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It is incredible how the national debate has been managed in such a way that one of the most important issues of concern to millions has barely been mentioned during the debates. Analysis of coverage of the election provided by the Loughborough University is very informative. It shows how the discussions in the press and TV were conducted. Emphasis was on electoral process, taxation and immigration with the NHS receiving far less coverage at 5% and other topics such as social care, housing education and the environment marginialised and far less discussed than gender issues. Here are the key points:
“Key findings
* Coverage of the electoral process (e.g., polls, campaigning activities, strategies etc) was the principal focus of media reporting.
* Several significant political controversies emerged during the campaign, most notable related to the betting allegations against several Conservative party representatives and exposes of the racist opinions of several Reform UK activists. These contributed to making ‘Standards, Corruption, Scandals’ the third most prominent topic in news coverage overall.
* The combination of this category with ‘electoral process’ means that nearly half of all themes coded related to the conduct of, and controversies related to, the campaign rather than substantive policy issues.
* In terms of policy issues, ‘Taxation’ was the most prominent issue overall.
* ‘Immigration/ border controls’ was the next most reported policy issue, followed by ‘Economy/ Business/ Trade’.
* Coverage of ‘minority issues’, in particular debates about gender identities/ ideologies received more than twice the coverage given to ‘Brexit/ European relations’.
* Many topics flagged in opinion polls as of significance to the UK public were sidelined in the media campaign, for example ‘Education’, ‘Environment’, ‘Housing’, and ‘Social Care’.”
The main policy that Labour proposed to fix the NHS was cutting the waiting times by the creation of 40,000 new appointments per week mainly by extending clinic times to cover out of hours and weekends without revealing the detailed mechanics of how this will impact on an overstretched service. It would require existing staff to work longer hours or to the recruitment of new staff or to use ‘spare capacity’ from the private sector. All of these measures would be enacted within existing budgets. The last measure would entail the transfer of NHS money to the private sector, and this is one of the key features of what labour intends to do, privatise the NHS by stealth. This policy has repeatedly been stated by Wes Streeting often as a ‘temporary measure’ but once established will continue.
It is obvious now that Labour under Starmer has fully embraced the neoliberal view of light government and increased privatisation that is now the main policy direction of the west. The NHS with an annual budget of £182 billion is a very good target to convert public money to private gains.
The way the privatisation of the NHS is being done started in earnest even before the Lansbury reforms by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. One of the most important ways by which the private sector made use of NHS cash was through the PFI created by Gordon Brown. PFI will be costing many times the amount that was invested in the first place through repayment of debts, but continues to cost the NHS billions of pounds every year. Some trusts have to allocate 10% or more of their budgets to loan repayments.A couple of articles from Naked Capitalism on a similar subject:
It Is Now Labour’s Turn to Expand the Piecemeal Privatisation of the UK’s National Health Service
Something Rotten in the State of Albion
The first dealing with Labour and its policies and the second a (non-exhaustive) list of corruption scandals in the UK including the PPE scam during covid.
“Eye doctors say private cataract operations have hurt the NHS”
This article in the Guardian is just one example of how the private sector is parasitising the NHS not only by taking away revenue but also removing the skilled and trained health workers and diminishing the expertise of existing hospitals. Outsourcing of cataract operations are leading to deskilling of NHS specialist units.Nearly 60% of the ophthalmologists polled said outsourcing had a negative impact on NHS staffing, 62% said the same for staff training, and 46% said it harmed the ability of public eye care departments to treat patients with more complex conditions. Issues raised about staffing included the loss of consultants, nurses and optometrists to the private sector.
The model being followed here of course is that of dental services which more or less started as a private service as much as the GP service also was
This model of hiving off of services has also already taken place in the outsourcing of non-clinical services and of services not directly related to patient care such as diagnostic imaging and pathology services which are now widely outsoursced or in the process of being outsourced.
These initiatives are often couched in reassurances that are often meaningless because once the models are implemented they will form an LLP which is not really answerable to government and will be a commercial entity. An example is this organisation The Society of Radiographers, supposedly a trade union SOR
The privatisation of Pathology and other services are carried out by formation of regional networks and centralisations
of service. The Hubs that provide the services may be run by NHS trusts (which by the way are now all based on a commercial model with CEOs and business plans etc..) but increasingly also by private enterprise companies such as SERCO and Synnovis which was recently involved in a hacking of its computers.
