Campaigners to protest against NHS privatisation (From Daily Echo)

I remember way back when the hospitals catered for private patients.
It bought in extra revenue to those hospitals.
The Health workers(unions) said it was wrong as they were jumping the queues & fought against it.
Eventually the Hospitals ceased taking in private patients so losing a source of income well done the Unions.
now they're against our doctors having the right which hospital to send us to?
Unless they see this as a way for greedy doctors to fleece us what really is the problem here?

Private patients still jump the queue.

If they have private medical insurance, and the private hospital cannot perform the prescribed operation or treatment, the consultant, that they are seeing under that insurance, will transfer them to the top of his NHS list.

The 38 Degrees campaign is right to draw attention to the steady but relentless privatisation of our NHS.

Southampton has the highest proportion of NHS procedures carried out by the private sector in the country - a staggering 31.5%. Private operator Care UK’s Southampton NHS treatment centre (based at the RSH) carried out no fewer than 14,604 NHS procedures in 2011-12.

This company also provides domiciliary care services in Southampton (under a contract let by the Conservatives) and it has just acquired Harmoni out-of-hours GP service, providing services to 15 million NHS patients.

Nearly all of Care UK's income derives from contracts with the NHS and local authority social service departments.

Southampton patients might be interested to know that former chairman of Care UK is City hedge fund boss John Nash. Between 2005 and 2010 he and his and wife gave £203,500 to the Conservative party including £21,000 given directly to former Health Secretary Andrew Lansley to help with his general election campaign.

So who's really running our NHS?

Having used Care UK I can only recommend more of the same. They are courteous, punctual and proficient. It was like a breath of fresh air after the usual dismal NHS offerings.

.. ah!! "“The constitution has been widely consulted on with member practices, the local authority and NHS provider services.”

Exactly. Notice the lack of patient and public consultation. The NHS is to serve the public, yet the CCG does not seek our opinion. Shameful.

loosehead wrote:
I remember way back when the hospitals catered for private patients.
It bought in extra revenue to those hospitals.
The Health workers(unions) said it was wrong as they were jumping the queues & fought against it.
Eventually the Hospitals ceased taking in private patients so losing a source of income well done the Unions.
now they're against our doctors having the right which hospital to send us to?
Unless they see this as a way for greedy doctors to fleece us what really is the problem here?

I work on the principle that two wrongs do not make a right. Yes it was stupid for COHSE and NUPE to force private medicine out of the NHS hospitals, especially since Nye Bevan at the time of of incorporating the NHS had said that it could not survive without the input of finances from private patients. This situation was actually nurtured later by Churchill's Tory government. This was at a time when both Tory and Labour governments worked forr the nation and it's people. We now have a situation where the present government is doing its best to privatise the whole lot and allowing the CCG to tender out work to private concerns is the thin edge of the wedge and could lead to the intended demise of the NHS.

Inform Al wrote:

loosehead wrote:
I remember way back when the hospitals catered for private patients.
It bought in extra revenue to those hospitals.
The Health workers(unions) said it was wrong as they were jumping the queues & fought against it.
Eventually the Hospitals ceased taking in private patients so losing a source of income well done the Unions.
now they're against our doctors having the right which hospital to send us to?
Unless they see this as a way for greedy doctors to fleece us what really is the problem here?

I work on the principle that two wrongs do not make a right. Yes it was stupid for COHSE and NUPE to force private medicine out of the NHS hospitals, especially since Nye Bevan at the time of of incorporating the NHS had said that it could not survive without the input of finances from private patients. This situation was actually nurtured later by Churchill's Tory government. This was at a time when both Tory and Labour governments worked forr the nation and it's people. We now have a situation where the present government is doing its best to privatise the whole lot and allowing the CCG to tender out work to private concerns is the thin edge of the wedge and could lead to the intended demise of the NHS.

My understanding was that Nye Bevan accepted some private medicine in NHS Hospitals as the price that had to be paid to keep consultants, who were less than enthusiastic, onboard.

Right from the word go the Tories opposed Nye Bevan’s baby, our NHS. So hardly surprising they are still hell bent on destroying it.

If any body expected something different from the self confessed ‘Nasty Party’ they should have known better. Because only way to save NHS (and many other services as well) is to keep the vultures away from positions of power and engage historical memory bank in heads before putting that very important cross on the ballot paper.

Current crop of Tories can be more ruthless than even when under Thatcher, because their job has been made easy by traitors of Labour within Bevan’s own Labour Party. While 13 years in power they introduced privateer sharks into our NHS, thus opening the gates for the sworn enemies of Nye Bevan’s vision to walk in and start sucking its blood.

Somebody has very rightly posted a comment about Care UK, explaining facts and figures and sources of its profits, which are mainly our NHS and other care services, where we are constantly told that money is short. Yes it is short because it ends up in the super greedy pockets of share holders of businesses like Care UK.

It is a matter of greatest shame that after tarting it up RSH hospital in Southampton was handed over to Care UK not by current ConDem Coaltion of unprincipled, but under NuLabour government when their local hero politically dodgy Denham was its important component. They are guilty of such immoralities all over the country. Calling them foot soldiers of Tories can only be right.

Campaigning against little bit of ConDem’s lunacies here and there is admirable and deserves support, but there is only one solution to real problem, recreation of Labour Party in which founder of NHS true socialist Nye Bevan believed.

Because brand name Labour has now become the registered property of virtual Tories who now call the party New Labour, (but contest elections under the name of Labour Party, because not many will touch Blair, Brown, Mandelson and Millibands contaminated NuLabour even with a barge pole) those like me who still believe in Bevan’s vision should get together and form a brand new party based on same principles, which NuLabour has betrayed.

This can be done, if socialists scattered all over the place in small numbers get together and once again unite. But will they? Honestly…. in the near future I don’t think so….. because addiction to cannibalism is too strong.

Linesman wrote:

Inform Al wrote:

loosehead wrote:
I remember way back when the hospitals catered for private patients.
It bought in extra revenue to those hospitals.
The Health workers(unions) said it was wrong as they were jumping the queues & fought against it.
Eventually the Hospitals ceased taking in private patients so losing a source of income well done the Unions.
now they're against our doctors having the right which hospital to send us to?
Unless they see this as a way for greedy doctors to fleece us what really is the problem here?

I work on the principle that two wrongs do not make a right. Yes it was stupid for COHSE and NUPE to force private medicine out of the NHS hospitals, especially since Nye Bevan at the time of of incorporating the NHS had said that it could not survive without the input of finances from private patients. This situation was actually nurtured later by Churchill's Tory government. This was at a time when both Tory and Labour governments worked forr the nation and it's people. We now have a situation where the present government is doing its best to privatise the whole lot and allowing the CCG to tender out work to private concerns is the thin edge of the wedge and could lead to the intended demise of the NHS.

My understanding was that Nye Bevan accepted some private medicine in NHS Hospitals as the price that had to be paid to keep consultants, who were less than enthusiastic, onboard.

Your understanding is a FACT.

Nye Bevan had problems not only with Tories, even some within the Labour Party kept on creating hurdels for him, so he had to make many compromises.

FoysCornerBoy wrote:
The 38 Degrees campaign is right to draw attention to the steady but relentless privatisation of our NHS.

Southampton has the highest proportion of NHS procedures carried out by the private sector in the country - a staggering 31.5%. Private operator Care UK’s Southampton NHS treatment centre (based at the RSH) carried out no fewer than 14,604 NHS procedures in 2011-12.

This company also provides domiciliary care services in Southampton (under a contract let by the Conservatives) and it has just acquired Harmoni out-of-hours GP service, providing services to 15 million NHS patients.

Nearly all of Care UK's income derives from contracts with the NHS and local authority social service departments.

Southampton patients might be interested to know that former chairman of Care UK is City hedge fund boss John Nash. Between 2005 and 2010 he and his and wife gave £203,500 to the Conservative party including £21,000 given directly to former Health Secretary Andrew Lansley to help with his general election campaign.

So who's really running our NHS?

Hope people will rember the truth you have tried to tell. Thanks for trying to remove some blinkers

Private or public, it does not matter.
What does matter is standards and value for money.

aldermoorboy wrote:
Private or public, it does not matter.
What does matter is standards and value for money.

And what about choice? I agree that the quality of the care currently provided by Care UK at the RSH is of a reasonably high standard.

However, when my GP offers me a choice of where I go for my treatment I would want to know a little bit about who it is that will provide my care. Personally I would choose an NHS provider rather than a private company whose owners make donations to political parties.

FoysCornerBoy wrote:

aldermoorboy wrote:
Private or public, it does not matter.
What does matter is standards and value for money.

And what about choice? I agree that the quality of the care currently provided by Care UK at the RSH is of a reasonably high standard.

However, when my GP offers me a choice of where I go for my treatment I would want to know a little bit about who it is that will provide my care. Personally I would choose an NHS provider rather than a private company whose owners make donations to political parties.

Spot on FoysCornerBoy, privatisation through the back door they used to call it, now it's blatant, Parajit mentions blinkers however people like Aldermoorboy are completely blindfolded.

Thanks for the informed information,,,it's amazing what you can learn from some people on the Echo website

So if your Doctor is in charge of the finances & it's down to them what Hospital you attend surely you'll use a doctors surgery where they can offer you a choice so if you want the NHS you get NHS if a private Hospital can offer the same treatment for the same price as NHS you can go there if you choose.
Maybe a decent Doctors Surgery would do just that have any of you asked?

.....And none of the socialists on here can provide any data about whether or not private treatment is better or worse than NHS treatment when there is a choice- because NHS treatment is usually worse. The NHS is huge bloated expensive and inneficient, and the reason socialists are always up in arms about it is not because of the patients - it's because of jobs. For example cancer patients needing regular chemo have to make appointments and drag themselves to hospital outpatient waiitng rooms to wait for treatment in crowded treatment areas then make their way home again. But in some lucky progressive areas chemo treatment has been outsourced to private companies who come to the patient's house at their convenience and give them their treatment in comfort where they can rest and relax. Not only is it nicer and better for the patient it is far cheaper than the NHS doing it. So I repeat the question to that dogmatic moron Paramjit Bahia - when every single patient prefers to use the cheaper private alternative what is wrong with that and why would you stop it?

.....And none of the socialists on here can provide any data about whether or not private treatment is better or worse than NHS treatment when there is a choice- because NHS treatment is usually worse. The NHS is huge bloated expensive and inneficient, and the reason socialists are always up in arms about it is not because of the patients - it's because of jobs. For example cancer patients needing regular chemo have to make appointments and drag themselves to hospital outpatient waiitng rooms to wait for treatment in crowded treatment areas then make their way home again. But in some lucky progressive areas chemo treatment has been outsourced to private companies who come to the patient's house at their convenience and give them their treatment in comfort where they can rest and relax. Not only is it nicer and better for the patient it is far cheaper than the NHS doing it. So I repeat the question to that dogmatic moron Paramjit Bahia - when every single patient prefers to use the cheaper private alternative what is wrong with that and why would you stop it?

Datarater wrote:
Having used Care UK I can only recommend more of the same. They are courteous, punctual and proficient. It was like a breath of fresh air after the usual dismal NHS offerings.

Very easy to achieve when you're able to cherry pick the easy patients, only provide a limited number of services, don't provide any emergency medicine or A&E, get paid 20% more than the NHS hospital for the same treatments, and are guaranteed payment for 80% of your contract's value even if you don't see a single patient.

And when an operation goes wrong at Care UK (or any other ISTC), who sorts out the mess? That'd be Southampton General.

Neasden General Hospital has an orthopaedic surgery service. They do lots of hip operations. They have lots of other services as well, because they're a big hospital.

Hospitals don't receive money directly from the treasury for these operations. Instead, Neasden Primary Care Trust (the 'PCT', who run all the GP surgeries and other community stuff) receive a certain amount of money from the government to pay for the care of each of the people living in the area. When Ron Knee has a hip replacement at Neasden General, the PCT pay the 'national tariff' price to the hospital for carrying it out.

The national tariff isn't based on the cost of Ron Knee's operation. It's an average price for all of those sorts of hip replacements. Ron's got all sorts of things wrong with him. He's diabetic, he has COPD, he's obese, and is allergic to various antibiotics. He's called a 'complex' patient. His operation will need an expensive type of implant, many hours of theatre time, a specialist surgeon and a blood transfusion. If there are other complications during the surgery, they may need to call on a consultant from one of their other specialties - cardiac, neuro, gynae etc, who will zoom off to the orthopaedic theatre to help. That will all cost many thousands more than the national tariff price.

That's okay though, because for every Ron, there are a few Dorises. Doris Nutter is a young lady who's never smoked in her life, eats well, and is blessed with strong genes. A picture of vitality is Doris. Doris is a 'simple' patient. She'll be in and out of theatre in a jiffy, as a textbook case it can be performed by a registrar instead of a consultant, and financially the op will cost the hospital a bit less than the PCT pay them for it.

Neasden General is a teaching hospital as well, so simple operations like Doris' are vital for the training of tomorrow's consultant surgeons.

All's right with the world. Swings and roundabouts, and it all balances out over the course of the season.

But now, to provide Neasden General with some competition, and make them be more efficient, the government sink a lot of money into establishing a Private Sector Treatment Centre down the road. Triangle Healthcare agree to take it on, but only if certain terms are met. The government knows in its heart of hearts that the private sector is more efficient than the NHS, so it agrees to all these terms.

Triangle Healthcare won't take obese patients, and they won't operate on diabetics. It's not that they're not technically competent to do so - after all, their surgeons are the same guys that work down the road for the NHS. In fact, Triangle won't operate on any complex patients at all. It wouldn't be safe to do so, because if anything went wrong, needing the attention of a different type of doctor, they'd have to transfer the patient mid-operation to Neasden General. Triangle don't do cardiac. Or neuro.

So all the simple patients have their hip replacements done at Triangle, who make a profit on each of them. Neasden General are left with all the complex patients, who each cost them far more than they are reimbursed for. They still treat them of course, but to make up the shortfall they do have to let a few dozen booking staff go, so it may be a bit harder to get through on the phone to arrange your appointment.

And those trainee surgeons who need the simple ops to improve their skills? Oh well.

cantthinkofone wrote:
Neasden General Hospital has an orthopaedic surgery service. They do lots of hip operations. They have lots of other services as well, because they're a big hospital.

Hospitals don't receive money directly from the treasury for these operations. Instead, Neasden Primary Care Trust (the 'PCT', who run all the GP surgeries and other community stuff) receive a certain amount of money from the government to pay for the care of each of the people living in the area. When Ron Knee has a hip replacement at Neasden General, the PCT pay the 'national tariff' price to the hospital for carrying it out.

The national tariff isn't based on the cost of Ron Knee's operation. It's an average price for all of those sorts of hip replacements. Ron's got all sorts of things wrong with him. He's diabetic, he has COPD, he's obese, and is allergic to various antibiotics. He's called a 'complex' patient. His operation will need an expensive type of implant, many hours of theatre time, a specialist surgeon and a blood transfusion. If there are other complications during the surgery, they may need to call on a consultant from one of their other specialties - cardiac, neuro, gynae etc, who will zoom off to the orthopaedic theatre to help. That will all cost many thousands more than the national tariff price.

That's okay though, because for every Ron, there are a few Dorises. Doris Nutter is a young lady who's never smoked in her life, eats well, and is blessed with strong genes. A picture of vitality is Doris. Doris is a 'simple' patient. She'll be in and out of theatre in a jiffy, as a textbook case it can be performed by a registrar instead of a consultant, and financially the op will cost the hospital a bit less than the PCT pay them for it.

Neasden General is a teaching hospital as well, so simple operations like Doris' are vital for the training of tomorrow's consultant surgeons.

All's right with the world. Swings and roundabouts, and it all balances out over the course of the season.

But now, to provide Neasden General with some competition, and make them be more efficient, the government sink a lot of money into establishing a Private Sector Treatment Centre down the road. Triangle Healthcare agree to take it on, but only if certain terms are met. The government knows in its heart of hearts that the private sector is more efficient than the NHS, so it agrees to all these terms.

Triangle Healthcare won't take obese patients, and they won't operate on diabetics. It's not that they're not technically competent to do so - after all, their surgeons are the same guys that work down the road for the NHS. In fact, Triangle won't operate on any complex patients at all. It wouldn't be safe to do so, because if anything went wrong, needing the attention of a different type of doctor, they'd have to transfer the patient mid-operation to Neasden General. Triangle don't do cardiac. Or neuro.

So all the simple patients have their hip replacements done at Triangle, who make a profit on each of them. Neasden General are left with all the complex patients, who each cost them far more than they are reimbursed for. They still treat them of course, but to make up the shortfall they do have to let a few dozen booking staff go, so it may be a bit harder to get through on the phone to arrange your appointment.

And those trainee surgeons who need the simple ops to improve their skills? Oh well.

So Neasden charge the doctors for the full cost of the surgery?
If the other facility refuse these patients where else would the doctors send them to?
I don't understand your point?
A patient goes to the doctors they send him to the hospital & the diagnosis is they need an operation the doctors then look around for a hospital that does that type of operation & find the only type of hospital who would take the patient in that condition is Neasden then surely you break it down & the cost for hip replacement is National but the extra costs aren't sop you charge extra or refuse to take the patient unless they lose weight as some NHS hospitals already have done

loosehead wrote:

cantthinkofone wrote:
Neasden General Hospital has an orthopaedic surgery service. They do lots of hip operations. They have lots of other services as well, because they're a big hospital.

Hospitals don't receive money directly from the treasury for these operations. Instead, Neasden Primary Care Trust (the 'PCT', who run all the GP surgeries and other community stuff) receive a certain amount of money from the government to pay for the care of each of the people living in the area. When Ron Knee has a hip replacement at Neasden General, the PCT pay the 'national tariff' price to the hospital for carrying it out.

The national tariff isn't based on the cost of Ron Knee's operation. It's an average price for all of those sorts of hip replacements. Ron's got all sorts of things wrong with him. He's diabetic, he has COPD, he's obese, and is allergic to various antibiotics. He's called a 'complex' patient. His operation will need an expensive type of implant, many hours of theatre time, a specialist surgeon and a blood transfusion. If there are other complications during the surgery, they may need to call on a consultant from one of their other specialties - cardiac, neuro, gynae etc, who will zoom off to the orthopaedic theatre to help. That will all cost many thousands more than the national tariff price.

That's okay though, because for every Ron, there are a few Dorises. Doris Nutter is a young lady who's never smoked in her life, eats well, and is blessed with strong genes. A picture of vitality is Doris. Doris is a 'simple' patient. She'll be in and out of theatre in a jiffy, as a textbook case it can be performed by a registrar instead of a consultant, and financially the op will cost the hospital a bit less than the PCT pay them for it.

Neasden General is a teaching hospital as well, so simple operations like Doris' are vital for the training of tomorrow's consultant surgeons.

All's right with the world. Swings and roundabouts, and it all balances out over the course of the season.

But now, to provide Neasden General with some competition, and make them be more efficient, the government sink a lot of money into establishing a Private Sector Treatment Centre down the road. Triangle Healthcare agree to take it on, but only if certain terms are met. The government knows in its heart of hearts that the private sector is more efficient than the NHS, so it agrees to all these terms.

Triangle Healthcare won't take obese patients, and they won't operate on diabetics. It's not that they're not technically competent to do so - after all, their surgeons are the same guys that work down the road for the NHS. In fact, Triangle won't operate on any complex patients at all. It wouldn't be safe to do so, because if anything went wrong, needing the attention of a different type of doctor, they'd have to transfer the patient mid-operation to Neasden General. Triangle don't do cardiac. Or neuro.

So all the simple patients have their hip replacements done at Triangle, who make a profit on each of them. Neasden General are left with all the complex patients, who each cost them far more than they are reimbursed for. They still treat them of course, but to make up the shortfall they do have to let a few dozen booking staff go, so it may be a bit harder to get through on the phone to arrange your appointment.

And those trainee surgeons who need the simple ops to improve their skills? Oh well.

So Neasden charge the doctors for the full cost of the surgery?
If the other facility refuse these patients where else would the doctors send them to?
I don't understand your point?
A patient goes to the doctors they send him to the hospital & the diagnosis is they need an operation the doctors then look around for a hospital that does that type of operation & find the only type of hospital who would take the patient in that condition is Neasden then surely you break it down & the cost for hip replacement is National but the extra costs aren't sop you charge extra or refuse to take the patient unless they lose weight as some NHS hospitals already have done

The NHS hospital don't get a choice over how much they charge - the 'extra costs' as you put it are supposed to be included in the national tariff. But aren't.

Neasden hospital and Triangle Healthcare both offer the operation to the simple patients (the ones that they can recoup some of their losses on). Neasden GPs are 'incentivized' to send them to Triangle.

What I've written is a massive oversimplification too. The reality is horrendously complicated (and so has a LOT of people employed solely to administer it all). The key point though, is that the NHS/Private 'competition' thing is the very opposite of a level playing field.

Ps - re: 'refusing to take the patient unless they lose some weight. Many doctors would regard that as ethically unacceptable. Encouraging and supporting the patient to lose weight yes, but refusing treatment otherwise, no.

And we're not just talking about obesity anyway. You can't make a patient stop being diabetic, or having COPD, or heart failure, or etc etc...

cantthinkofone wrote:
Ps - re: 'refusing to take the patient unless they lose some weight. Many doctors would regard that as ethically unacceptable. Encouraging and supporting the patient to lose weight yes, but refusing treatment otherwise, no.

And we're not just talking about obesity anyway. You can't make a patient stop being diabetic, or having COPD, or heart failure, or etc etc...

I think it's wrong to refuse treatment for weight or drink, if the patient needs .
treatment they should receive treatment
It has been on the news where Hospitals have refused treatment giving the reason as being overweight & saying no point putting in an artificial hip unless they lose the wright & the other reason is the person is to old.
These were NHS hospitals so it's not only the private Hospital refusing to treat overweight people is it?

loosehead wrote:

cantthinkofone wrote:
Ps - re: 'refusing to take the patient unless they lose some weight. Many doctors would regard that as ethically unacceptable. Encouraging and supporting the patient to lose weight yes, but refusing treatment otherwise, no.

And we're not just talking about obesity anyway. You can't make a patient stop being diabetic, or having COPD, or heart failure, or etc etc...

I think it's wrong to refuse treatment for weight or drink, if the patient needs .
treatment they should receive treatment
It has been on the news where Hospitals have refused treatment giving the reason as being overweight & saying no point putting in an artificial hip unless they lose the wright & the other reason is the person is to old.
These were NHS hospitals so it's not only the private Hospital refusing to treat overweight people is it?

What an incredible strawman. You've gone off on such a tangent from the point I was making that you may as well be on a different plane entirely. Very strange behaviour tbh.