tory austerity. But Labour seems set on further privatizing the NHS.

Everywhere you look in the health service, the signs of thirteen years of austerity and willful Tory neglect are apparent. The Tories have, throughout their time in government, allowed the National Health Service (NHS) to go to rack and ruin, sending staff morale crashing through the floor and putting patients’ lives at risk.     

The waiting list for surgery or specialist clinical care — partly a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic but exacerbated by years of chronic underfunding — stands at a record high of 7.22 million. Millions of patients, meanwhile, are struggling to get general practitioner (GP) appointments due to the immense pressures on NHS primary care.  

Ambulance waiting times are alarmingly long: in December, response times in England were the worst on record, while the number of patients waiting twelve hours or more to be admitted to accidents and emergency department (A&E) also hit a new all-time high. NHS dentistry, in addition, is in a state of almost-total collapse

Both opinion polls and the recent local elections in England indicate that the Tories are on track to lose the next general election. While the differences between Keir Starmer’s Labour and Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives are narrowing all the time, it might at least be expected that the Labour Party would repair the worst of the damage done since 2010. The NHS remains the great survivor of postwar social democracy. But statements from the Labour front bench suggest otherwise. 

https://jacobin.com/2023/06/labour-party-uk-nhs-health-care-privatization/

Continue ReadingKeir Starmer’s Labour Party Wants to Continue Destroying the NHS

Twitter forced to add information to Starmer’s misleading NHS/local election claim

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Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-commercial use.

Not for the first time, Starmer and Labour claim local elections will affect national policies

Keir Starmer has suffered the indignity of corrective action by Twitter after he posted a claim that votes in the local elections next month will affect the NHS.

Starmer claimed that voting for Labour would lead to ‘an NHS that treats patients on time again’ – but of course, local government does not decide NHS policy, capacity or funding:

Starmer, of course, has already committed to increasing privatisation – the key cause of the NHS’s problems – in the NHS. He and his Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting have both accepted large donations from private health investors and Starmer employed a private health lobbyist in his team soon after becoming Labour leader – which he achieved through a series of promises that were all binned and broken after he took over.

Starmer has defended Labour’s recent appalling campaign messages. Now a social media platform has had to attach information to his campaign claim to reduce the extent to which it misleads voters. The scandal comes on the same day news emerged that Starmer accepted corporate hospitality from a firm that had to pay out almost £11 million after installing Grenfell-like flammable cladding to an apartment block.

Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-commercial use.

Continue ReadingTwitter forced to add information to Starmer’s misleading NHS/local election claim

More than two-thirds of public think NHS is underfunded, including over half of Tory voters, poll finds

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/more-than-two–thirds-of-public-think-nhs-is-underfunded-including-over-half-of-tory-voters-poll-finds

NHS sign

MORE than two-thirds of Brits think the NHS in underfunded, including a majority of Tory voters, a damning new poll published today reveals.

The Opinium survey — commissioned by Keep Our NHS Public (KONP) — shows 67 per cent of all voters and 58 per cent of Conservative supporters want austerity-hit health services to receive more cash.

Nearly seven in 10 of the 2,000 adults consulted think the NHS is performing badly, with 55 per cent blaming Downing Street for the deterioration in services, which have also been hit by national strikes since December over plummeting take-home pay and worsening patient safety.

Close to three-quarters — 72 per cent — want the health service to be a “fully or mostly public service,” the poll also shows.

It came ahead of what is expected to be a massive national demonstration in central London on Saturday, when the more than 50 organisations involved in the KONP-founded SOS NHS campaign will gather to demand better.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/more-than-two–thirds-of-public-think-nhs-is-underfunded-including-over-half-of-tory-voters-poll-finds

Continue ReadingMore than two-thirds of public think NHS is underfunded, including over half of Tory voters, poll finds