I hadn’t been able to check the background to the BBC’s hyperbolic reports on the NHS this morning…every news bulletin I heard announced that the NHS had practically been privatised….
A third of NHS contracts awarded to private firms – report
The only clue (other than a lot of past experience) that the BBC might be misleading us was hearing Nick Clegg on PMQs responding to Labour’s claim, as above from the BBC, that 1/3 of NHS contracts had gone to private companies.
Clegg told us that a mere 6% of NHS spending had gone to private companies…a figure not dissimilar to Labour’s 5%.
The BBC’s web report confirms this…
The government says the data is misleading.
It’s unclear how much the contracts were worth because the CCGS would not disclose this information citing commercial sensitivities.
A Department of Health spokesperson said: “Official NHS accounts show that use of the private sector amounts to only six pence in every pound the NHS spends, slowing the rate of increase to just one penny since May 2010.
Which makes you wonder how the ‘hyperbolic’ and highly political headline was chosen. The ‘privatisation’ of the NHS is one of Labour’s favourite narratives and one they aim to use to buttress their supposed position as ‘defenders of the NHS’….which makes the choice of headline by the BBC hugely suspect as it is so highly political.
I guess ‘6% of NHS spending has gone to private companies’ is just too lacking in drama and fails to paint a picture of Tory rampant capitalism destroying a national treasure….as so eloquently and ridiculously stated by Labour…
“These figures show what is at stake at the coming election. David Cameron’s Government is stealthily hiving off NHS services without the permission of the public.”
It might be true that 1/3rd of NHS contracts have gone to private companies, but it could be that the total spend of that 1/3rd might only be £200, that being for bottled water and packets of biscuits for all those meetings. The balance, £1.3 billion still remains outside the private companies. I was waxing lyrical as to the values, but the BBC (as usual) only telling 33% of the reality, 100% of the time.
almost all NHS spending not spent on salaries ultimately ends up with private companies – who do people think makes the beds, swabs, drugs, ambulances, stationery, sheets, data cables, bricks, computers etc etc etc.
95% of the NHS budget (£) does not go to private companies. Shocking.
Another little item that the BBC will not mention. All, or nearly all, GP practices are private companies, subcontracted to the NHS. The consultants are mostly self employed, contracted to do work for the NHS for a few days a week. The NHS is built on private practice. So what’s the problem.
Which was set up by a Labour government wasn’t it?
I recall an historian presenting a programme about the Atlee government recently and the founding of the NHS. He told the audience that the health service wasn’t nationalised in 1945…but the patients were!
BTW: With regard to this;
“These figures show what is at stake at the coming election. David Cameron’s Government is stealthily hiving off NHS services without the permission of the public.”
All I can say is, go ahead Mr Cameron. You have my permission.
I second that.
Then there’s the added question of how much tax money goes to buy nothing other than servicing PFI payments thanks to Labour.
Labour PFI – the largest and costliest PRIVATISATION EVER:
http://www.nhsforsale.info/privatisation-list/surgery/the-great-pfi-swindle.html
Total Giraffe Neck size hypocrisy from LABOUR yet again!
http://www.newstatesman.com/staggers/2014/07/save-nhs-labour-must-face-ugly-truth-pfi
Typical Labour Party/ Trade union propaganda in this BBC-NUJ headline-
“NHS in ‘dire straits’ without migrants says top economist”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30417950
-Really, BBC-NUJ?
Are you talking about:-
a.) NHS immigrant PATIENTS, or
b.) NHS immigrant STAFF here?
“CHRIS SKIDMORE MP: How soaring immigration has piled on the pressure”
(June, 2013.)
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2334860/CHRIS-SKIDMORE-MP-How-soaring-immigration-piled-pressure.html#ixzz3LaZixsoX
Seems Ed has made another speech, promise, pledge, whatever… and it has gone down as usual like a lead balloon on content and delivery.
But the BBC so far seems very respectful of Dear Aspiring Leader’s latest brain fart, sticking to Ed or Labour says for safety.
Plus the usual ‘analysis’ explaining what he really meant if he wasn’t the most useless proxy the BBC has had to hitch to.
Top corner goal by Tim Aker
Noooo, it was nothing to do with liebour, it was all the evil bankers’ fault, they caused everything, even the down fall of the NHS…oh, and Margaret Thatcher…still. Lying liberal scum.
Any party that gives our gold reserves away for virtually nothing and then leaves a note stating ‘Good luck, there’s no money left’ should be destroyed.
Aren’t the majority of GP’s surgeries private businesses or partnerships? If you count them, then a large part of the NHS is privately run.
I see the BBC headline is their leader’s speech Ed Millipede, noticed on ITV news it was way down the News list. He really does remind me of a donkey.
to be honest the NHS does badly need a top-down restructuring but no party or MP will touch it with a bargepole, the waste alone must stretch into billions. – bit like the bBC really.
The NHS is one of the biggest employers in the UK, but they are short of doctors and nurses.
So what do the rest of the employees do?
Vote UKIP and get rid of the ‘pen pushers’.
It’s the 5th largest employer in the world! And that’s according to a BBC news article.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17429786
socalists just balls up everything they do whether it be running councils like that down there in birmingham or dread it being in goverment,i have no time for the torys and there new brand of politacal correctness at all,but one thing i do know about the torys is that when it comes to sorting out the economy they always seem to do a good job, i dread the labour party winning the election next year,the best we can hope for is them damm pesky liberals wont get another chance to go into coalition with the torys again and that we have a real center right goverment and a coalition of tory and ukip mps with ukip holding the balance of power,that i think would wipe the smile and grin of ed millband and the bbcs faces.
A liebour win could also depend hugely on how the Scots vote, if, as expected, the SNP make more inroads to trying to get another referendum then liebour could be stuffed. Even the north of England’s undecided voters must have seen through the disaster that is liebour by now.
The first thing any future Tory or UKIP government should do is scrap the bbc.
Even the north of England’s undecided voters must have seen through the disaster that is liebour by now.
You’d think that. But No.
I was up in Sheffield over last week and the place is in a mess, even compared to the days when it was part of the Republic of South Yorkshire. Everywhere, even the nice areas of town, is dirty and run down. The roads and pavements are shocking and the latest ‘traffic calming’ measures a disaster.
I learned to drive in London and I was pleasantly surprised in the ’80’s to discover a big city where people were actually polite and well behaved on the roads. But not now. The amount of traffic lights, speed bumps, baffling one way systems, counter-intuitive lane markings, restrictions and bonkers signage is legion. So much so that people now resort to London driving tactics as to do anything else means getting stuck for hours on end in the interminable traffic jams the planning has produced.
In Ecclesall, the ‘nice’ end of town there used to be wide tree lined boulevards that were a pleasure to saunter along. Not now. After the 1987 defeat the Labour council cut all the roadside trees down and dug up a lot of the grass verges as ‘5 more years of Tory mis-rule’ meant they couldn’t afford to maintain them! Not that they ever did before of course. To add insult to injury they have now put a morass of pointless signage along Ecclesall Road South and so many unnecessary traffic lights and crossings that the road was a log jam of angry commuters on the 4-5 times I went down it.
Yet the council’s budget is £1.5 Billion and they can’t even get the pot holes filled. Apart from a brief period when it was FibDems Sheffield has been run by Labour goons for decades. Even the prostituting out of working class girls to taxi firms doesn’t seem to shake the implacable support for the incompetent muppets.
So, no, don’t expect the North to turn Blue any time soon.
Andrew Neil will soon be out of a Job, basically on the mid morning politics show made Andy Burnham look like a complete liar and incompetent.