A vote for the LibDems looks like a vote sold to private healthcare companies
Exactly who do the LibDems represent? Private healthcare companies or the people?
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At the end of July Upper Calder Valley Plain Speaker asked the question, What next for privatised walk-in GP centres in Tod and Halifax?
On behalf of NHS Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), West and South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Commissioning Support Unit has now replied to my Freedom of Information request about the saga with Care UK over the contract to run the two privatised GP walk-in centres.
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Here is how a private company goes about dismantling and profiteering from a much-loved public service, in five easy stages.
Pay for positive spin in a pro-market think tank report
In 2010 Tunstall Healthcare was one of an assortment of private healthcare companies that funded a report on telehealthcare, ‘Healthcare Without Walls: A framework for delivering telehealth at scale’, written by the pro-privatisation think tank, 2020 Health.
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Calderdale NHS has stumbled further down the stealth privatisation road by awarding a 12 month, £364K contract for telehealth and telecare to Tunstall Healthcare, a company largely owned by vulture fund Charterhouse Capital Partners.
Private equity company Bridgepoint sold Tunstall to Charterhouse in 2008 for more than double the £225m it paid for it in 2005. Bridgepoint, which acquired Care UK in early 2010 for £423m, retains a minority share in Tunstall.
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The Any Qualified Provider (AQP) Supply2Health website carries an advertisement for a Provider Presentation – a training session for
“those who would like an overview of the AQP process and resources including how to qualify, together with a review of the Department of Health policy perspective”
The advertisement is placed by an organisation called North of England Commercial Procurement Collaborative, on behalf of the “lead commissioner”, NHS Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.
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The unresolved saga of Care UK’s Walk In Health Centres in Park Ward, Halifax and Todmorden seems like another example of the mess that happens when the government tries to privatise the NHS.
I have put in a Freedom of Information request to West Yorkshire Commissioning Support Services, to find out what’s going on.
The excellent False Economy website shows that in 2013, as part of its Efficiency Review of Services, Calderdale Council has cut the following Health and Social Care services. Mainly the cuts are scores of staff redundancies, as the Council is outsourcing the services to private providers.
So how does that work out? If private providers are cheaper than NHS/Council facilities, you can bet that means they’re paying staff lower wages. I will try and find out.
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This was the message from Calderdale 38 Degrees NHS on 4th July, when they presented a petition signed by nearly 1200 Calderdale residents, to Matt Walsh, Chief Officer of the Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).
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The joy of Twitter: Calderdale Council Leader Tim Swift tweeted from the Local Government Association Conference on 3rd July, where Andy Burnham MP was talking about the NHS and committing a future Labour government to repeal of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act.
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Allyson Pollock, professor of public health research and policy at Queen Mary, University of London, points out that by removing the NHS from direct democratic accountability, New Labour reforms are at the root of a lapse in NHS standards. These have seen the Care Quality Commission (CQC) cover up an investigation into baby deaths at Furness Hospital in Cumbria, and investigate failures at Mid Stafforshire Hospital.
In 2009 New Labour “stripped out public accountability for the NHS,” moving it to arms-length, market-based inspection and enforcement under the new Care Quality Commission and Monitor – the economic regulator for the newly-marketised NHS. Until New Labour’s meddling, the NHS was directly accountable to the public, since it was under the direct control of the government.
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