In the news

‘Stop playing games with the NHS’ Britain’s top doctor warns politicians

17th February 2015 Daily Mirror

BMA goes radical and launches its “Stop playing games with the NHS” campaign

End of the NHS by 2020 if we do not act now

In 2010, the National Health Service fell to its least importance as an issue among voters since 1986. Now it’s back at the top of the political agenda. Just as it was in 1999. Why? Because, after four and half years of the Conservative-led coalition, healthcare is in crisis. Markets haven’t worked, inspection hasn’t worked, demand management has failed, morale is at an all-time low and workforce planning is botched. The major consequences of the 2012 Health Social Care Act has been that healthcare in England is viewed as a business rather than a service.

Kailash Chand, deputy chair of the BMA, The Tribune 24th January, 2015

Great Western Hospital slams failing PFI contractors – but can it escape?

Disastrous privatisation deals mean failing contractors Carillion have a stranglehold on NHS hospitals, with dangerous results.

Andy Newman, openDemocracy, October 2014

The worlds “local bank”: owner of UK state schools and NHS hospitals

HSBC and other investment funds are taking control of UK schools, hospitals, social housing and other vital pieces of public infrastructure via the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), a report by the European Strategy Services Unit (ESSU) has shown.

These funds are avoiding paying millions in taxes because they are registered in tax havens such as Guernsey and Jersey. At least 91 pieces of public infrastructure are now owned this way in the UK.

HSBC has a controlling stake in 27 PFI projects, which are predominantly hospitals and schools. It is also the outright owner of three NHS Hospitals, which are located in Barnet, Central Middlesex and West Middlesex.

A report connecting HSBC to PFI, from the European Strategy Services Unit June 2011

Syriza stood up to the money men – the UK left must do the same

25 January 2015, Zoe Williams, The Guardian

PFI is a classic example of the failings of the UK left: every party agrees these contracts were a rip-off – the coalition is still signing them, while fulminating about Labour’s track record; Labour thinks radicalism means admitting that perhaps they weren’t a good idea. Nigel Farage (again on Radio 5) said to my face that Ukip would “get hospitals out from under the yoke of PFI”. This means tearing up the contracts, doesn’t it? What else could it mean? There is only one other group in the country with an idea so radical, and that’s The People vs PFI.