NHS could still be ‘for sale’ in Trump-Johnson trade deal despite denials – Yorkshire Post Letters

BOTH Sir Oliver Letwin and Sir John Redwood have been advocating the privatisation of the NHS since 1988 and, in 2004, the former claimed that the NHS would cease to exist within five years of a Tory Government.

Donald Trump claims the US wouldn’t want the NHS ‘if you handed it to us on a silver platter’

This was too abrupt for strategists who preferred Andrew Lansley’s approach: the Health and Social Care Bill (2012) which absolved the Gvernment of its responsibility and introduced marketisation.

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The Bill was designed to fragment and to quietly privatise without limit until the letters NHS became an empty logo. The formation of the ‘independent trust’, NHS England, followed along with Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). By 2014, some 40 per cent of service-provider deals went to private firms and the Bill was on its way to achieving two of Sir Oliver’s goals.

Two further goals are scrapping ‘free at the point of use’ and charging for every service; and introducing an insurance payment system or credit notes to be spent with private providers. Since Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s senior advisor, believes the Tories like neither the poor nor the NHS, a Trump-Johnson deal is the perfect opportunity to ‘Americanise’ UK healthcare.

In which case it is worth noting that the payment system needs two administrators to every physician and that diagnostics, treatment and drugs are far more expensive than currently is the case in Britain. That insulin costs six times more in America than in Europe is just one example, and Americans spend about two and a half times as much per person as we do on health care. In any US-UK deal, Trump will insist on being seen as a winner though he might agree a softly, softly footfall so as not to startle the natives.

From: Tim Hunter, Farfield Avenue, Knaresborough.

THE NHS is not for sale, Mr Corbyn. We must, however, ensure value for the taxpayer particularly with procurement and support services (catering, cleaning, buildings, maintenance etc). As long as the NHS remains free of charge at the point of use, there is no problem.

From: Mr PL Taylor, Milner Street, Lockwood, Huddersfield.

WE hear so many complaints about the NHS. I am a patient of Meltham Road Surgery, Lockwood, Huddersfield, The service I have received has always been excellent. As I am confined at my home, the doctors always visit me and usually call within a few hours at most. Well done NHS!