NHS BEING PRIVATIZED?

The world’s biggest private health companies are being invited to bid for the chance to spend substantial chunks of the 80 billion pound NHS budget. A six-page “contract notice” placed by the Department of Health in the supplement to the Official Journal of European Union, and seen by The Times, encourages the private sector to apply for a wide range of roles in the control and running of primary care trusts (PCTs). The trusts are responsible for about 80 per cent of the annual 80 billion NHS budget. They not only fund GP surgeries but also commission hospital operations and have a large say over which drugs patients in their area can receive. Critics said that the move was like “putting the NHS up for sale”, while some also said it signalled the end of PCTs’ role as providers of clinical services.

Last night, after being contacted by The Times, the department suddenly withdrew the advertisement. It said that drafting errors in the document had given the “false impression” that clinical services provided by PCTs would be phased out in favour of the private sector. However, it insisted that plans to broaden use of “expert help” from the private sector for ailing PCTs remained accurate.

Health economists said that while the Government had tentatively suggested expanding the use of private firms as purchasers of care for NHS patients — one of the key roles of a primary care trust — the document went much farther. It invited tenders for a multitude of services, including “general management”, “financial management”, healthcare administration and human resources. Additional information, provided on request to potential applicants, revealed that candidates should have experience of managing 300 million-plus health budgets. The stipulation meant that only the largest insurers and providers, such as the American firms United Healthcare and Kaiser Permanente, were likely to be suit- able. The advertisement asked for tenders, or “requests to participate”, by July 17, with selected candidates due to have been notified by the beginning of August.

Policy experts and health campaigners questioned last night how an initiative with such major repercussions for the future of British healthcare could be introduced without public debate. Mark Hellowell, research Fellow at the Centre for International Public Health Policy, said that the document implied that the Government felt a lot of services run by PCTs were inadequate and would be more efficiently provided by the private sector. He added that it was not possible to know exactly what the Government’s intentions were, because there had been no public announcement or debate and the initiative did not appear in any manifesto. “The scope appears to go beyond commissioning care. It is the full gamut of PCT activities,” he said. “When a government comes out with a policy, it normally wants to shout about it. But it seems with this that they want to do it on the quiet.”

Private providers already supply a small but growing proportion of NHS operations, diagnostics and mental health facilities. The Department of Health is understood to be particularly keen to get independent firms involved in the purchasing of care, which would reassure commercial health providers that they will not fall victim to any NHS bias. Alex Nunns, spokesman of the campaign group Keep Our NHS Public, said that the move flew in the face of government insistence that it was not privatising the NHS by stealth.

Source






Firemen sent to medical emergency

This is the ambulance system that has supposedly been "fixed" by the Queensland government. A defibrillator might have saved the woman

A woman died from a heart attack after volunteer firefighters were sent to her home because no paramedic was available. Christine Matthews, 55, of Mungallala, near Mitchell, suffered cardiac arrest early on Friday. A Triple-0 call to the QAS from a family member had to be redirected to the Fire and Rescue Service.

Sources said the ambulance officer was on leave at the time and there was no replacement on duty. The call was put through to the volunteer firemen at Mungallala, about 600km west of Brisbane, who responded to the emergency, arriving at the woman's home at Tyrconnel Street at 5.14am.

The firemen, who only had the standard 20 minutes' supply of oxygen on their truck, arrived to find Ms Matthews had no pulse and they carried out resuscitation for 30 minutes. A Queensland Fire and Rescue Service spokesman said the part-time firemen did "a damn good job" trying to revive Ms Matthews.

A senior volunteer fireman at Mitchell commandeered the unused ambulance and picked up a doctor and director of nursing from Mitchell Hospital, driving them the 44km to Mungallala. They arrived at 5.41am and Ms Matthews was treated by the doctor and nurse with a defibrillator, but was pronounced dead.

A QAS spokesman said the firemen were the "closest available emergency unit". "In rural and remote areas, all emergency response agencies and staff co-operate at critical times to provide the best possible service to their local community," he said.

Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg said it was another example of Queenslanders suffering, despite paying ambulance taxes. "This tragic case highlights just how the Labor Government has abandoned regional and rural Queenslanders," he said. Mungallala has also been without a policeman for some time after the previous officer transferred and no replacement was sent.

The article above appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on June 25, 2006

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?

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