Private healthcare companies – hands off our doctors!

Dealing with the waiting list backlog?  Private healthcare companies are being given huge contracts by this Labour government to deal with the waiting list backlog.  But is this a self-defeating strategy?

Private companies do not train doctors.  Where do they get them? From the NHS. Why can’t the NHS deal with the backlog?  Not enough doctors.

How much does it cost the taxpayer to train a hospital consultant – £500,000, and £250,000 for a GP. And that is in addition to the fees they pay for their medical school degree.                         

This is a free gift to the shareholders of the private health-care companies

It is government policy to use private healthcare. But we know that privatisation of public services does not work.  Look at railways, water, gas. Why should it work for the NHS?

Change the policy Prime Minister!

Example 1 Hips and knees – a two-tier system

Extensive academic study of what happened in the 2000s when the Blair government first started to involve the private sector in reducing waiting lists showed that large numbers of simple cases were outsourced but waiting times for people with more complicated conditions and co-morbitities actually lengthened. The result was a two-tier system and greater health inequality.

See this report: Outsourcing National Health Service Surgery to the Private Sector: Waiting Time Inequality and the Making of a Two-Tier System for Hip and Knee Replacement in England

Example 2 Eye surgery in Islington – syphoning-off profits

The organisation that runs health for Islington, North Central London Integrated Care Board, paid out £4,184,539 to five eye care companies in 2023/2024. And £905,848 was profit, going into the pockets of shareholders rather than into increased activity for the NHS. Instead of building the capacity of the NHS to do this surgery, we are paying the private sector to build their capacity and reap handsome profits at the public expense at the same time.

The Centre for Health and the Public Interest has found that 5 private eye companies have reported £169m profits from cataract operations from the NHS across England.

Find out more about what is happening in your area: Uncover the profits leaking out of NHS funded eye care in your area

Example 3 – short-term boost comes to an end

A year ago when this government came to power, they allocated a lot of money to reducing the waiting list.  That did work in the short term and waiting lists have been reduced to the level they were two years ago.

Now our hospitals and community health services are facing cuts. The Whittington alone has to find £27m of cuts and this is replicated in all other hospitals.  If we continue to let NHS money leak out into the pockets of private company shareholders there will never be enough to fund the NHS we need.

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