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The Plot against the NHS

The Plot against the NHS

For more than a decade government ministers have worked behind the scenes with the private sector to turn the not-forprofit National Health Service into a healthcare market. Leys and Player reveal...

Info:

  • Author: Colin Leys and Stewart Player
  • Publisher: MERLIN PRESS
  • Isbn: 9780850366792
  • Binding: Paperback
  • Pub. Date: 2019-09
  • Price: £12.95
  • Pdf: Download


For more than a decade government ministers have worked behind the scenes with the private sector to turn the not-forprofit National Health Service into a healthcare market.

Leys and Player reveal how this was done and how the private healthcare industry in England is poised to take over a fastgrowing share of the NHS budget. They show what Mr Lansley’s ‘any willing provider’ free-for-all will mean for patients, placed at the mercy of corporations and ambitious ‘doctorpreneurs’.

They also show that the government’s mantra ‘that there is no alternative’ is a deception, and how Scotland and Wales have successfully chosen a different course.

The plot: For ten years a ‘policy community’ around the Department of Health has schemed to replace the NHS. They want a US-style health-care market coming in by the back door. Why tell us, or parliament?

The template: Listen to Kaiser Permanente - the US health insurance company. Expand its influence in the Department of Health. Make the American market the model.

The players: the insiders: the ‘policy community’, corporate heavies, management consultants, think-tankers, freelancers and hired hands, including some academics and doctors. They can use the ‘revolving door’: company envoys can get jobs in the Department of Health, and ex-ministers and officials can get well paid jobs in the private sector.

Who pays?: Patients and doctors tell us: ‘reforms’ are driving up costs, services are being cut, and quality is falling – unless you can pay to go private. This is the shape of things to come.

Who profits?: the private health industry takes over NHS hospitals, runs GPs practices: their interest, profit, will subordinate the public interest.

Reviews

This compelling analysis means that we can be under no illusion about the intentions of politicians and the medical industrial complex. It is up to us now to do something about it
- Dr Jacky Davis, consultant radiologist

This short, gripping tale of political intrigue reveals that a few very powerful commercial organisations have ensured that they and most definitely not GPs or patients will be at the heart of the new, reformed NHS
– Dr Jonathon Tomlinson, GP