The Plot Against the NHS

NHS news review : ConDem scum privatise the NHS

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The UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat(Conservative) coalition government – the ConDems’ – brutal attack on the National Health Service continues.

  • So far the New Statesman and the Financial Times have noticed that Lansley is to announce today the abolition of the cap on private work that hospitals can do. Hospitals can now exclusively treat private, paying patients.

Lansley opens the door to full-scale NHS privatisation

The 49% cap on private work done by NHS trusts will be abolished.

When the government unveils a policy change on a Friday it’s a sure sign that it doesn’t want you to notice. Today, Andrew Lansley will announce that the 49% cap on private work done by NHS hospitals, which his bill introduced, will be abolished (so far, only the FT has noticed). In other words, the Health Secretary has just opened the door to the full-scale privatisation of the NHS, with hospitals able to raise 100% of their income from private healthcare.

Sue Slipman, the chief executive of the NHS Foundation Trust Network, describes the removal of the cap as “a really creative way of bringing more money into the health service”. What she doesn’t say is that foundation trusts, in pursuit of profit, will likely prioritise the treatment and care of private patients over NHS ones. Since the most profitable procedures are usually the simplest, those requiring more complex treatment will be pushed to the back of the queue. As Howard Catton, head policy at the Royal College of Nursing, has previously warned: “NHS patients may feel a subtle pressure to reach for the credit card.” Since all of the remaining 113 NHS trusts are required to become self-governing foundation trusts by April 2014, the removal of the cap will apply to all NHS services – hospitals, ambulances, mental health, community services and clinics.

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http://www.google.com/search?q=nhs+%22not+privatisation%22+lansley

http://www.google.com/search?q=nhs+%22not+privatisation%22+cameron

http://www.google.com/search?q=nhs+%22not+privatisation%22+clegg

 

How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems

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What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-known Orange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.
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Nick Clegg’s demand for the NHS to be broken up (2005)

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‘People Will Die’ – The End Of The NHS.

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Medialens has a couple of articles on the failure of the UK media – particularly the BBC – to cover the passage of the Health and Social Care / Destroy the NHS Bill. Medialens propose the “sham of UK ‘democracy'” since the bill passed without widespread public awareness due to corporate media’s complicity with vested interests.

    ‘People Will Die’ – The End Of The NHS. Part 1: The Corporate Assault

Few political acts have exposed the sham of British ‘democracy’ like the decision to dismantle the National Health Service. In essence, the issues are simple:

1. The longstanding obligation of the UK government to provide universal health care has now been ditched.

2. The NHS is being carved open for exploitation by private interests.

The media, notably the BBC – often ranked alongside the NHS as one of the country’s greatest institutions –  have failed to report this corporate assault on the country’s health service.

What is deeply disturbing is how little the British public has been told about what has happened, and about the likely consequences for an institution we all hold dear.

Much Profit To Be Made!

On March 20, 2012, MPs passed the Health and Social Care Bill (commonly called ‘the NHS bill’) more than 14 months after it was first put before Parliament. Virtually every major professional medical body had fought against it, and there were numerous public protests. But the opposition was given scant media coverage and the government was able to force the bill through.

Recall that the Conservatives, led by David Cameron, won just 36% of the vote in the 2010 general election. Outrageously, the Conservative manifesto said nothing about the NHS bill. The former Conservative minister and leading political pundit Michael Portillo explained the reasoning:

‘They did not believe they could win an election if they told you what they were going to do because people are so wedded to the NHS.’

Cameron had pledged that there would be: ‘No more pointless and disruptive reorganisations’. Instead, he said change would be: ‘Driven by the wishes and needs of NHS professionals and patients.’ The coalition agreement between the Tories and the Lib Dems of May 2010 had promised: ‘We will stop the top-down reorganisation of the NHS.’ That promise has been well and truly smashed.

The government tried to justify the bill by arguing that the NHS is not working and that it must be ‘reformed’. In fact, the NHS is one of the fairest, most cost-effective and efficient healthcare systems in the world. Its per capita costs are half that of the US healthcare system, a country which has lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality (OECD figures). One can only look on in horror across the Atlantic to see the way our health service is headed.

Michael Moore, writer and director of Sicko, a film about the US health system,  tweeted of Cameron’s recent visit to the United States:

‘Is British PM Cameron here in USA this week to study our health care system & bring it back to the UK? There’s much profit to be made!’

‘Last nite, Brit PM watched 1st ever basketball game. Today he goes to hospital 2 watch sick ppl turned away & denied care. It’s a fun trip!’

The NHS bill was hideously complicated and virtually unreadable. Critics claimed this was intentional, serving to hide the bill’s true purpose – selling off more and more of the NHS to private companies. The British Medical Association denounced the bill as ‘complex, incoherent and not fit for purpose, and almost impossible to implement successfully, given widespread opposition across the NHS workforce’.

In a rare instance of BBC Question Time actually putting a senior politician on the spot about something that matters, Dr Phil Hammond challenged Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State for Health, on the disaster the bill would create for genuine health care, for cooperation between medical professionals and for basic human compassion. Imagine if news editors and journalists had been consistently making this kind of challenge in the 14 months before the bill became law.

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‘People Will Die’ – The End Of The NHS. Part 2: Buried By The BBC

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Along with the NHS, the BBC is supposed to epitomise the best of British institutions. The BBC has a duty, enshrined in its Charter, to report objectively on stories of national and international interest. The NHS affects every man, woman and child in the country. And yet we suspect very few members of the public realise what has just happened to their health care system.

The BBC mostly failed to cover the story, and otherwise offered coverage heavily biased in favour of the government’s perspective. On the very day the bill passed into law, the tag line across the bottom of BBC news broadcasts said ‘Bill which gives power to GPs passes’. The assessment could have come from a government press release, spin that has been rejected by an overwhelming majority of GPs. The BBC has also repeatedly failed to cover public protests, including one outside the Department of Health which stopped the traffic in Whitehall for an hour.

It is nigh-on impossible for Media Lens, with our meagre resources, to closely monitor the prodigious output of BBC television and radio news; even on a single topic. But one activist who has been following the NHS story closely over an extended period sent us this last month:

‘For the past two years there has been so little coverage of this bill that even as some were desperately fighting to stop it – through e-petitions, lobbying campaigns and even demonstrations – many people did not appear to be even aware of it. I have been on a demonstration in which people sat down in the road in Whitehall, outside the Department of Health and blocked the traffic, yet this was not mentioned at all on the news.

‘When the BBC have reported on the bill they have been sparse with their explanations of its implications or the reasons why so many – including most medical professionals – have objected to it. They have tended to limit their comments to those of the type “Some people say it’s privatisation” without explaining why or exploring the issue.

‘There have not been – as we might have expected for so momentous a change – debates on the Today Programme, on BBC Newsnight, or blackground analysis programmes, with politicians being challenged and questioned on the policy. Radio 4 ran a programme at 8pm [The Report, on March 22, 2012] which appeared to be very biased in favour of the bill, with opposing views not adequately represented. Contrast this programme with this article by Hackney Keep Our NHS Public (KONP)

‘Whatever one’s views on the Health and Social Care bill, surely such large scale changes which may affect the health of so many, should have been widely reported and debated, especially when you consider that the coalition government was not elected and did not put this issue in their manifestos.’ (Email, name withheld, March 23, 2012)

Why did we never see a BBC television news report like this one from RT: ‘UK govt bill opens up NHS to private profiteering’?

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A few recent news articles about the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat(Conservative) coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

 

It’s been some time since I’ve posted on the destruction of the NHS by the Con-Dems – the Conservative and Liberal-Democrat Conservative coalition government.

The Destroy the NHS Bill has been passed. The government refused to publish the risk register documents despite being instructed to do so. An early draft of the risk register was leaked.  Privatisation of the health service continues. The Lib-Dems are getting hit for being duplicious two-faced, lying scum and for being in coalition with duplicious two-faced, lying scum.

Health reforms could damage NHS, warns draft risk register

Document points to danger of emergencies being less well managed and increased use of private sector driving up costs

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• A longer term danger to the NHS’s ability to cope with emergencies. It said: “The NHS role in emergency preparedness/responsiveness is more difficult to manage through a more devolved organisation, and so emergencies are less well managed/ mitigated.”

• Greater costs if new GP-led consortiums make greater use of the private sector. “One example of area where system could be more costly is if GP Consortia makes use of private sector organisations/staff which adds costs to the overall system.”

• A danger that the new system is set up too quickly, threatening the running of the NHS.

• A loss of financial control. “Financial control is lost due to the restructuring of budgets distributed between or allocated to organisations within the system [to be clarified],” it said.

• Unfavourable media coverage. “Public reputation. There is a risk that the transition will be presented in a negative light via the media. Two of the biggest risks which have already surfaced in the media are i) that the reforms will continue to be characterised through the prism of privatisation and ii) financial cuts.”

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Public interest ‘high’ in publishing NHS risk register

The public interest in publishing a risk assessment of the NHS overhaul in England is “very high, if not exceptional”, a tribunal has ruled.

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NHS privatisation trumped by pasties and petrol

… [T]here are plenty of stories for any self-respecting health journalist to get excited about. To give but two recent examples, neither of which was given much publicity.  The first is the sudden closure of a GP surgery in Camden, only four years after it was taken over by UnitedHealth, the wealthiest US healthcare company. Over 3,000 patients in one of London’s more deprived areas have been left without a GP, and, therefore, access to secondary care. This is the reality of private providers who can leave their patients high and dry. Secondly, we have the handing over of Surrey’s community services to Virgin, in a 500 million pound contract on 1st April. Yes, reassuringly the same Virgin Group who provide such a fantastic value-for-money rail service. This is despite repeated claims by ministers that anyone describing the Health and Social Care Bill as “privatisation” was scaremongering. I wonder what definition of privatisation they are using if giving large chunks of NHS work (and taxpayers’ money) to Virgin doesn’t count.

So why haven’t these events made the national news bulletins? Are we really more interested in Ken Livingston’s tax return? I can think of two reasons – firstly people only worry about health when they’re ill. When well they prefer not to think about it, and cling to their assumption that the NHS will always be there for them. Secondly, lazy journalism – health provision is complicated to explain, whereas pasties and petrol are easy. And if those don’t explain why the nation’s health provision isn’t considered newsworthy, we will have to stray into the territory of conspiracy theory. [!]

NHS reforms: GPs losing faith, BBC poll suggests

The number of GPs who believe that the government’s health reforms in England will improve patient care is falling, a BBC poll suggests.

Just 12% agreed that putting GP-led groups in charge of the budget would mean patients saw a “noticeable” improvement.

That figure was 23% when a similar poll was carried out in September 2010.

A majority of the 814 GPs polled also believed there would be more rationing of care because of financial pressures.

In total, 83% said there would be an increase in rationing in their area.

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Collapse in activist base over NHS reforms and civil liberties sparks fears for 2015 contest

 

Fears that NHS reforms, tuition fees and state incursions into civil liberties have damaged Nick Clegg’s hopes at the next general election are fuelled today by figures showing that the Liberal Democrats are not fielding candidates in key town hall battles on polling day next month.

Analysis of nominations for the local elections on 3 May seen by The Independent on Sunday shows that 1,198 fewer candidates are standing for the Lib Dems than for Labour in England, Wales and Scotland.

The figures suggest that the Lib Dems’ activist base has been severely curtailed as a result of its coalition with the Conservatives, with fewer candidates ready to wear a yellow rosette and defend the Government’s policies on the doorstep than in recent memory.

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How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems

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What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-known Orange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.
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27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

 

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A few recent news articles about the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat (Conservative) coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

The British Medical Association (BMA) Council passed a motion expressing its “opposition to the whole Health and Social Care Bill” and calling for a public campaign of opposition.

 

 

BMA demands withdrawal of DoH plans to ‘privatise’ commissioning support | GPonline.com

The BMA Council has taken a decision to oppose the whole Health and Social Care Bill following a publication of draft guidance for commissioning support organisations.

Following the publication of draft guidance from the DoH – Developing commissioning support: Towards service excellence – the BMA will be urging clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to urgently review and where necessary change their structures to ensure they are able to fulfil their statutory functions without using private commissioning support.
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Management in Practice – BMA has ‘misunderstood’ gov plans

The British Medical Association (BMA) has “misunderstood” commissioning support plans, the Department of Health has claimed.

In a statement to MiP a spokesperson from the DH said it will be BMA members that determine what form commissioning support takes in the future, not the government.
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BMA gives members chance to vote on government’s final pensions offer | GPonline.com

Following a final offer from the government, expected in December or January, BMA members will be asked to give their views on whether the offer is acceptable.

A BMA spokesman said the union would also use the vote to get a ‘steer’ on industrial action.

The BMA Council agreed on Thursday that ‘given the strength of feeling within the profession, members should have their say on the future of their pensions’.

Following the Council’s decision, the BMA will begin an intensive workplace outreach programme to raise awareness of the proposals and to help ensure members’ personal details are completely up to date – a vital step if a ballot is to go ahead.

BMA chairman Dr Hamish Meldrum described the proposed reforms as ‘manifestly unfair’ since the NHS scheme was reviewed in 2008.

‘Doctors stand to be very hard hit by the proposed changes to the NHS pension scheme. Those at the start of their careers face the prospect of paying around £200,000 more in lifetime contributions, and of working much longer.
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Join ‘Bevan’s Run’ to protest against THE BILL » Hospital Dr

Whatever your view of the Health and Social Care Bill – evil instrument of NHS privatisation or empowering tool for clinician-led commissioning – you’ve got to respect people who go the extra mile to get their message across.

I’ve mentioned the chairman of the Israel Medical Association in the past who completed a 12-day hunger strike earlier this year in a bid to secure better pay, work conditions and funding for the country’s public doctors.

Dr Clive Peedell is about to embark on his own form of suffering in order to raise the profile of his anti-Health Bill campaign. He’s a clinical oncologist, co-chair of the NHS Consultants’ Association and a member of BMA council. Along with another oncologist Dr David Wilson, he’s going to be running 160 miles from Aneurin Bevan’s statue in Cardiff to the Department of Health in Whitehall.

It was Bevan, the founding father of the NHS, who famously said: “The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it.”
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The Courier – ‘We are getting absolutely pummelled’ — NHS Tayside worker describes pressure amid recruitment freeze

The situation looks unlikely to improve any time soon as the health authority’s director of finance, Ian McDonald, confirmed there is a freeze on ”non-essential” recruitment.

He said that will last at least until the end of next March and probably beyond.

The disgruntled employee said: ”There are not enough bodies to do the work and we are getting absolutely pummelled with jobs. Management have got to save 30-odd million pounds so there are cutbacks and they are not filling jobs.

”The people that are left are getting hit with doing their own job and the jobs of the people that are not replaced. It is really hard and nobody seems to be doing anything about it.”

A Ninewells Hospital worker was unimpressed with the claim the freeze is limited to ”non-essential” posts.

”What the managers don’t realise is that if there aren’t enough cleaners, porters and kitchen staff, then the doctors and nurses can’t do their jobs properly. Doctors and nurses aren’t the only essential staff.”

Mr McDonald said he was leading by example and was not filling three posts that had become vacant in his own department.

”It just means every other member of staff is having to work a bit harder,” he said.

He explained that managers who want to take on staff and fill posts must go before an NHS Tayside panel that scrutinises the request.

”For posts that become vacant between now and March 31, they will be separated into two — essential to recruit or non-essential. Essential posts we will fill. If they are not essential, they will be deferred.

”That is not just an issue between now and March 31 but that would probably continue in to 2012/13 (financial year beginning April 1).”
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The Destroy the NHS / Health and Social Care Bill passed it’s third reading yesterday with a mjority of 65. The bill will now pass to the House of Lords.

Many doctors and professional medical associations raised serious objections to the bill. The Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of General Practicioners took exception to Prime Minister David Cameron’s claim that they supported his proposals.

Colin Leys – co-author of ‘The Plot Against the NHS’ – has an article in the Guardian.

Campaign group 38degrees responds to the government’s so-called Myth-busting nonsense and to many claims made by Andrew Lansley yesterday.

Selected excerpts from ‘The Plot Against the NHS’ by Colin Leys and Stewart Player. Chapter One is available here. I highly recommend this book available from Merlin Press for £10.

The Plot Against the NHS #1

The Plot Against the NHS #2

Conservative election poster 2010

A few recent news articles about the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

Health professionals deny Cameron’s claim they back NHS shakeup | Politics | The Guardian

 

David Cameron faced embarrassment when medical leaders rejected his claim that they supported the government’s health reforms.

The row came hours before the health and social care bill was approved by MPs, after Cameron hailed the profession’s support at prime minister’s questions.

“Now you’ve got the Royal College of GPs, the physicians, the nurses, people working in the health service, supporting the changes we’re making,” he said.

The bodies questioned the prime minister’s claim. Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, told the BBC: “While we acknowledge that the government has listened to our members in a number of areas, we still have very serious concerns about where these reforms leave a health service already facing an unprecedented financial challenge.

“At a time when the NHS needs to find £20bn in efficiencies, tackle waste, work harder to prevent ill-health, and deal with an ageing population, we are telling MPs this bill risks creating a new and expensive bureaucracy and fragmenting care.”

Clare Gerada, chairwoman of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), said: “The college supports putting clinicians at the centre of planning health services. However, we continue to have a number of concerns about the government’s reforms, issues we believe may damage the NHS or limit the care we are able to provide for our patients.

“As a college we are extremely worried that these reforms, if implemented in their current format, will lead to an increase in damaging competition, an increase in health inequalities, and massively increased costs in implementing this new system. As independent research demonstrates, the NHS is one of the most efficient healthcare systems in the world and we must keep it that way.”

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The end of the NHS as we know it | Colin Leys | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

What Wednesday’s vote on the health and social care bill shows more clearly than anything is that many, if not most, of the political elite no longer care whether they are carrying out the wishes of the electorate, and barely pretend that we are any longer a democracy.

The prime minister promised before the 2010 election not to introduce any “top-down reorganisations” of the NHS; to say he, Andrew Lansley and Nick Clegg lack an electoral mandate for the bill is an understatement. It is also an understatement to say that they have not told the truth about the bill’s intentions, and that they have reduced Department of Health statements, such as its latest so-called MythBuster document, to a level of brazen mendacity that demeans a once great office of state.

The principle seems to be that if an official lie – such as that the bill does not imply privatisation – is repeated often enough, most people will feel it must be true. And by using existing powers to abolish PCTs and set up “pathfinder” so-called GP consortia, and making arrangements with foreign private companies to take over NHS hospitals, the government has also pre-empted such debate as MPs are inclined to have. The Conservative MP Dr Sarah Wollaston, who originally denounced the bill, now says that changes have already gone too far to oppose it any further – a remarkable statement of political impotence.

The bill will end the NHS as a comprehensive service equally available to all. People with limited means will have a narrowing range of free services of declining quality, and will once again face long waits for elective care. Everyone else will go back to trying to find money for private insurance and private care. More and more NHS hospital beds will be occupied by private patients. Doctors will be divided into a few who will become rich, and many who will end up working on reduced terms and with little professional freedom for large corporations (the staff of the hospitals that are being considered for handing over to private firms will have noted that the firms in question want “a free hand with staff”).
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The one serious obstacle to the bill’s promoters has been the impact of social media: 38 Degrees, Facebook, expert bloggers and tweeters. Along with the million-plus people who work for the NHS, a steadily growing portion of, especially, younger voters, have been exposed to a different narrative and see through the spin. At the moment most of them may be more cynical than politically active. But if the bill becomes law and the reality begins to be felt in people’s daily lives it is this counter-narrative that will make sense. MPs – and now the Lords – would be well advised to ponder the implications of this.

38 Degrees | Blog | Busting the NHS myths

Yesterday morning at 9:31 the Department of Health published a “myth buster” on a government website. It is published below, along with a number of corrections (shown in red).

TOP MYTHS

MYTH: The Health Secretary will wash his hands of the NHS
The Bill does not change the Secretary of State’s duty to promote a comprehensive health service.

This is very carefully worded. It totally avoids addressing one of the main issues with Andrew Lansley’s plans – that the bill would remove the “Duty to Provide” a health service currently contained in s.3(1) and 1(2) of the 2006 Act. Why do you continue to dodge the issue Mr Lansley?

MYTH: Bureaucracy will increase significantly
We are abolishing needless bureaucracy, and our plans will save one third of all administration costs during this Parliament.

The plans may abolish some bureaucracy, but our legal advice warns that the plans have the potential to increase bureaucracy too. See the quote from pages one and two of the executive summary, below:

The procurement regime is a complicated and developing body of rules and case law which gives rise to enforceable rights in the High Court and makes available draconian remedies and penalties for breach of the Regulations. The practical and financial implications of ensuring that goods and services are procured compliantly are considerable. There is a real risk that there will be a deficit of incumbent expertise in new consortia to cope with the regulatory burden. It appears however that the government has simply failed to grapple with the frontline issues in procurement, has wholly underestimated the increasing rather than diminishing complexity in the area and has had no or perhaps little regard to the administrative and financial burdens arising from the regime.

Taken from: IN THE MATTER OF THE HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE BILL AND THE APPLICATION OF PROCUREMENT AND COMPETITION LAW – an independent legal opinion provide by Rebecca Haynes of Monkton Chambers.
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MYTH: NHS hospitals will be managed by foreign companies
Even if independent sector management is used, NHS assets will continue to be wholly owned by the NHS. And there would be rigorous checks to ensure that any such independent provider is reputable and fit for purpose.

We note that they are confirming that this is not a myth, it is a fact.
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38 Degrees | Blog | Save our NHS: What Lansley said in the House of Commons

Below is a transcript (copied from Hansard) of the specific things mentioned, along with our comments (shown in red).

Mr Lansley: This Bill, for the first time, stops the Secretary of State—and, indeed, Monitor or the NHS commissioning board—from trying deliberately to increase the market share of a particular type of provider. If the previous Labour Government had put such a requirement in law when they were in office, hundreds of millions of pounds would not have been paid to independent sector treatment centres to carry out operations that were not required and never took place. If the Opposition had their way this afternoon, the safeguards that we intend to put in place would not be available.

In its response to the opportunity provided by Report stage, the Labour party is being not progressive but reactionary, while the trade unions are being misleading in the presentation of their campaign. To be specific, the trade unions and other proxy organisations such as 38 Degrees have gone to some trouble to misrepresent the Bill in order to attack it.

That’s simply not true. We have not misrepresented information, deliberately or otherwise. If the Secretary of State still believes we have then we would invite him to provide examples. We note Mr Lansley made this statement inside the House of Commons – where libel laws do not apply.
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