Jeremy Hunt's continuing quest to privatise the NHS

PFI was introduced by the Major Government

 

Just a little more detail here for you. It will help you understand further just how much nhs mental health inpatient provision and the private sector go hand in hand.
This is an aid to ignorance.
Ok... we have a patient on one of our wards who requires a lengthy admission as a consequence of their illness (presentation). The patients needs cannot be met in an acute setting so a specialist facility must be found.
Firstly funding must be agreed. Ok... so funding gets agreed. By law we must then contact 3 different facilities. These then come and assess our patients suitability. A decision is then made by us which facility the patient will be sent to. This could be any where in the country and 9 times out of ten it will be a private hospital. Depending on presentation this patient could be in this private hospital for a year, 5 years and often more. They are still NHS patients: we as taxpayers pay for the patients admission.
I will give you on example of a patient i have again recently nursed after first nursing him 8 years ago.
Young lad on the autistic spectrum, prone to psychosis and risk to others when unwell. We nursed him for around 6 months and it was concluded he needed long-term specialist and tailored treatment. He was transferred to a locked unit at St Andrews private hospital in Northampton. He stayed there for 5 years. He was then 'stepped down' to Cambian Oaks private hospital in Barnsley where he spent a further year or so before discharge. On discharge he was then picked up again by the NHS who offered support through one of its community teams. So basically he spent the majority of time over 7 or so years in private mental hospitals, as a nhs patient.
This is what happens to the majority of nhs mental health patients requiring lengthy inpatient stays, along with many others who are in private acute beds all over the country because there are no nhs beds available in their area.

Utter tosh eh...............

 

That’s a common misconception about a PFI. The major govt introduced it though it’s fair to see Blair so no other option and ran with it.

It won’t be free it’d its privatised. The clues in the title.

 

If you actually looked at who introduced PFI it was John Major.

 

Invented by John Major widely introduced by New Labour .

 

Initial contracts were signed pre election.

 

I’ve never said there was ‘t corporate finance and privatisation during Labour years particularly New Labour Years and I’ve never tried to defend it, it is you who keeps harping on about that. It’s certainly wasn’t done on the scale it is now being done and with corporates such as Virgin and Care UK who are big friends of the Tories. Not NHS related I don’t think, yet) but G4S, another example of poor performing private company being further rewarded by this Govt.Hunt is not trying anything other than trying to achieve what many Tories yearn for, A private healthcare system run by Tory loving corporates. Please stop trying to make out he’s bringing in ground- breaking and innovative things to the NHS, he’s privatising it and if if that is such a good thing why are him and his cronies denying it? FFS Here we go again,PFI was introduced by Thatcher, Blair shamingly took the baton and run harder and faster with it. It was wrong. What’s happening now is right off the scale. By The way ‘wanging more brass at it’ The Tories are always spouting about how much money they’re ‘wantging at the NHS, so If that’s the case then we’re getting more of a depleted crisis hit service so Virgin and the like can make more profit. Sanity indeed.

 

Virgin getting hundreds of thousands because they didn’t get a contract. Obscene.

 

Absolutely respect your opinion, and the work you do mate. Nothing but admiration for those who work in healthcare.

Just one point though, who is it who pays for the NHS patients in those private hospitals? The private sector only provides them because they know they will be paid for them and can make a profit from them.

I don't know if it is the same but in the area I have experience, older people's care, local authorities are being forced through central government cuts to close care homes and transfer provision to the private sector. This is ostensibly because the private providers are slightly cheaper. But the key point is they are cheaper because they pay lower wages with less job security and poor pension provision. This allows them to make significant profits from guaranteed public sector funding.

Just to add local authorities and central government can borrow money significantly cheaper than the private sector. It is an ideological choice to let the private sector undertake the borrowing but then take the profit. PFI was a prime example of failing to borrow to invest in the short term and then leaving us exposed to private sector profit in the long term. I would rather the money that goes in to those profits be spent on ensuring fair terms and conditions for staff and providing universal services for all.

 

I'm not an expert on the NHS so can anyone explain how it is possible for a private company to make a profit running NHS services but the NHS itself can't run it at break even?

 

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Dear oh dear, if that’s the best you can come up, go back to watching Jeremy Kyle.

 

Because private companies only take on the profitable elements.

They pay staff less on reduced terms.

They do the upfront short term borrowing where governments decide not to but then reap significant increased long term returns from the taxpayer.

They often do not carry the liabilities associated with the buildings in which they operate.

Past governments have signed horrific contracts

 

Greed, immorality and the ability to convince (no pull the wool over the eyes) of others.

 

“That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital"

Noam Chomsky

 

Been rereading a lot of Chomsky recently. Everyone should.

 

I'm aware of that , it's not that I asked links for ... but privatisation of a system that has been ideological cash starvedby theTorygovt is hardly the way. Most of these privatisedmental hospitals (which are nearly all low secure btw) are run like the prisons that have been privatised. . Understaffed and many of their staff are not trained at the level of their colleagues in the state run facility's. (By enlarge)
Main point There are 2 ways the NHS can go state run and at the care level of the Nordic countries or privatised into a system similar to the usa.
The Tories have run the wider NHS mental health services into the ground over the past 7 years ..as you'll know ..cut budgets at a dramatic rate. I hear this from family members who work in that profession btw.

 

Brilliant..lol

 

The money comes from whichever nhs trust the patient resides in: it comes out of that trust's budget. A Barnsley patient in a private hospital in Nottingham for example is paid for by the trust the Barnsley patient is registered in (which currently is SWYPFT). So we pay, the taxpayer.