Why privatisation won’t solve the NHS crisis
The new Health Secretary Wes Streeting claims that the answer lies with the private sector.  He also said that Labour would “hold the door open” for the private sector in the NHS, pledging that if elected they would use “spare capacity” in the sector to cut the NHS waiting lists. But the private sector preys upon the NHS for staff, so if the waiting list demand is directed onto the private sector, more staff will be poached from the public NHS. For more, see here.

The PFI  scandal
Under PFI, rather than borrowing to build, the government contracts with the private sector to finance, design, build and maintain public assets. These have ranged from hospitals, schools, roads, prisons. But are PFI contracts value for money? The National Audit Office (NAO) scrutinises public spending. Seventeen NHS trusts have already paid out at least the full cost of building new hospitals, but still face years of increasingly heavy payments under the PFI contracts.

Does the NHS want reform, or proper funding?
NHS  “reform” is often code for more privatisation, resulting in syphoning off NHS funds for private profit. How does our health spending compare? Average day-to-day health spending in the UK between 2010 and 2019 was £3,005 per person – 18% below the EU14 average of £3,655. Matching spending per head to France or Germany would have led to an additional £40bn and £73bn (21% to 39% increase respectively) of total health spending each year in the UK.

Covid Inquiry: appalling failures during pandemic
The inquiry has been told of a catalogue of failures in prearing for the pandemic during years of austerity under the Tories and the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition. “There is no doubt that the provision of PPE to healthcare workers during the pandemic was hopelessly inadequate”,

NHS: “The whole service may collapse”
The NHS’s finances are so dire that the whole health service may break unless it receives a massive cash injection. So said the National Audit Office, the watchdog to oversee government spending. The Health Foundation says the NHS will need £38bn more a year than planned by the end of the next parliament in order to cut the care backlog and end long treatment delays.