Politicians feather their own nest by wrecking our NHS
MPs expenses are a tip of the iceberg –
the real scandal is MPs and lords creating new laws which will line their own pockets, and politicians deeply enmeshed with corporations which profit from their actions.
And the worst part is….. it’s all perfectly legal!
Privatising the NHS. A clear example of political corruption and greed. Here’s how it works:
The coalition government came to power pledging ‘no more top down reorganisation of the NHS’.
They went on to introduce the Health and Social Care Act, which forces the NHS into an open market. Why? It’s not hard to understand if we follow the money. The examples below barely scratch the surface of these deeply corrupt – yet perfectly legal - practices.
Healthcare investors fund political parties
Many investors linked to healthcare corporations make direct donations to political parties including these:
Private health care firms with Tory links have been awarded NHS contracts worth nearly £1.5billion in 2013. Circle Health landed £1.36billion worth of health service contracts after several of its investors gave around £1.5million to the Conservatives. Care UK has contracts worth £102.6million. Chairman of Care UK, Lord Nash and his wife gave £247,250 to the Tories, including £21,000 to former Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley as he drew up the Tory health reforms.
UKIP – which also supports NHS privatisation - received £50k funding in 2013 from Harwood Capital LLP, whose investments include healthcare.
Many MPs and peers have a direct stake in healthcare corporations
MPs and Lords can vote on legislation even when they have a direct financial interest. This happened when the Health and Social Care Act 2012 was passed. The legislation was written for the healthcare industry, by industry consultancies and is part of an overall plan to replace NHS services with private healthcare and personal insurance.
In the Commons, 77 MPs (63 Tory MPs, 4 Lib Dems, and 10 Labour) have a direct financial interest in private healthcare corporations that are likely to benefit from NHS privatisation. Interests include lucrative directorships, shares and PR or lobbying work. Most of these MPs have interests in a multiple companies.
In the Lords, 142 Lords have a direct financial interests in healthcare corporations: 63 Conservatives, 11 Liberal Democrats and 68 Labour. Again, most have multiple interests.
Jobs for the boys (and girls) after Westminster
An MPs Inquiry into lobbying concluded: “With the rules as loosely and variously interpreted as they are, former Ministers in particular appear to be able to use with impunity the contacts they built up as public servants to further a private interest”. As David Cameron explained: “We all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisors for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way.”
The BBC’s File on Four identified 10 former health ministers who left government to work as highly paid advisors and lobbyists with major healthcare companies. One recent leaver, former Labour Health Minister Alan Milburn is a member of the European Advisory Board of Bridgepoint Capital Limited, the private equity firm which acquired private health company Care UK and has secured £102.6 million in NHS contracts.
Astroturf Health ‘think-tanks’: another career for ex-politicians and front for the healthcare corporates
Governments love to work with grassroots campaigns and independent think tanks that lend credibility to their policies. But many such groups are not what they seem. An 'astroturf' campaign is a fake grassroots movement founded, funded and organised by lobbying firms, PR companies, or interest groups. There are dozens of these, including the two below:
2020health
2020health describes itself as an independent, social enterprise think tank with a mission to 'Make Health Personal'.
2020health provides a lobbying platform for the pharmaceutical industry and privatised health. It advocates reducing the number of NHS services provided for free. It promotes Personal Health Budgets (PHB)s which would remove NHS responsibility for providing long-term care for people with complex needs, and divert NHS resources to private providers and private profit.
2020health is funded by drug companies including Pfizer, MSD (Merk) and Lundbeck and US healthcare company, Baxter. Many of its executives have lucrative positions on private sector healthcare payrolls.
2020 Patrons include Conservatives Lord McColl , Baroness Cumberledge and Liberal Democrats Lord Rennard and Lord Tim Clement-Jones. Former Chair of 2020health, Tom Sackville, was a health minister under Margaret Thatcher. He is now CEO of the International Federation of Health Plans, representing 100 private healthcare companies in 31 countries.
Reform
Reform bills itself as an "independent and strictly non-party think tank whose mission is to set out a better way to reform public services and economic prosperity". Reform was founded by Tory MP Nick Herbert and former Head of the Political Section of the Conservative Party Research Department Andrew Haldenby. In April 2014, Reform published a pamphlet prepared by Labour peer Lord Warner arguing we should all pay £10 per month additional ‘membership charge’ for the NHS, plus £20 per night for hospital stays, abolish Attendance Allowance (disability benefit for people over pension age) and that NHS Continuing Care (long-term care for people with complex needs) should be means tested.
Reform is funded by many of the companies that are directly benefiting from NHS privatisation, including ABI, Aviva, BMI, Capita, KPMG and Serco among many others.
Forget expenses: these are the real scandals:
It doesn’t have to be this way
Popular outcries about MPs expenses have had an impact – our outrage has finally led to criminal charges and ministers losing their jobs.
These entanglement of politicians with corporate giants has a much greater impact on democracy, how the country is run and in whose interests. It’s time we cleaned up politics and demanded a clean break between politics and corporate lobbying. It’s time we demand it’s made illegal for politicians to have any say in matters where they (or their family) have a financial interest. It’s time to end the revolving door between ministers and corporate lobbying.
We are losing our NHS through corruption and greed. We demand it back!
Challenging lies and propaganda about the NHS
Our NHS delivers world class healthcare, for everyone, at less cost.
In 2010, a major international review based on multiple research findings showed the NHS ranks with the most efficient and well-regarded health services in the world, with among the best clinical outcomes.
Everyone accepts that improvements are needed to bring poor services up to best NHS standards. Staff should be supported to do this. Standards can’t be improved by marketising the NHS, or putting profits ahead of patients.
England spends less on healthcare than comparable countries like Germany or France, and far, far less than the highly privatised USA.
The NHS is not unaffordable or unsustainable, it is under-funded. This government has wasted billions on wholesale reorganisation that no one wanted or voted for. Billions of pounds which should fund front line care are being wasted on contracting and legal fees, PFI debts, firing and rehiring staff, using consultancies and private agencies for staff. £20bn cuts – rebadged as ‘efficiency savings’ from NHS budgets have been returned to the treasury.
MPs expenses are a tip of the iceberg –
the real scandal is MPs and lords creating new laws which will line their own pockets, and politicians deeply enmeshed with corporations which profit from their actions.
And the worst part is….. it’s all perfectly legal!
Privatising the NHS. A clear example of political corruption and greed. Here’s how it works:
The coalition government came to power pledging ‘no more top down reorganisation of the NHS’.
They went on to introduce the Health and Social Care Act, which forces the NHS into an open market. Why? It’s not hard to understand if we follow the money. The examples below barely scratch the surface of these deeply corrupt – yet perfectly legal - practices.
Healthcare investors fund political parties
Many investors linked to healthcare corporations make direct donations to political parties including these:
Private health care firms with Tory links have been awarded NHS contracts worth nearly £1.5billion in 2013. Circle Health landed £1.36billion worth of health service contracts after several of its investors gave around £1.5million to the Conservatives. Care UK has contracts worth £102.6million. Chairman of Care UK, Lord Nash and his wife gave £247,250 to the Tories, including £21,000 to former Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley as he drew up the Tory health reforms.
UKIP – which also supports NHS privatisation - received £50k funding in 2013 from Harwood Capital LLP, whose investments include healthcare.
Many MPs and peers have a direct stake in healthcare corporations
MPs and Lords can vote on legislation even when they have a direct financial interest. This happened when the Health and Social Care Act 2012 was passed. The legislation was written for the healthcare industry, by industry consultancies and is part of an overall plan to replace NHS services with private healthcare and personal insurance.
In the Commons, 77 MPs (63 Tory MPs, 4 Lib Dems, and 10 Labour) have a direct financial interest in private healthcare corporations that are likely to benefit from NHS privatisation. Interests include lucrative directorships, shares and PR or lobbying work. Most of these MPs have interests in a multiple companies.
In the Lords, 142 Lords have a direct financial interests in healthcare corporations: 63 Conservatives, 11 Liberal Democrats and 68 Labour. Again, most have multiple interests.
Jobs for the boys (and girls) after Westminster
An MPs Inquiry into lobbying concluded: “With the rules as loosely and variously interpreted as they are, former Ministers in particular appear to be able to use with impunity the contacts they built up as public servants to further a private interest”. As David Cameron explained: “We all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisors for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way.”
The BBC’s File on Four identified 10 former health ministers who left government to work as highly paid advisors and lobbyists with major healthcare companies. One recent leaver, former Labour Health Minister Alan Milburn is a member of the European Advisory Board of Bridgepoint Capital Limited, the private equity firm which acquired private health company Care UK and has secured £102.6 million in NHS contracts.
Astroturf Health ‘think-tanks’: another career for ex-politicians and front for the healthcare corporates
Governments love to work with grassroots campaigns and independent think tanks that lend credibility to their policies. But many such groups are not what they seem. An 'astroturf' campaign is a fake grassroots movement founded, funded and organised by lobbying firms, PR companies, or interest groups. There are dozens of these, including the two below:
2020health
2020health describes itself as an independent, social enterprise think tank with a mission to 'Make Health Personal'.
2020health provides a lobbying platform for the pharmaceutical industry and privatised health. It advocates reducing the number of NHS services provided for free. It promotes Personal Health Budgets (PHB)s which would remove NHS responsibility for providing long-term care for people with complex needs, and divert NHS resources to private providers and private profit.
2020health is funded by drug companies including Pfizer, MSD (Merk) and Lundbeck and US healthcare company, Baxter. Many of its executives have lucrative positions on private sector healthcare payrolls.
2020 Patrons include Conservatives Lord McColl , Baroness Cumberledge and Liberal Democrats Lord Rennard and Lord Tim Clement-Jones. Former Chair of 2020health, Tom Sackville, was a health minister under Margaret Thatcher. He is now CEO of the International Federation of Health Plans, representing 100 private healthcare companies in 31 countries.
Reform
Reform bills itself as an "independent and strictly non-party think tank whose mission is to set out a better way to reform public services and economic prosperity". Reform was founded by Tory MP Nick Herbert and former Head of the Political Section of the Conservative Party Research Department Andrew Haldenby. In April 2014, Reform published a pamphlet prepared by Labour peer Lord Warner arguing we should all pay £10 per month additional ‘membership charge’ for the NHS, plus £20 per night for hospital stays, abolish Attendance Allowance (disability benefit for people over pension age) and that NHS Continuing Care (long-term care for people with complex needs) should be means tested.
Reform is funded by many of the companies that are directly benefiting from NHS privatisation, including ABI, Aviva, BMI, Capita, KPMG and Serco among many others.
Forget expenses: these are the real scandals:
- MPs and Lords passing laws designed for their own profit, and not for our common good.
- Politicians deeply enmeshed with the private corporations that will profit directly from privatisation.
It doesn’t have to be this way
Popular outcries about MPs expenses have had an impact – our outrage has finally led to criminal charges and ministers losing their jobs.
These entanglement of politicians with corporate giants has a much greater impact on democracy, how the country is run and in whose interests. It’s time we cleaned up politics and demanded a clean break between politics and corporate lobbying. It’s time we demand it’s made illegal for politicians to have any say in matters where they (or their family) have a financial interest. It’s time to end the revolving door between ministers and corporate lobbying.
We are losing our NHS through corruption and greed. We demand it back!
Challenging lies and propaganda about the NHS
Our NHS delivers world class healthcare, for everyone, at less cost.
In 2010, a major international review based on multiple research findings showed the NHS ranks with the most efficient and well-regarded health services in the world, with among the best clinical outcomes.
Everyone accepts that improvements are needed to bring poor services up to best NHS standards. Staff should be supported to do this. Standards can’t be improved by marketising the NHS, or putting profits ahead of patients.
England spends less on healthcare than comparable countries like Germany or France, and far, far less than the highly privatised USA.
The NHS is not unaffordable or unsustainable, it is under-funded. This government has wasted billions on wholesale reorganisation that no one wanted or voted for. Billions of pounds which should fund front line care are being wasted on contracting and legal fees, PFI debts, firing and rehiring staff, using consultancies and private agencies for staff. £20bn cuts – rebadged as ‘efficiency savings’ from NHS budgets have been returned to the treasury.
