NHS Plc: The Privatisation of Our Health Care

"An excellent book. I couldn't put it down. It made me so angry when I read it - I just cant believe what direction the NHS is going in. Has changed my opinion of the Labour party from good to bad. "
~ Written on 2007-02-03

"A very important piece of work. Politicians have done their level best to rubbish the author and to some extent they have acheived their goal. The NHS was failing due to chronic under investment (£200 billion from inception according to the Wanless report), not due to the fact that it was a publically run service. It has probably been one of the most efficient public services in the world. The arguement that private companies do better is totally unproven and overstated. I work in a PFI hospital which gives 10% of its income to the private consortia every year (>£30 million). Not surprisingly, we are heavily in debt and have too few beds! This strangles the development of new services and new ideas - Business plans are just put on hold. The medical and nursing professions have let the public down by not uniting against these disastrous policies. Unfortunately the BMA and Royal Colleges are full of yes men awaiting their pensions and gongs. It's now up to the grass roots to spread the word about this book and salvage some of the NHS. Don't get me wrong, we do need a bigger private sector and we should incentivise the wealthy to go private, but the current system of giving public money to private companies is absolutley outragous. Good luck to Prof Pollock. The fact that MPs have tried to discredit her is a testemant to her vision and the truth. I am making my goal to inform as many people as I can about this book. Read it and make your own mind up - after spitting blood, you might just agree."
~ Written on 2006-02-23

"This is an extremely well-written and though-provoking analysis of the effects of labour's healthcare policies, and obsession with targets and red tape, on the current state of the NHS. I would highly recommend that every doctor and nurse working in the NHS read this as it opened my eyes to the extent of the current situation and helped me understand how we got here in the first place. In the current political climate, where debate on healthcare has been put centre-stage since the case of Margaret Dixon, it is an important and necessary book to read."
~ Written on 2005-03-09

"The National Health Service used to plan and fund to meet patient needs, providing free and fair access for all. But in this superb book, Allyson Pollock shows how Labour is destroying this great working class achievement.

Labour pushes the IMF, World Bank, European Union agenda of opening up all public services - water, energy, sewerage, telecoms, post and health - to private firms. So health care is becoming a commodity as in the USA, where billing and marketing make up 30% of health care costs. In the USA, fraud by health care companies totalled $418 billion in 1990-95. For example, Columbia/HCA (allegedly helped by the British consultancy firm KPMG) defrauded the government of $1.7 billion.

In 2004, Labour lifted the ceiling on health administration costs, which had already doubled, cutting clinical care budgets so that there are fewer beds in PFI hospitals. Labour excludes doctors, nurses and health professionals from hospital management, while welcoming failed businessmen.

Surgery performed in private hospitals costs 40% more than in NHS hospitals, because of higher costs and the overriding need to return a profit to the shareholders. Private borrowing is dearer too and the risks are not transferred to the private sector. Labour has arranged public spending data and NHS accounts to hide the huge amounts of public money going straight through the NHS to private companies.

In 2002, Labour privatised practice premises through the introduction of Local Improvement Finance Trusts, which shifted control of primary care services from GPs to corporations. And Labour has forced local authorities to divest themselves of all their social service assets, including long-term care for the elderly, ending equal access to equal quality of care for older people.

Labour uses dirty PR tricks to defeat public opposition - smearing public services, lying about the huge inefficiencies of market-based health and social care, overriding evidence, bullying and sacking critics. Like the Liberals and the Tories, Labour aims to destroy the NHS. There is an alternative, which we all know."
~ Written on 2004-09-27