Remember Boris’ infamous Brexit bus, which promised that leaving the EU would mean an extra £350m a week for the NHS? Well, he’s at it again! Having promised to ‘upgrade 20 hospitals and build 40 new ones’, an independent fact-checking charity has found the refurbishment of only six hospitals with no further work planned … unless he’s thinking that a move into private health care will result in this work being undertaken by the private sector!
We’ve already had Len McCluskey, UNITE’s general secretary, blowing the whistle on 71 MP’s with links to private healthcare interests having voted to sell-off our beloved NHS. Then Donald Trump inadvertently letting slip that he’s been in talks with Boris regarding an NHS sell off! This comes in the form of a US trade deal called TTIP which, despite Trump’s denials, is likely to include the NHS.
And don’t forget that our former Prime Minister David Cameron refused to use his veto and exempt the NHS from TTIP. This was seen at the time as exposing the Government’s real plan for the NHS – complete and irreversible privatisation.
Here’s a few facts unearthed by an independent investigation by UNITE that underlines this inevitable slide into privatisation of the NHS:
- Since the Health and Social Care Act passed in 2012 over 70 per cent of tendered contracts have been awarded to the private sector, amounting to over £13 billion worth of NHS services falling into private hands.
- Over £1.5 billion worth of contracts has been sold-off to just 15 private companies.
- While preparing the white paper that led to the act in 2009, then shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley received £21,000 to his personal office from John Nash, then chairman of the private healthcare company Care UK.
- In 2013, 96 percent of Care UK’s business, amounting to over £400 million, came from the NHS.
Click this link for more details.
Too late to do anything about this whole debacle. Probably?!
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Description for those people who are using screen reading software
A large sign reads ‘Conservative Party – Sale of the century’. Beneath this is a slippery slope down which large letters spelling out NHS are sliding. Lots of arms are waiting at the bottom of the slide throwing money and waving an american flag. At the top of the slide Boris Johnson is patting a colleague on the back and is saying: “You can stop pushing now – it’s gathering its own momentum!”. A piece of paper on the floor at their feet reads ‘TTIP Trade Deal’.
Crippen Cartoons 