Super NHS, not supermarkets
HOW CAN the NHS generate more patient treatments and income when it
has to close beds and lay off staff to pay the PFI charge, or face
closure?
Claire Shannon
Well, according to Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt it can become
part of the vision of future foundation hospitals and become "like
Debenhams", where one shop is home to a range of branded boutiques,
or where you can visit your doctor at the local supermarket. This week,
to deflect from a growing crisis in hospital funding, Patricia Hewitt
announced several new NHS initiatives in a Government White Paper
including:
– Commercial operators setting up surgeries.
– Doctors to open surgeries within supermarkets.
– Voluntary groups to run surgeries.
– Longer GP opening hours.
Blair has admitted that where you live largely affects your
well-being, but claims that if commercial operators set up surgeries it
will mean "greater fairness and social justice". Yet, rises in
NHS spending are to stop in 2008, less than two years away. Patricia
Hewitt does not believe the government will "need to put money
in… but we need new providers.".
With these new White Paper initiatives, NHS resources are to go from
hospitals to fund GP Health Centres over the next ten years, many likely
to be run by private firms, despite the continued closure of smaller
‘unproductive’ hospitals and community hospitals. 45 million outpatient
appointments are to be farmed out to local health centres, comparable to
German ‘polyclinics’.
However, expensive additional administration will then be switched to
GPs who are unwilling, or unable, to manage their own budgets now.
A District Nurse working in Yorkshire told the socialist that these
changes will be implemented by top management and no decisions will be
taken on the ground by her colleagues, both doctors and nurses.
If Patricia Hewitt’s aim behind her current proposed reforms is to
clear hospitals of minor and unnecessary admissions, it is not a new
vision, rather one that has been repeated many times over the past 30
years. Whilst people may welcome more access to local clinics, the
difference now is the involvement of the private sector. Wherever the
private sector has become involved in running public services it has
been a disaster, from health to education to railways.
Now we are expected to believe that surgeries in shops run by the
private sector, combined with cutbacks and closures in hospitals is
going to lead to better healthcare.
This year 31 of the 46 NHS trusts in three counties in South East
England are in deficit, including Sussex and Surrey (£41m), Royal West
Sussex (£17m) and Swale Primary Care Trust (£7.8m). The BBC has said
the response to problems in the region’s NHS will be to sack 300 staff.
Perhaps these people will be re-employed in their local supermarkets
where they can stack the shelves of the increased amounts of products
from the pharmaceutical companies whose presence is also to be
encouraged to expand by these initiatives.
Campaigner attacks ‘free market’ in NHS
ON 21 January, over 2,000 people marched in Kendal against any
attempt to reduce NHS services at Westmorland General Hospital.
As NHS worker, and organiser of the march and the local NHS SOS
campaign, Socialist Party member ANDREW BILLSON-PAGE, wrote in a letter
to the local Westmorland Gazette, it showed "how important our
hospital is to its community and in particular, the esteem in which
local mental health services are held."
In the week when health secretary Patricia Hewitt said that NHS
Trusts were expected to make a profit, Andrew Billson-Page attacked the
way these ‘free market’ ideas were ruining the health service.
"From the outset we determined our priorities would be to
engage with the public, to inform the public and to empower the public
to reclaim their NHS. The NHS is, after all, the property of the
people – not of the government, managers or accountants."The Hospital Trust I previously worked for in Greenock is
facing possible deficits of £100 million, while hospitals in other
urban areas are also in heavy deficit. This is a problem on a national
scale."The root causes of the problem are: the market economy within
the NHS, increasing fragmentation, the financially absurd idea that
public services can be run as private enterprises, the power of the
pharmaceutical industry (which takes 47% of the national NHS budget)
and steady privatisation combined with the target-driven culture of
New Labour."They have undermined both the long-term future and the ethos
of the NHS. At the heart of the matter is an issue of public funding
not operating in the public interest. This is too important an issue
to be left to politicians."The solutions lie in channelling community opposition
constructively and challenging the economic philosophy that puts
finances before patients. Unlike New Labour, the NHS SOS campaign will
always put people first and over the next few months will be putting
together a new, radical and viable alternative to the cuts threatened
by our health bosses."
The Socialist Party has been calling for all the anti-health service
cuts campaigns like NHS-SOS to be linked together to fight to defend the
NHS.
