Is the Government Embarking on NHS Privatisation by Stealth?

Four A and E units in London are to be closed down forcing some residents in the affected areas to travel up to forty miles in a blue lighted ambulance. Jeremy Hunt, purse controller for the NHS, has claimed that this will create a more efficient service, in the usual manner of a politician, but is this further evidence of a teeing up of a section of the NHS for selling off to the highest bidder and hence privatising?

Soul Kitchen wrote:Four A and E units in London are to be closed down forcing some residents in the affected areas to travel up to forty miles in a blue lighted ambulance. Jeremy Hunt, purse controller for the NHS, has claimed that this will create a more efficient service, in the usual manner of a politician, but is this further evidence of a teeing up of a section of the NHS for selling off to the highest bidder and hence privatising?

The NHS has been abused for over twenty years. It's a national health service not an international health service. The bubble had to burst eventually. No government can go on throwing money at the problem ad infinitum. If we Brits go abroad we have to have private health insurance so the only real way forward is to make it compulsory for ANY visitors to the UK to have private insurance as well.

Reebok Trotter wrote:

Soul Kitchen wrote:Four A and E units in London are to be closed down forcing some residents in the affected areas to travel up to forty miles in a blue lighted ambulance. Jeremy Hunt, purse controller for the NHS, has claimed that this will create a more efficient service, in the usual manner of a politician, but is this further evidence of a teeing up of a section of the NHS for selling off to the highest bidder and hence privatising?

The NHS has been abused for over twenty years. It's a national health service not an international health service. The bubble had to burst eventually. No government can go on throwing money at the problem ad infinitum. If we Brits go abroad we have to have private health insurance so the only real way forward is to make it compulsory for ANY visitors to the UK to have private insurance as well.

This is very true RT.

It really winds me up when people come here and then use the NHS for whatever, then leave owing a big bill and never pay it.

Being in the European Union is of absolutely no benefit to us whatsoever.  We would be fine with trade agreements and that would be enough.

We have sadly become the freeloading nation for all of Europe and it needs to stop.

We need to start looking after ourselves but cutting funding and closing down hospitals is not the way forward in my opinion.

As you say RT, all foreigners must have private health care insurance before being allowed into our country and must be checked before leaving their country and not checking when here.

Why this isn't already in place is beyond me.

After experiencing both sides of the health coin - both the NHS which is paid for via National Insurances contributions and through paying for prescriptions - and experiencing the private healthcare which is 100% in The Netherlands , then I will defend the NHS until either my death or this backdoor privatisation ends and the NHS is fully restored.

Whilst I was in The Netherlands my health insurance contributions went from €70/month to over €180/month last year and this year it would have been €230/month. No Government control and the Insurance companies force you to pay what THEY want you to pay. No Insurance means that you will get find by €400/quarter - do that twice and then the Government gives you insurance which THEY take from your wage and that I usually more than what you would have to pay if you found your own insurance!!!

It's simply supply and demand.

So many immagrants have come to this country in the last half dozen years or so - particularly east europeans - to find better paid jobs, that they have stayed, settled down and started familys - hence the demand now for more nursery and junior schools and shortly soon to be followed by demand for secondary school provision. Things like waste disposal volumes have gone up, traffic on the roads - and the consequential up keep and maintenace of the highways, etc, etc.

Sure you do get some 'health tourists' but by far the big demand is by the many more planning to make a life in this country - who are contributing something in terms of tax and national insurance but nothing like the amount it is costing the state to provide back in terms of the cost for all those new schools, the cost for all the maternity and childcare provision, the cost for free healthcare, the payments of child benefit and working family credits etc - and that is just for those in work - not counting benefits and housing support for those who are not!

It's good to be a 'free' country but to my way of thinking people should not be allowed to take more out of the 'pot' than they put in - and this includes our own Jeremy Kyle generation of 'I'm better off on benefits than working' layabouts.

I'll tel you a secret. A certain private school, near Bolton school, the one where all the football players kids go to and other rich types. Well a very wealthy doctor sends his small child there. He was openly and unashamedly talking about how he gas flown his mother first class from Pakistan so she can come over and have NHS treatment before going back again. What do you think to that?

I can understand the desperation of the less well off and those in need coming to get treatment but things like that are really really pushing it. How is it allowed? How is it not at the very least means tested.

Biggie wrote:I'll tel you a secret. A certain private school, near Bolton school, the one where all the football players kids go to and other rich types. Well a very wealthy doctor sends his small child there. He was openly and unashamedly talking about how he gas flown his mother first class from Pakistan so she can come over and have NHS treatment before going back again. What do you think to that?

I can understand the desperation of the less well off and those in need coming to get treatment but things like that are really really pushing it. How is it allowed? How is it not at the very least means tested.

I totally agree and it certainly takes the piss, the selfish fucker.

All foreigners should have to pay and all immigrants like in the states it might stop the cheeky fuckers coming here .

Some interesting comments however my concern is that the NHS could be under systematic dismantling to put out some services to private contractors. Like other basic requirements, power in particular, this could become a cash cow and there's only one person going to pay for that, the end user!!
Paying for visits to a GP has already been mooted, on a different note, is this a softener for payment at source?

I don't doubt for a moment that this government will privatise as much as it can. By privatise I mean sell it off cheap to their rich pals. Look at the sale of BT for example: sold at significantly less than its real value and most of the shares allocated to their friends in the city. And of course once something is privatised it gets worse because the price to customers goes up and no tax is paid on the profits. Profits are diverted to tax havens and the owners receive fat dividends.

It has always been a mystery to me why anyone who isn't rich votes Tory. Not that I'm a fan of Labour - just look at how Blair and Brown sucked up to city fat cats and the consequences of their "loose touch" approach to banking regulation.

As someone once said: "If voting changed anything they wouldn't let us do it".

I often wonder the same re. voting tory, two bob tories my dad called em, and I've since heard the phrase many times and your final comment sums it up completely!

I always vote Tory.

Look how they've got the economy back on track. Look how we're not at war.

Tories forever.

I wouldn't expect you to do anything else Nat, living with mummy and daddy and sat in your bedroom all day dreaming the life.

Soul Kitchen wrote:I wouldn't expect you to do anything else Nat, living with mummy and daddy and sat in your bedroom all day dreaming the life.

Actually I'm sat in my corner office looking out over Deansgate, something which couldn't have been achieved without the Tories.

They want to encourage people to better themselves, surely you understand that most rich people are wealthy because they actually worked hard for it?

"Actually I'm sat in my corner office looking out over Deansgate...(etc)"


I never knew you worked in that McDonalds in town.

Do you get cheap Big Macs?

Breadman wrote:"Actually I'm sat in my corner office looking out over Deansgate...(etc)"


I never knew you worked in that McDonalds in town.

Do you get cheap Big Macs?

Why would a McDonalds worker have a corner office?

I dunno, I've never worked there.

You might be "Head of Plastic Straw Replenishment" or something and you might need an office to store all the boxes of straws.

Breadman wrote:I dunno, I've never worked there.

You might be "Head of Plastic Straw Replenishment" or something and you might need an office to store all the boxes of straws.

You're clutching at straws. I am a powerful woman.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

Breadman wrote:I dunno, I've never worked there.

You might be "Head of Plastic Straw Replenishment" or something and you might need an office to store all the boxes of straws.

You're clutching at straws. I am a powerful woman.

Ah, I see....Head of Tomato Sauce Pots?

Even more powerful.