Our leaflet for the 7th May 2014 hustings meeting with candidates in the local elections:
City &Hackney Coalition to Save the NHS. NB Scroll down the page for a text version if you want to download and amend for your own campaign
FB/hackney.konp; twitter/HackneyKONP; [email protected]
City &Hackney Coalition to Save the NHS. NB Scroll down the page for a text version if you want to download and amend for your own campaign
FB/hackney.konp; twitter/HackneyKONP; [email protected]
2014 local elections
Government changes are tearing our NHS apart
England is racing towards privatised US-style (show us your wallet) healthcare
Government changes are tearing our NHS apart
England is racing towards privatised US-style (show us your wallet) healthcare
For many years England spent less on healthcare than other developed countries. Labour governments did much to increase spend, but also promoted marketisation and privatisation. The Coalition continues to run the NHS down, demanding £20bn ‘efficiency savings’ by 2015. Yet international comparisons show:
Timebombs for NHS destruction
Successive governments have paved the way to replace the NHS with a US-style privatised and insurance-based service in the next few years. They have:
Scotland and Wales have regained an integrated NHS
Devolved Governments in Scotland and Wales reversed the commissioner-provider split in 2004 and 2009 respectively. This means they avoid the treaty requirements for open market tender of services. Abolition of the commissioner-provider split is the only way to save the NHS in England from Treaty competition requirements.
Will your local council candidates sign the City & Hackney Coalition pledge to fight privatisation of the NHS?
- People in England are more satisfied with healthcare than elsewhere
- National Insurance is cheaper & more efficient than private
- The NHS delivers better outcomes than most of Europe or the USA
Timebombs for NHS destruction
Successive governments have paved the way to replace the NHS with a US-style privatised and insurance-based service in the next few years. They have:
- Created an NHS commissioner-provider split; starting with an ‘internal market’ of NHS providers, but now open to multinational healthcare corporations
- Started by ‘outsourcing’ cleaning and catering services to private companies
- Promoted hugely wasteful PFI capital projects, burdening NHS trusts with decades of extortionate private debt for buildings & ‘facilities management’.
- Implemented the Health & Social Care Act2012 - designed to harmonise the NHS with US healthcare systems, and ending any Government responsibility to provide a free and comprehensive NHS
- Put national and regional specialist commissioning into the hands of corporate consultancies like KPMG and McKinsey
- Put local commissioning in the hands of ‘GPs’ – which, increasingly, means corporate consultancies who advise on legal and technical procurement issues and manage the tenders
- Between April and Dec 2013, £5bn of NHS contracts were tendered. 70% went to private sector organisations, diverting NHS money into vast private profits.
- Promoted EU and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreements due to come into force in 2014. These will enforce open market competition of all NHS services and allow corporations to mount legal challenges to national governments if public services are not tendered.
- TTIP ‘Investor State Dispute Resolution’ (ISDR) procedures take precedence over national laws and allow corporations to sue governments with ‘anti-competitive’ laws or procedures.
- Knocked the NHS while ignoring repeated private sector scandals & failures.
- Promoted private insurance top-ups. Analysts expect that by 2020, 95% of people will have to rely on costly private healthcare insurance.
Scotland and Wales have regained an integrated NHS
Devolved Governments in Scotland and Wales reversed the commissioner-provider split in 2004 and 2009 respectively. This means they avoid the treaty requirements for open market tender of services. Abolition of the commissioner-provider split is the only way to save the NHS in England from Treaty competition requirements.
Will your local council candidates sign the City & Hackney Coalition pledge to fight privatisation of the NHS?
