| red_rebel2 Posted on 3/11 15:21 | |
| FAO Welfare Statists and PFI haters | |
cut and paste alert.... for your information: The cost to the NHS of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) is £45 billion - enough to reverse all the present cuts and lay a secure basis for the future. The figure was revealed in an answer to a parliamentary question from the Tory shadow health secretary. It showed that the eventual repayments for 83 hospital building projects worth £8 billion would total £53 billion under PFI. Under PFI, a private company builds a hospital on the basis that it will then receive “unitary payments” from the NHS each year for a period of around 30 years. The unitary costs include the costs of providing maintenance over the lifetime of the contract. Alex Nunns, information officer for Keep Our NHS public, is compiling a dossier on the full range of privatisation that is already infecting the NHS. “The government is carrying out the ‘patchwork privatisation’ of the health service,” he says. “Unlike the Thatcher privatisations of the 1980s, the entire NHS is not being put up for auction. Instead, the health service is being parcelled up into bite-sized pieces, and handed over to private control bit by bit. “This precludes the possibility of rational planning of care to meet health needs, the organisational principle of the NHS since 1948. It also removes healthcare from democratic control, destroys accountability, fragments the service, and will lead to reduced care with higher costs.” Alex goes on to draw together the various forms of privatisation that so far make up this patchwork. These include: Payment by results (PbR) - the financial system underpinning the new market model of healthcare. In April 2006 it was rolled out to cover over 80 percent of hospital activity. One of the purposes of PbR is to allow the private sector into NHS facilities in nearly every form of care. Choose and Book - the facility for patients to choose the site of their secondary care from a limited “menu” of providers, including at least one non-NHS facility, acts as a golden stairway for the private sector to raise its business within the NHS. Independent Sector Treatment Centres. These are stand-alone private sector clinics specialising in a limited range of treatments, such as cataract operations or hip replacements. Outsourcing the commissioning function of Primary Care Trusts (PCTs). In late June the Department of Health placed an advert in the Official Journal of the European Union inviting companies to tender for all the management functions of PCTs. The advertisement was withdrawn after Keep Our NHS Public alerted the press. Two-weeks later it reappeared, this time using vague language but to the same end. lPrivatising GP services. The Alternative Provider of Medical Services contract is the vehicle being used to bring the private sector in to run GP services. Practice-based commissioning allows the commissioning power for purchasing treatments - including hospital operations - to be transferred from PCTs to consortia of GPs, an increasing number of which will be employed by multinational corporations. Outsourcing PCT provision. Commissioning a patient-led NHS, published in summer 2005, set out the vision of services delivered by a patchwork of the private sector and social enterprises, not PCTs. The Private Finance Initiative. Unbundling of primary care services - primary care services are being broken up into saleable commodities in a process known as unbundling. LIFT - the primary care version of PFI. LIFT projects cost to eight times more than traditional ways of building. In Newham in east London, two LIFT premises that cater to just 9 percent of the local population are taking up 28 percent of the PCT’s expenditure on accommodation. Subsidising private sector infrastructure. The department of health has issued advice that service commissioners should be “lowering the barriers for new providers” through “reducing the capital investment required from the provider” - supplying the buildings. Privatisation of NHS Logistics. This award-winning not for profit organisation has been outsourced to delivery firm DHL and its controversial US contractor, Novation. Privatisation of oxygen supplies and pathology services, increasing the use of private ambulance services and outsourcing medical secretaries abroad. Connecting for Health.The NHS’s ill-fated IT programme has given corporations a huge slice of public money and unprecedented involvement in shaping the way the NHS will deliver care in future. Latest estimates suggest the cost to the taxpayer could reach £20 billion. Trade unionists and NHS campaigners are to lobby parliament this week in defence of the health service | |
| Link: Keep Our NHS Public | |
| Kilburn Posted on 3/11 15:39 | |
| re: FAO Welfare Statists and PFI haters | |
The problem here is that both sides cherry pick figures and take them out of context to support their own arguments. PFI can't be proved to be either the money-saving panacea that the government claim, nor the financial black hole that its critics claim it to be. Certainly not at this stage when any figures are just based on economic projections of how inflation, the cost of borrowing etc will change over the life of the contracts. | |
| Lefty3668 Posted on 3/11 15:59 | |
| re: FAO Welfare Statists and PFI haters | |
I must say, even though I'm instinctively against this, it just doesn't make sense to me that Gordon Brown would be in favour of PFI if those figures were remotely right. For all his faults he's not a stupid chancellor and from what I can tell he's been the driving force behind most of the redistributive things Blairs government has done. | |
| Azedarac Posted on 3/11 16:13 | |
| re: FAO Welfare Statists and PFI haters | |
I can see why Gordon Brown wants to be rid of the NHS. Labour have attempted to put some investment into it, but it's a case of running to stand still. The population is living longer, and some expensive medical treatments expected would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. My problem is that the private sector makes a profit. I've nothing against companies making a profit, but in the provision of healthcare every pound paid out in dividends is a pound not being spent on the provision of services. There's only two ways the private sector can be cheaper than the public sector - if the public sector is inefficient, or the private sector is cutting corners on things like staff costs. The former can be tackled through proper management, the latter should not be tolerated. Looking at the cost of Gas these days I'm not too keen on the private sector controlling another vital public service. | |
| speckyget Posted on 3/11 16:30 | |
| re: FAO Welfare Statists and PFI haters | |
Where do you draw the line with 'provision of healthcare' though Azedarac? What about drug companies, or manufacturers of medical equipment, or suppliers of hospital beds? Because if people can't make a profit from these activities then they simply won't happen. --- Post edited by speckyget on 3/11 16:31 --- | |
| TheSmogMonster Posted on 3/11 16:40 | |
| re: FAO Welfare Statists and PFI haters | |
Working in construction, its worth telling you.. a PFI project costs £10 million plus, just to bid on, and you only win at best one in 3, and because of the pre-tender criteria only a few big companies can afford this process. The costs for not winning get covered by the 'winning' projects, so every single PFI project has a minimum of £30 million of wasted public money attached to it as contractors recuperate costs from failed bids, they didn't get to be such bid firms by ignoring costs. PFI is the one big mistake Brown has made, we'll be paying for it for generations. Incidently I think the Bricks and Mortar, plus the 'service' itself is the line, the other things, drugs/beds etc, needs commercial competition to give them a push and keep prices down. Adopting this process for the 'service' has had the reverse effect, £45 billion... it wouldn't suprise me at all. | |
| Azedarac Posted on 3/11 16:46 | |
| re: FAO Welfare Statists and PFI haters | |
Speckyget I'd include anything directly and exclusively related to healthcare. So bed manufacturers would not be included - they supply to many sectors. In principal drugs companies would. There are massive profits in the development and manufacture of drugs - it's a travesty that provision of something so vital and basic can generate such profits. Money that could go to healthcare is paid out to shareholders. Of course like a lot of good lefty ideas it is now unworkable, the international pharaceutical industry is too well established for the public sector to get a foot in. | |
| speckyget Posted on 3/11 16:50 | |
| re: FAO Welfare Statists and PFI haters | |
Hospital beds tend to be made by specialist manufacturers. Drug company profits are in fact regulated in this country at least. My point is, although it's healthcare, I don't see why it should be in any way sacred. After all, would the medical profession attract all those big brains without the attraction of the - often - substantial salary? I doubt it frankly, there just isn't enough altruism in the world for that to be so. | |
