LAST WEEK I experienced a sense of deep foreboding on hearing that five more hospital trusts, making a current total of 14, are being investigated for "high death rates".
By: Sonia Poulton
Critics say that the NHS's original intention, that of being free at the point of need, is no longer possible
The unfolding nightmare of Mid-Staffordshire has heralded a roll call of hospitals tainted by uncaring ineptitude. For some this was inevitable.
Critics say that the NHS's original intention, that of being free at the point of need, is no longer possible. Consequently it was only a matter of time before patients suffered; and on a wide and horrendous scale.
Over the past decade we have witnessed an endless line of NHS scandals. There has been a lack of nursing care and a bureaucratic, cumbersome system dominated by management. Whistleblowers have been punished for speaking out and health tourism is rife.
We have debated "priority cases": should an alcoholic or a smoker be entitled to the same care as someone with, say, multiple sclerosis? We have scorned the fat salaries received by GPs in bitter contrast to those of nurses.
These many disparities have created an NHS desperate for reforms and a country calling for them. Enter the controversial Health and Social Care Act (2012), an act several decades in the making since it was conceived during Margaret Thatcher's tenure.
Critics claim the act represents "a flogging of the family silver" to private businesses and with 49 per cent of NHS beds intended for private use it is fair comment.
Others point to Parliament refusing to publish a risk register into how the new guidelines would impact the NHS as a public service. Yet there was more about this act that troubled me.
Last March hundreds of MPs and lords voted "Yes" to it but what the public did not know was the extensive web of links our Parliamentarians have to private healthcare companies, the same ones that would soon be tendering for contracts within the new "open for business" NHS.
According to figures compiled by Social Investigations, an independent research organisation, 64 MPs have financial links with companies involved in private healthcare. Of them 52 are Conservative, nine are Labour and three are Lib Dem. There are also 142 lords with interests.
These interests range from donations made by healthcare companies (including £750,000 to David Cameron since he became Prime Minister) to actual business shares, consultancies, directorships and overseas hospitality. Some MPs and lords have had their offices funded by healthcare companies, some have been paid thousands to attend speaking engagements on behalf of firms that are now bidding for NHS business.
Parliamentarians have been allowed to vote on reforms that they stand to benefit from, astonishingly an action that is permissible at national level but unlawful within local councils.
SURELY there is a con-flict of interest issue here? And we won't get to know who is doing business with whom as this is protected by "commercial confidentiality". Does that sound acceptable to you? It certainly doesn't to me.
Problems have already emerged as a consequence of the Health & Social Care Act, which comes fully into play this April. A&E departments are closing and a number of doctors have contacted me to say they are told that they must leave "50 per cent of call-outs at home".
Critics say that the NHS's original intention, that of being free at the point of need, is no longer possible. Consequently it was only a matter of time before patients suffered; and on a wide and horrendous scale.
Over the past decade we have witnessed an endless line of NHS scandals. There has been a lack of nursing care and a bureaucratic, cumbersome system dominated by management. Whistleblowers have been punished for speaking out and health tourism is rife.
We have debated "priority cases": should an alcoholic or a smoker be entitled to the same care as someone with, say, multiple sclerosis? We have scorned the fat salaries received by GPs in bitter contrast to those of nurses.
These many disparities have created an NHS desperate for reforms and a country calling for them. Enter the controversial Health and Social Care Act (2012), an act several decades in the making since it was conceived during Margaret Thatcher's tenure.
Critics claim the act represents "a flogging of the family silver" to private businesses and with 49 per cent of NHS beds intended for private use it is fair comment.
Others point to Parliament refusing to publish a risk register into how the new guidelines would impact the NHS as a public service. Yet there was more about this act that troubled me.
Last March hundreds of MPs and lords voted "Yes" to it but what the public did not know was the extensive web of links our Parliamentarians have to private healthcare companies, the same ones that would soon be tendering for contracts within the new "open for business" NHS.
According to figures compiled by Social Investigations, an independent research organisation, 64 MPs have financial links with companies involved in private healthcare. Of them 52 are Conservative, nine are Labour and three are Lib Dem. There are also 142 lords with interests.
These interests range from donations made by healthcare companies (including £750,000 to David Cameron since he became Prime Minister) to actual business shares, consultancies, directorships and overseas hospitality. Some MPs and lords have had their offices funded by healthcare companies, some have been paid thousands to attend speaking engagements on behalf of firms that are now bidding for NHS business.
Parliamentarians have been allowed to vote on reforms that they stand to benefit from, astonishingly an action that is permissible at national level but unlawful within local councils.
SURELY there is a con-flict of interest issue here? And we won't get to know who is doing business with whom as this is protected by "commercial confidentiality". Does that sound acceptable to you? It certainly doesn't to me.
Problems have already emerged as a consequence of the Health & Social Care Act, which comes fully into play this April. A&E departments are closing and a number of doctors have contacted me to say they are told that they must leave "50 per cent of call-outs at home".
'Some have had their offices funded by healthcare companies
Sick people will go untreated because the Health & Social Care Act has removed, for the first time, the responsibility of the Secretary of State to treat them.
Healthcare will increasingly be decided on a postcode lottery as well as the ability to pay, as previously seen in action by a government adviser, the American insurance giant Unum. For now our health service is in the hands of Tory Jeremy Hunt, a man who co-authored a 2005 book backing a "denationalised NHS", and the outlook is horribly Orwellian and bleak.
Of course it may be entirely innocent. Those 206 Parliamentarians may have voted because they genuinely believed this new version of the NHS would serve the country better. Somehow, sadly, I doubt it.
Our MPs must be beyond reproach. They must present at all times "clean hands". Our national representatives cannot be allowed to vote on any changes that may, directly or indirectly, profit them.
We voters must be reassured that when our MPs and lords vote on matters that affect the rest of us the interests of the country must take precedence, not theirs.
Healthcare will increasingly be decided on a postcode lottery as well as the ability to pay, as previously seen in action by a government adviser, the American insurance giant Unum. For now our health service is in the hands of Tory Jeremy Hunt, a man who co-authored a 2005 book backing a "denationalised NHS", and the outlook is horribly Orwellian and bleak.
Of course it may be entirely innocent. Those 206 Parliamentarians may have voted because they genuinely believed this new version of the NHS would serve the country better. Somehow, sadly, I doubt it.
Our MPs must be beyond reproach. They must present at all times "clean hands". Our national representatives cannot be allowed to vote on any changes that may, directly or indirectly, profit them.
We voters must be reassured that when our MPs and lords vote on matters that affect the rest of us the interests of the country must take precedence, not theirs.
