Want My Vote?
Please help to make sure that the real problems being created by NHS commercialisation are discussed during the forthcoming election.
You can help by sending a letter to each of your local politicians. You can do this in just a few minutes using the website www.writetothem.com
Simply copy and paste the 9 reasons text below into the box provided by www.writetothem.com. This website gives you a list of your local polticians. You can select from this list or send to them all with just one click.
Two more things would really help...
- Forward a link to this page to your friends and colleagues. You will be helping to ensure that politicians all over the country are contacted.
- If you can, support us with a donation so that we can continue to protect and promote the core principles of the NHS
Your help is very much appreciated. NHS supporters must act together!
_______________________________________________________________
Why we need to stop NHS commercialisation:
9 evidence based reasons
Please read and act upon the evidence below as it clearly shows how the NHS and patient care is being undermined.
The quality and safety of private treatment centres is in doubt. The BBC’s Panorama programme uncovered shocking evidence of three men who died after gall bladder surgery all in private sector treatment centres, due to lack of emergency facilities. A study by surgeons in Cardiff has shown that people having hip replacements at private treatment centres are up to 20 times more likely to need painful and expensive repair work. Many operations are having to be redone in NHS hospitals, at great cost and with serious staffing implications for the health service. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6843637.ece
The NHS market creates huge waste Research by Prof Allyson Pollock of Edinburgh University estimates that around £927m of the £1.5billion spent on contracts with private treatment centres in England could have been paid out for operations that did not take place. http://www.bmj.com/content/vol338/issue7702/press_release.dtl
Private sector treatment centres are paid above the odds. The Department of Health admitted that across the first 20 private treatment centres the cost of work carried out is 12% more expensive than doing the same work in the NHS. www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmhealth/1190/1190w118.htm
PFI is draining billions from frontline health services. Over one hundred hospital trusts are stuck with huge repayments after using private companies to build operate and finance their new hospitals. From 2011 to 2014 – their PFI costs will reach £4.18 billion, according to documents sent from the Department of Health to the Treasury.
PCT spending on management consultants has more than tripled in the past two years, a Pulse investigation has revealed. Each PCT is now spending an average of £1.217m on external companies. The cost of legal and professional fees has also risen dramatically bringing the total paid to external companies to an average of £1.568m per PCT. Pulse, 20th May 2009
Financial goals are coming before patient care The priority of NHS managers should be the care of patients, but incentives and rules within the healthcare market make financial success a competing objective. This was shown by events at Mid Staffordshire hospital where the death rate ballooned unnoticed by managers, who were according to a Health Commission report distracted by their financial goals.
Health Commision March 2009
Increasing patient “choice” will not improve health service fairer
Introducing choice to health care is a key aim for the current government and one of the reason behind the market reforms. But the evidence suggests that choice is likely to increase costs and is more likely to increase than decrease inequalities. (Fotaki et al. What benefits will choice bring to patients? Literature review and assessment of implications J Health Serv Res Policy Vol 13 No 3 July 2008)
A number of studies have shown that competition in health care appears to be associated with lower quality (higher death rates) and that on balance the relationship between competition and quality of care appears to be negative. Commentators suggest that competition in health care too often works to the detriment of improving patient care with restrictions to the access of care, gaming, the shifting of costs on to fellow providers and the stifling of innovation. (Propper, C,. Burgess, B., Green, K. (2002) Does Competition Between Hospitals Improve the Quality of Care? Hospital Death Rates and the NHS Internal Market, unpublished mimeo, University of Bristol, CEPR & CMPO)
NHS staff disagree with treating NHS patients in the private sector
Eight out of ten doctors are concerned about private companies profiting from the NHS, the most recent poll of NHS staff shows . www.lookafterournhs.org. Many NHS staff organisations oppose NHS commercialisation and actively campaign against it; including UNISON, UNITE, BMA, RCN, GMB, Royal College of Midwives, Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, Community and District Nursing Association, Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, Society of Radiographers, British Dietetic Association, Hospital Consultants & Specialists Association
_______________________________________________________________
(2) alternatively adapt this template letter to get across your own views
Dear MP/Councillor/MEP,
I will be strongly deterred from voting for you at the next election unless your party plans to stop our NHS from being run for profit at the expense of patient care. I have five key concerns:
Safety is being put at risk by using private companies. I do not want my safety compromised for the sake of profits. Tragically there have been avoidable deaths in private treatment centres doing out-sourced NHS operations – in one case because the clinic didn’t even have blood on-site. How will you protect patients?
So much money is being wasted. I want my taxes to be spent on a better health service, not to go to private shareholders or be wasted on bureaucracy. Stop diverting money away from front-line care into pointless tendering, contracts, lawyers, billing and now even NHS advertising. This is the reality of the market – costs we simply don’t need. What will you do to stop this waste?.... click here for full text