I’m proud to have presented the cross-party NHS Reinstatement Bill in Parliament. The creeping marketization of our NHS began in 1990 when trusts were created as atomised accounting centres, every trust to operate as if it were a separate business. This was then developed by Alan Milburn (the Labour Health Secretary) in 2003, who took the model even further with foundation trusts and Independent Sector Treatment Centres. The 2012 Health and Social Care Act went still further by handing the private sector unprecedented access to NHS markets.
In an excellent article for this website Paul Evans revealed, just before the election, that over the last year private firms have won £3.5bn worth of new clinical contracts – an increase of 500% on the previous year. Each year, more and more NHS contracts are forced out to tender and the private sector hoover up the profitable stuff. Why wouldn't they. Cherry picking might make good business sense for private firms but it is very bad news for our NHS. Private firms grab the predictable and lucrative work, thus depriving the NHS of vital income and training opportunities. Orthopaedics departments in the NHS are a good case in point. They have traditionally had surgeons who carry out both emergency operations, on a broken leg, for example, and at other times they do elective work, such as hip or knee replacements.
But recent research by Professor Tim Briggs, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon shows that NHS trusts in England are typically losing between 10-40 per cent of their elective workload to other providers – while keeping the more expensive emergency work. Not only that, the corporate lawyers have been through the contracts to make it clear that when there are complications in an elective procedure, the NHS sorts it out. “The private providers don’t readmit their emergencies, and that is putting all the risk on the trust,” says Briggs.
