As I listened to the
Ring Cycle (Solti), I am reminded of the genius of Wagner who warned us about the
Ruling Class years ago.
Soon they will start selling off the famous hospitals.
The NHS (England) as we know it will soon disappear.
Wagner’s opera will always be there: The Ring: Child Psychiatry & Human Behaviour
So will Finland's forest!
© 2012 Am Ang Zhang
fuelled by and fuelling privatisation.
These relationships are – a conspiracy against the public interest.
Adam Smith
Allyson
Pollock:CQC
We now know that England's healthcare regulator, the Care Quality Commission, tried to cover up an investigation into a hospital trust where babies were dying. This appalling tale has been spun to be about the "rotten culture" at the heart of the NHS. The true story of the Morecambe Bay cover-up, however – just like Mid Staffs, where hundreds of patients died – is one of market failure.
Two questions in particular have not been properly addressed. Why would the CQC be complicit in the cover-up of poor performance? And why was the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS foundation trust so desperate not to expose the failings at its Furness hospital? The answer to both questions lies with the new market system that brought the CQC into being, a system introduced by New Labour and implemented by the Tories.
.....The CQC is has a legal imperative to get the market up and running by developing the systems to register more than 22,000 health and social care providers. The real story of the CQC scandal is that market-led changes are creating deficits and poor quality of care, which managers must seek to conceal in order to survive. Central to the government's NHS reforms is the concept of a well-regulated market. Behind the CQC controversy is an assumption that if a commercially run hospital is failing it has simply not been well enough regulated. But experience from the US shows that effective regulation of large healthcare corporations is impossible: we cannot afford it, or get the data necessary to carry it out. That is why the NHS had direct management in the first place.
There is no end, it seems, to the
fiasco of rail privatisation. For the second time in three years, the holder of
the coveted east coast franchise has walked away from a contract it can no
longer afford. Not only that, but it turns out that National Express – whose
chief executive, Richard Bowker, has decamped to the Gulf in a hurry – has
protected itself from the vast bulk of the £1.4bn it owes the government by
insulating its subsidiary, Fred Goodwin style, as a "special
purpose vehicle".
But far from slinking off into the corporate undergrowth, National
Express is now threatening to sue the government if it also takes over the
company's two other profitable franchises. Once again, we are in the world of
the Metronet consortium, whose collapse finally discredited Gordon Brown's
disastrous public-private partnership for the London underground: where instead
of transferring risk to the private sector, the government ends up subsidising
private profit and picking up the bill when the music stops.
For all its rise in passenger numbers, Britain
Now NHS:
As we are ourselves experiencing the worst from our ruling class over the NHS and its so called reform, Wagner’s opera is an uncomfortable reminder that we should never have trusted the ruling class.
Even before the new Bill was passed, changes were in place in the NHS that made it impossible to go back. Now it looks as though the changes were much worse than first thought. Doctor leaders were hoping that there is still decency in our ruling class.
Well, unfortunately many of us will be disappointed, dismayed and disgusted.
Please do not get me wrong, it is not a simple privatisation. We are not really following the US. They regulate insurers where we do not. If we were required to get insurance Obama Style it might have been better. No, basically even if you get the top insurance there will be conditions that will be left to your friendly NHS hospitals. Just check your policy if you do not believe me.
No it is under the guise of COMPETITION.
It is allowing Any Qualified Provider (privateer if you must know) to cream off. But it is not as simple as that. Recent PIP private clinics not only refused to remove the implants but went into administration to avoid paying compensation. There is as yet not legislation to guarantee NHS patients. Even travellers seem better protected.
In health care, DEATH is irreversible.
The NHS has been by and large highly efficient as it has avoided the pitfall of internal market system until recent years.
The crazy bonus system, internal market and Pavlovian style reward system skewed the efficient NHS to breaking point.
A once fairly integrated health care system
where many doctors and nurses contributed free extra hours became a scandal
ridden system where OOH fight not to see patients and not let A & E see
them either. Or else OOH are run by so few doctors that patients suffered
or died.
But it could be worse as the new AQPs do not
seem to be liable:
The Guardian:
The family of a young woman is
suing the country's biggest out-of-hours GP provider and one of its nurses,
whose failures meant her fatal condition was not diagnosed, because neither
will accept liability in a test case over legal responsibility in a privatised NHS.
Clare Secker, 19, died of bronchopneumonia in December 2008 after a
nurse working for the privately-run telephone service told her parents to give
her paracetamol and fluids.
Earlier this year the nurse admitted through her lawyers that she had
been "in breach of her duty by failing to arrange for [Secker] to be seen
by a doctor". If the young mother, who died when her son Tyler was less
than a year old, had been prescribed antibiotics she would have recovered
fully.
Despite this neither the firm, which was part of the Harmoni
out-of-hours service until it was bought by Care UK
The nurse claims she does not need
to pay out as her employment contract specifically states that the company had
insurance in place "to indemnify … for any claim arising from any wrongful
act committed by … any employee while carrying out their contractual
obligations". But Harmoni says its insurance excludes responsibility for
negligence by nurses.
With the Health and Social Care Act 2012 leading to more NHS contracts
going to private providers, lawyers are concerned that the fragmented system
will lead to a loss of accountability.
"It cannot be right that patients no longer know who is actually providing their care, or for those who are harmed to have the additional stress of providers trying to dodge responsibility by pointing to a clause in a contract or insurance policy. Until something disastrous happens we, the public, think we are still within the safety net of the NHS and increasingly that's just not the case. There is little transparency or protection, it seems to me."
"It cannot be right that patients no longer know who is actually providing their care, or for those who are harmed to have the additional stress of providers trying to dodge responsibility by pointing to a clause in a contract or insurance policy. Until something disastrous happens we, the public, think we are still within the safety net of the NHS and increasingly that's just not the case. There is little transparency or protection, it seems to me."
Hospitals now fight other hospitals and the failed ones will be handed over to privateers. Some of these have the highest mortality rates. I am surprised that they are not sold off for just a single pound.
The more failed hospitals, the better for the government. Once they washed their hands off, it is not their problem. If the privately run hospital failed, they change CEO, change ownership and continue.
The GMC has been quiet about them as they have with the Breast Implant ones and many other plastic surgery private hospitals.
Yet, right now the NHS picked up the mess of the PIP implants. The private companies pocketed the money. Lots of money.
The more failed hospitals, the better for the government. Once they washed their hands off, it is not their problem. If the privately run hospital failed, they change CEO, change ownership and continue.
The GMC has been quiet about them as they have with the Breast Implant ones and many other plastic surgery private hospitals.
Yet, right now the NHS picked up the mess of the PIP implants. The private companies pocketed the money. Lots of money.
Perhaps most
damaging for private investors drawn by the potential profits to be made from
the state has been the probing of their affairs by tax inspectors. The industry
has been under scrutiny since 2007, when a spate of high-profile deals,
including the buyout of Capio, led to investigations into financiers.
The charge is that private equity
firms siphon profits out of the state's coffers while avoiding their fair share
of taxes. Berglund, of Capio, says: "It is always thrown about that we are
not paying taxes but it is not true."
Swedish tax authorities are, however,
taking some companies to court because pay in private equity groups is often
linked to the profits made on deals and has been incorrectly taxed, it is said,
for years at rates lower than that required for income in Sweden
Earlier this month one of Capio's owners, a private equity firm
called Nordic Capital, lost a court case against the Swedish tax agency,
leaving it with a bill of 672m Swedish krona (£63m). The authorities, it is
reported, will also slap a tax bill collectively of 2.6bn krona on another 34 individuals.
"There has been a strong
reaction in Sweden
If they are not RULING, where are they?
Virginia Bottomley: Secretary of
State for Health 1992-95 now with BUPA. Cousin of Jeremy Hunt.
So there’s Jeremy newly installed
as Health Secretary after just seven short years as an MP. This is a summary of
his meteoric rise:
He made a fortune at
the taxpayers’ expense as monopoly supplier to a notorious quango where, by
happy coincidence, his cousin sat on the Board. He became MP for SW Surrey
where, by happy coincidence, his cousin had been MP previously. He became
Minister in charge of Media & Culture where, by happy coincidence, he wound
up steering his pals at Newscorp in the right direction. And he became Health
Secretary partly because, by happy coincidence, his cousin is a lobbyist for
the private health sector.
“Interestingly, former health ministers have done particularly well. The ex-health secretary Patricia Hewitt earns more than £100,000 as a consultant for Alliance Boots and Cinven, a private equity group that bought 25 private hospitals from Bupa. After leaving the department, her predecessor, Alan Milburn, worked for Bridgepoint Capital, which successfully bid for NHS contracts, and now boasts a striking portfolio of jobs with private health companies.”
Alan Milburn
Following his resignation as Secretary of State for Health (to spend more time with his family, his partner is a hospital doctor), Milburn took a post for £30,000 a year as an advisor to Bridgepoint Capital, a venture capital firm heavily involved in financing private health care firms moving into the NHS, including Alliance Medical, Match Group, Medica and the Robinia Care Group. He has been Member of Advisory Board of Pepsico since April 2007. Wikipedia
Patricia Hewitt
In January 2008, it was announced that Hewitt had been appointed "special consultant" to the world's largest chemists, Alliance Boots. Such an appointment was controversial given Hewitt's former role as Health Minister, resulting in objections to her appointment by members of a Parliamentary committee. Hewitt will also become the "special adviser" to private equity company Cinven, which paid £1.4 billion for Bupa's UK
In March 2008, it was announced that Hewitt will join the BT Group board as a non-executive director.[40] She joined the group on 24 March 2008. In July 2009, Patricia Hewitt joined the UK India Business Council as its Chair.
In May 2009 The Daily Telegraph reported that Hewitt claimed £920 in legal fees when she moved out of a flat in her constituency, stayed in hotels and then rented another flat inLeicester . Claimed for furniture including £194 for blinds delivered to her London
No comments:
Post a Comment