What does privatisation mean?
On 6th January 2025 Starmer announced a deal with the private health sector to provide NHS patients in England with up to a million extra appointments, scans and operations a year, in return for a fixed payment of £2.5billion per year.
It was a massive deal but the private sector was not happy about two things. First, the price per patient they treated was fixed and there was an overall price cap for 2025-26. Second, the government stipulated that that private companies must accept all patients referred to them. That is exactly what happens in the NHS.
Well, the private sector threatened to pull out and on Monday the government announced, surprise surprise, it was backing down. Now read on… https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/nhs-private-hospitals-waiting-list-n8t6lvj7c?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Not only will the private sector have to poach still more NHS-trained staff to fulfil the deal, they have also refused to do what the NHS has to and operate within a fixed budget.
https://jujuliagrace.substack.com/p/streeting-and-starmer-show-theyre?utm_campaign=email-post&r=1p5jq3&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
This may be behind a paywall for most of you, let me know if you want to read this very useful piece from Every Doctor: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2025/04/03/private-influence-is-ruining-the-nhs/
More failings of the private sector are provided in this choice selection in a recent article by Vox Populi, sent to me by a thoughtful reader.
https://www.left-horizons.com/2025/03/22/for-a-democratically-run-health-service/
Published two weeks ago, but a well-written article demonstrating that a health service in which services are provided for profit not people cannot be a democratically-run service: it’s a milch-cow for private banks, big tech and US health insurance corporates.
Dentistry
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/how-long-do-we-have-wait-action-britains-dentistry-crisis
The crisis in dentistry was highlighted in a Public Accounts Committee report this week on ‘the future of NHS dentistry’. Less than half the population was able to see an NHS dentist over the past 2 years, and 90% of practices are not accepting new adult NHS patients. People have to resort to pulling out their own teeth and are living in intense pain. Large parts of the country are so-called “dental deserts”.
https://dentistry.co.uk/2022/06/05/a-brief-history-of-private-dentistry/
https://www.healthcarebusinessinternational.com/who-are-the-uks-top-5-dentistry-groups/
Dentistry lead the way in privatisation and provides a template for what happens when healthcare becomes extensively privatised. Up to 1990 almost all dentistry was NHS provided. Now the largest corporate dental groups own 40% of NHS contracts.
Join the Campaigning Group “Toothless in England” – https://toothlessinengland.org/
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Delays to NHS pay
NHS staff are meant to receive their pay increase on 1 April every year, but once again reliance on the discredited Pay Review Body has resulted in delays. The government has refused to meet the unions to speed up the process.
Lower-paid workers, such as healthcare assistants, needing to renew their visas could be sent home because they’ll be earning less than the new minimum visa salary. And in order to avoid NHS workers earning (illegally) below the minimum wage the government will have to implement an emergency pay intervention topping up the the pay of cleaners, catering assistants and porters with 28p extra an hour. This raises their hourly rate to £12.36 -15p above the legal minimum.
Unison notes that this is well below the living wage paid by many major supermarkets. https://www.unison.org.uk/news/press-release/2025/04/delays-to-health-workers-pay-rise-causing-huge-problems-for-nhs/
Unite comments that: “The only staff getting a pay increase are those who otherwise would have fallen below the minimum wage. What a disgrace that that is where we have ended up – with NHS staff needing a pay rise to stay above the absolute legal minimum.” https://www.unitetheunion.org/news-events/news/2025/march/endless-delays-to-nhs-pay-leading-to-workers-leaving-the-sector
Say no to “Subcos”
No-back-door-privatisation.pdf
This is a complicated area but one of growing importance in the process of privatisation – the above is an introduction