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From The Socialist newspaper, 19 April 2007
NHS London - delivering private health
NHS LONDON, the biggest of the strategic health authorities, is full of voices standing up for private profit in the health service. The chief executive is management consultant Ruth Carnall. She used to be non-executive director of Care UK, a private company presently involved in negotiations over taking over primary care services in London. These negotiations will be supervised by Ruth Carnall.
Blair's health adviser Paul Corrigan is NHS London's new director of strategy and commissioning. He is a fan of foundation hospitals and privately run independent treatment centres that carry out routine hip, knee and cataract operations for profit within the NHS.
That is yet another champion of private profit in the health service. So will be Anthony Sumara, NHS London's Turnaround director, the man who will tackle the debts of the capital's hospitals. He is still heading the heavily indebted Hillingdon Primary Care Trust in west London where he infuriated people with plans to privatise almost all its services and operations.
Private Eye magazine points out that the £12.5 billion budget under NHS London's business-friendly control smells sweet to the private medical industry. NHS London has set up the London Development Provider Agency to encourage sell-offs and transfers.
Its first boss is Malcolm Stamp. He was in charge at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital Trust when it took on its £220 million PFI deal which even MPs thought was the unacceptable face of capitalism.
His part-time chair is Lord Warner, former Labour minister for NHS delivery. NHS London and the nine other quangoes have only one delivery in mind - the transfer of the NHS and its potential profits into private hands.
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The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.
The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.
The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
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In The Socialist 19 April 2007:
Kick big business out of the NHS
Nurses' fury at cuts and attacks on jobs
NHS London - delivering private health
Socialist Students
Build for national action against fees
Socialist Party election campaign
Leicester: A principled stand against opportunists
Young socialist standing for Save Huddersfield NHS
Save our NHS campaign fields five candidates in South Lakes
Making a difference in Lincoln
Vote Socialist Alternative on 3 May
Socialist Party editorial
RMT victory: Union militancy pays
Campaign for a New Workers Party
Wanted - a new mass party for workers
Campaign for a New Workers' Party Conference
Socialist Party workplace news
Tube workers win big victory over Metronet
Campaigning for a £26,000 minimum wage
Young trade unionists reject New Labour
Greenwich UNISON steps up fight against pay cuts
International socialist news and analysis
Venezuela: Will the trade unions give up their independence?
Bush's man at the World Bank in corruption scandal
Socialist Party news and analysis
Blockading Britain's warhead factory
Fighting for the right to walk in the countryside
Cuts reduce advice for the people who most need help
Bank that only serves the rich
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