Private Eye on Successful Campaign against Blairite Hospital Privatisation by Pro-NHS Group

One of the political developments prompted by New Labour’s wholesale adoption of the Tory programme of the destruction of the welfare state and privatisation, including that of the NHS, is that opposition to these policies moved away from the party to popular organisations set up by concerned professionals, activists and members of the public. This was particularly true of organised opposition to the privatisation of the NHS, which led to the formation of the NHS Action Party. In the same issue of Private Eye which revealed how Blair and his cronies in private industry wished to force through even more privatisation, 15-28 June 2001) the very first article was about how a New Labour politico had suffered a series of humiliating defeats at the hands of opponents of plans for the closure of beds at Kidderminster Hospital and the transfer of services to a new, PFI-funded hospital at Worcester. The article, ‘Wyre, Oh Wyre’, ran

The best election result by far was at Wyre Forest, where the ambitious junior minister at the lord chancellor’s department, barrister David Lock (10,857 votes) was hammered out of sight by the Health Concern candidate, Richard Taylor (28,487 votes).

The Eye was one of the first to appreciate the challenge from Health Concern. Under the heading Wyres Crossed way back in June last year, we traced the the circuitous record of David Lock over the key local issue of the proposed closure of all acute services at Kidderminster Hospital (Eye 1007). Lock was against the proposals when he stood for the seat and won it unexpectedly in 1997. But his enthusiasm for the campaign against closure waned as he climbed into the government.

His ire was directed against those who opposed plans for the new hospital, especially professor Allyson Pollock of the University College of London’s school of public policy. Mr Lock complained not to Prof Pollock herself but to the chairman of the University College council, Lord Young of Graffham.

The Eye article drew a mocking reply from the MP who proclaimed himself a regular Eye reader and bitterly attacked Prof Pollock, who, he wrote, “didn’t bother to check her facts with the health authority before going to print”. This letter drew a furious and devastating response from Richard Taylor, a retired consultant, whose letter (Eye 1007) exposed Mr Lock as, well, having been economical with the truth.

This was followed the following issue (1008) by a letter from Allyson Pollock pointing out that her facts about the hospital were quite correct. The cost of new PFI facility at Worcester replacing the services at Kidderminster had risen from £49m to £108m, all to provide 44 percent fewer acute beds for more patients.

So besieged was Mr Lock by the campaigner for the hospital that he resorted to his lawyers. Eye 1023 reported that he had threatened to sue Frank Baillie, a vice-chairman of Health Concern, for telling the left-wing weekly Tribune that Lock “had gone for promotion instead of standing side by side with the people of Wyre Forest”. Lawyers for the local authority (where Health Concern was and is the largest party) told Mr Baillie that they would not meet the costs of a libel action, and Baillie was forced to issue a grovelling and humiliating apology to Lock for saying something that was demonstrably true.

Mr Lock had not finished yet and his next assault on his critics won him the much-coveted spot of Man In The Eye (1026). He had rung a small publisher of a local magazine called For You who had had the nerve to reprint the Eye’s reports of the above events and as usual threatened them with a libel writ and demanded and an apology and substantial damages. He objected in particular to the observation: “It is a racing certainty that an Independent MP who will truly represent the wishes of the people will be elected.” Somehow the litigious MP did not get his apology or his damages before the election, when the magazine’s prediction came so handsomely true.

There is talk up in Kidderminster of a amss phone-in to the former MP demanding an apology and even substantial damages for contest the now rather obvious fact that enormous majority of his constituents did not agree with him.

Professor Pollock is the author of a series of works attacking the privatisation of the NHS, and I think she’s also a contributor to Jacky Davis and Raymond Tallis superb NHS -SOS, which minutely describes and exposes it. I think Health Concerns victory at Wyre Forest may be exceptional, because of the difficulties in getting a small, independent party or organisation off the ground and gathering enough votes to challenge the big parties.

But unfortunately, as Starmer shows himself keen to push through the Blairite agenda of the early 21st century, this may be the only tactic available to people who really want to preserve the NHS, and the health, prosperity and welfare of their fellow citizens.

 

Doctor’s Letter Attack Farage and Defending NHS in Today’s Telegraph

After Farage’s comments yesterday attacking the NHS and promoting private health, one doctor, John Lamport was so incensed that he had a letter describing his experience of excellent treatment for testicular cancer and defending the NHS. The doctor stated that his experience of NHS care had the opposite effect on his and convinced him to become a doctor. He was also unimpressed with Farage’s complaints about the NHS, when he personally had treated some of the courageous men and women, who had suffered horrific injuries and mutilation serving in the Middle East. Compared to their lost limbs, Farage’s own lost testicle was much less damaging.

He concluded his letter by stating that the NHS must remain for people, who suffer genuine tragedies. It should thus be well-funded, nationalised and free at the point of use.

Here’s the letter:

If you can’t read it, the letter says

Sir – When I was diagnosed with testicular cancer, I went from GP to operating theatre in four days. Unlike Nigel Farage, I endured nine months of chemotherapy, and I find it distasteful that his consultant referred to his regular blood tests as ‘more cruel than chemo’. The UK Independence Party leader’s experience shaped his belief that private medicine is best and immigrant doctors incompetent; my experience led me to become a doctor.

Reading Mr Farage’s whinge, I recalled caring for brave lads coming back from Afghanistan. If a 20-year old whose legs have been blown away can sit on my desks for weeks and show nothing but dignity, it puts the loss of a testicle into perspective.

Some people suffer genuine tragedies and it is for these people that the NHS is so crucial. It must remain well-funded, nationalised and free at the point of use.

Dr John Lamport,
National Health Action Party,
Kidderminster, Worcestershire

The National Health Action Party has been campaigning against the privatisation of the NHS since the 1990s. It was formed when Bliar was busy trying privatise the NHS, and wanted to close down one of the local hospitals in Kidderminster, despite massive local opposition.

Ed Miliband, on the other hand, has said that he will reverse Cameron’s privatisation of the NHS.

Private Eye in 2006 on the Closure of Health Services due to Privatisation in Redditch

Mike in the last post I’ve reblogged from his site has commented that the real problem behind Labour’s welfare policy is Unum. It is this criminal US insurance company that is sponsoring Anne Maguire’s invitation-only conference on welfare policy. The company has already sponsored similar events by Labour’s rivals, the Libdems and Conservatives. The fact that the Labour party is offering a platform to them indicates that its welfare policies differ little from those of the Coalition, despite its promises to sack Atos.

The privatisation of the NHS began under the Conservatives, but was continued and expanded under New Labour as part of Blair’s ‘Third Way’. In their issue for the 9th to 22nd June 2006, Private Eye reported how the costs of the Private Finance Initiative was forcing the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch to consider closing its maternity, paediatric and gynaecology units. Furthermore, there was evidence to suggest that the Primary Care Trust was referring orthopaedic patients not to the Alexandra Hospital, but to a private hospital in Kidderminster. The article runs

‘how NHS Privatisation Works

Double Whammy

Question: Why can’t the Alexandra hospital in Redditch do aaything to prevent the threatened closure of its maternity, paediatric and gynaecology units?

Answer: Because it is caught between a rock and a hard place in New Labour’s privatisation of the NHS and is powerless to act.

One of eight hospitals in the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust, the Alex receives payments from its local Primary Care Trust (PCT) for treating the patients the PCT refers to it. However, the two trusts on which they Alex depends are both having to pay such a high price for privatisation initiatives elsewhere that through no fault of its own, deep cuts are now threatened at the NHS hospital.

The first problem for the Alex is that the Worcestershire Acute Hospital Trust is saddled with a £30 m deficit which, campaigners claim, is largely due to the crazy sums it has had to pay for a PFI hospital in Worcester (See Eyes passim). Given the 30 m black hole, and the fact that hospital managers cannot cut their payments to their PFI contractors in Worcester (Catalyst Healthcare: a consortium of Bovis, Sodexho and Bank of Scotland), they are looking for savings elsewhere in the NHS and considering a plan to cut 720 jobs, which includes closing maternity and related services at the Alex.

Ironically, these NHS cuts at the Alex in Redditch might actually mean more money being paid to the PFI contractors in Worcester. For under the PFI deal, if more than 90 per cent of the beds at the Worcester hospital are occupied at any one time, the hospital trust must make extra payments to the consortium. So, if Redditch women continue to have babies after their local maternity unit is closed, and if they then travel to Worcester to give birth, they will fill beds at the PFI hospital and trigger extra payments to the private sector. Brilliant!

Meanwhile the Eye has seen documents suggesting that managers at the Alex believe their local Primary Care Trust is diverting orthopaedic patients away from the Alex to a private unit in Kidderminster. The PCT, it turns out, has a block contract with a private Independent Sector Treatment Centre (ISTC) run by Canadian firm Inter Health; and it has to pay for a certain number of operations at the ISTC each year whether the private firm carries out the work or not.

Last year the PCT tried to negotiate away a £193,000 overspend with Inter Health because of “under utilisation”; and the trust’s latest Financial Risk Plan warns that up to £1m could be lost this year unless it restricts NHS activity while “maximising use of ISTC capacity”. So yet more money will be diverted away from hospitals like the Alex.

The internal document from senior staff at the Alex claims: “the local PCT are advising a lot of patients that the waiting time is longer than it actually is at the Alex and therefore would they like to travel to the Independent Treatment Centre at Kidderminster.”

The PCT denied to the Eye that it was trying to force patients to go private in Kidderminster, claiming that patients and doctors made their own decisions based on “informed choice”. Yeah, right.

A local campaign to “Save the Alex” has been launched, but New Labour ministers remain committed to both the PFI and ISTC schemes. Rather than provoke cuts, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt claimed they would”build capacity” in the NHS. Some mistake, surely?’

This story more or less illustrates everything that’s wrong with the Private Finance Initiatives and the gradual privatisation of the NHS by successive Right-wing administrations. It shows how the NHS is being starved of money, and forced to make further cuts in order to finance inefficient private health companies, which include multinational corporations seeking to make a profit over here. It shows how local health care is frequently closed down and sacrificed for the profit of these private companies elsewhere. This does not just include hospitals. I’ve already blogged a piece from a previous Private Eye about the closure of three GP’s surgeries in London after their clinic was taken over by a private health care company. In contrast to the rhetoric put out by the American and Tory supporters of private health care, it clearly is not more efficient. Indeed, it is much less so, especially as it needs to be supported by the state to gain funding.

The Tories in the run-up to last year’s election suggested that they would end the PFI. They haven’t, and won’t. That was another broken election promise from a party whose members, such as Iain Duncan Smith, have consistently lied and dissembled about the detrimental effects their policies have to the poor. It is not just New Labour that uses lies and spin. The corruption and indifference to the needs of patients extends even to the commissioning authorities. At the moment, the only local authorities, which commission health care, who have written into their constitution that private firms may only be used when this is of benefit to the patient is Bristol and one of the London boroughs. This will continue as long as there exists the revolving door by which ministers and civil servants join private companies as directors once they retire or leave government. For these people, it really is a case of ‘trebles all round’, in the words of Private Eye. And hang the ordinary patients.