With talk of EU-US trade private trade deals on healthcare and private investment in cancer care, many on the left fear that the privatisation of the NHS under a Tory-led government is imminent. Unite have gone so far as to refer to recent EU-US deals as the first step in the “Tory drive towards privatisation.” In the run-up to the 2015 general election, the Tories are being shrewd in their handling of the problems facing the NHS and continue to flag up faults in the system without taking major action to remedy them.
Yes, the Tories have been giving themselves a pat on the back on the basis of statistics that indicate a decrease in A&E; waiting times. However, the House of Commons library has revealed these claims to be “simplistic” and are contradicted by better data sources. Not only does this reveal that Tory claims are simplified but also that they are superficial and false. Such false claims are a ploy by the Conservatives to convince the public that they are trying to fix the NHS. And through individuals such as Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who can still shamelessly proclaim to be the “patients’ champion”, the Tories can bolster the illusion that they are doing everything they can for the NHS.
In the meantime, newspapers such as the Daily Mail and the Telegraph shift blame away from the government and turn attention to the supposed failings of the NHS itself. Criticism has focused on numerous aspects such as the 18-week waiting period for routine operations,incompetence on the part of NHS watchdog Monitor, the NHS’s expenditure on cosmetic surgery and the lack of cancer referral from GPs. Hunt’s slandering is far more dangerous though. His public rebuking of GP practices that do not refer enough patients for cancer care and “poor” NHS trusts has created a name-and-shame mentality. A crafty political tactic indeed. On the one hand, Hunt is able to continue the facade that the Conservatives are working in the NHS’s best interest. On the other, in smearing the NHS, the Tories are able to pass the buck for the NHS’s performance onto staff, CQC and Monitor. Funding cuts, which saw a decrease in 4000 senior nursing posts and an increase in pay for executive directors by 6 percent, remain unmentioned and are conveniently left in the dark.
Amid all the criticism, one fact has shone through. The NHS cannot continue to expand stably without greater funding. In some ways, it’s almost as if conservatives wish to portray a state-funded NHS as a lost cause. This may seem melodramatic but when the Telegraph remarks that the NHS “doesn’t have a prayer,” it is hard to imagine that conservative thinkers are remaining impartial on the subject. When Liberal Democrat Norman Lamb, the Minister of State for Care and Support, described the NHS as a“blackhole”, the Mail were quick to jump in.
The Mail raised the possibility of patients having to pay for some services or a raise in taxes thus generating further doubt over the stability of the service. Neither of the options are popular, especially the latter. This is evident from the unpopular Labour proposal to increase national insurance by a penny in a similar fashion to the one percent rise during Gordon Brown’s tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer. That being said, the idea of paying for services is hardly popular either but funds need to be found somewhere. This in turn opens the door for private deals being made in the NHS.
This is not entirely new. Under New Labour, private finance incentives were responsible for the building of 101 new hospitals. However, under new propositions from the Tory-led government, cancer care could fall under private contracts in a £700 million deal. The agreement would stipulate 10-years of private firms providing cancer care at four NHS clinical commissioning groups in Staffordshire. This deal would then see the outsourcing of £1.2 billion of taxpayer-funded resources to private firms such as Virgin, Care UK and Ramsey Health. Whilst this deal would only place four clinical commissioning groups under private control, it is thought that this may be the first conquest of NHS resources in a piece-by-piece approach to privatisation. This sort of speculation is fair and not unjustified. Unite again warns that the secretive EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) could also spell the irreversible privatisation of the NHS. Irreversible is the key word here. As well as increasing the power of multinational investors such as big businesses and hedge funds, investors from US healthcare multinationals and Wall Street can sue the UK government if European governments try to reverse investments made under TTIP.
Whilst such EU-US trade deals are under control of the European Commission, and although Ignacio Garcia Bercero (director of the USA and Canada division of the European Commission) has reassured Labour that EU member states will still be able to manage their health systems, there is some doubt over whether Cameron’s management of private investment would be in the UK’s best interest. It seems as if the NHS’s fate will be decided post-general election. Whilst Bercero assures NHS safeguarding, the prospect of foreign investment from the US and domestic investment from the likes of private firms may be too tempting for Cameron to pass up. With papers like the Mail criticising the money spent on cosmetic surgery and procedures to tackle obesity, Cameron has been given a rationale that state spending has not been frugal enough, the non-partisan watchdog Monitor is not up to the job and that only private hands with private investment can keep the NHS from collapsing in on itself.
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