Reflections 70. The USA provides a cautionary tale- private companies will not save the NHS.

Call To Action

“… the United States can feel very far away, and we can be lured into a false sense of security, thinking that something similar could never happen in the UK.”

In recent weeks, many political commentators have been discussing the long lag between this new government coming to power and their first budget; after all, by the time October’s announcements are made, we’ll have waited almost 4 months for the plan. It’s a delay that has probably caused Starmer’s government political damage. In the absence of a clear programme, a void has been created, and that void has been filled up with bad news days. We’ve heard about donations, free tickets, free clothes, and seen endless column inches debating whether the actions of senior Labour leaders have been ill-judged. They’ve not had much else to get their teeth into and so it’s felt like a stuck record.

It has also, curiously, revealed the skewed perspectives of many senior journalists. I’ve heard high profile journalists laugh off the notion that wildly expensive tickets are an inappropriate gift for a politician, with the excuse that “everyone’s doing it”. Everyone’s not doing it though, are they? If a doctor received an enormously expensive ticket from a pharmaceutical company, I think we’d all agree that the gift was inappropriate. Surely the same truth holds for those in power? My overall feeling has been a weary sense of disappointment, and I’d be surprised if I was alone. After the actions of the Conservative government in recent years, I think our appetite for hearing about the privileges of the wealthy has worn thin. We were told that a Labour government would represent change - so where’s the change? This doesn’t feel like change; it feels like stagnation.

Aside from the scandal, or the whiff of scandal, a political void creates something much more dangerous for a new government. If a plan is not forthcoming, then others will start to make demands asserting what policies should be, and we’re starting to see these demands emerging thick and fast. This isn’t only happening in relation to NHS policy, but that’s the area I focus on, and in the past few weeks there has been:

1. A story about wheelchair users being charged £2 an hour to hire wheelchairs at NHS hospitals, which has reignited concerns about creeping privatisation:

“Israeli firm Wheelshare has installed “Boris bike”-style docking stations at King’s College Hospital in Lambeth, Hillingdon Hospital in Uxbridge and Bedford Hospital. Patients can unlock the chairs using a credit card machine. The first four hours are free, but afterwards users are charged £2/hour automatically, a likely scenario with skyrocketing A&E times.”

2. Mounting calls for immediate action from healthcare experts concerned about what this winter could hold for the NHS. Here’s a quote from Dr Adrian Boyle, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine:

“The system is stuck in survival mode, with overworked and burnt-out staff working to capacity whilst stuck in a never-ending, anxious wait for the next inevitably challenging winter period where demand inevitably spikes. This is where we find ourselves now.”

3. And the latest example of private companies hoping to profit from the NHS- on Friday morning came the news that private companies submitted an ambitious proposal to scale up their NHS work:

“The private sector proposes to fund a £1 billion scheme to pay for cancer checks, surgery and intensive care, The Telegraph reported. The government is said to be eager to take any available capacity to tackle waiting lists and get NHS patients treated faster. It is hoped that the scheme would help cut deadly delays in diagnoses, such as those for cancer. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said after the election the system was ‘broken’. He is believed to be interested in the private sector proposal.”

Streeting doesn’t seem to be the only one interested. The news has been received positively in some quarters, with The Telegraph even leading with the headline “Private hospitals to rescue NHS”.

With a new government that doesn't seem to have a decent alternative plan, and the situation in the NHS feeling hopeless to many people right now, a suggestion like this from the private sector may be met with widespread approval. It is imperative that we don’t sleepwalk into this deal though, and so I thought today I’d highlight what is happening in the US. We’re due a reminder of what can happen if private companies and market forces are allowed to dictate the cost of healthcare, and the access to that healthcare. The situation is, frankly, horrifying….

.