NHS, plc: The Privatisation of Our Health Care [Hardcover]

Allyson M. Pollock (Author), Shamini Gnani (Contributor), Colin Leys (Contributor), David Price (Contributor), David Rowland (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 2004

An analysis of the transition from universal, publicly funded health care to New Labour's application of market principles: a national institution reaching crisis point and a key lesson for those concerned with health care everywhere.

Universal, comprehensive health care, equally available to all and disconnected from income and the ability to pay, was the goal of the founders of the National Health Service. This book, by one of the NHSs most eloquent and passionate defenders, tells the story of how that ideal has been progressively eroded, and how the clock is being turned back to pre-NHS days, when health care was a commodity, fully available only to those with money. How this has come about to the point where even the shrinking core of free NHS hospital services is being handed over to private providers at the taxpayers' expenseis still not widely understood, hidden behind slogans like "care in the community," "diversity" and "local ownership."

Allyson Pollock demystifies these terms, and in doing so presents a clear and powerful analysis of the transition from a comprehensive and universal service to New Labour's "mixed economy of health care," in which hospitals with foundation status, loosely supervised by an independent regulator, will be run on largely market principles. The NHS remains popular, Pollock argues, precisely because it created the "freedom from fear" that its founders promised, and because its integrated, non-commercial character meant low costs and good medical practice. Restoring these values in today's health service has become an urgent necessity, and this book will be a key resource for everyone wishing to to bring this about.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“It should be required reading for everyone who works in the biggest industry in the country and everyone that uses it. You will learn things about the NHS that you never knew and ought to.” (Claire Rayner )

“Pollock offers a critical contribution to the key issues in contemporary political and policy debate: the role of choice, competition and private provision in health system reform.” (James Johnson, British Medical Association )

“Allyson Pollock;s criticism of those who have promoted health care as a commodity, to be sold for private profit, is based partly on the moral importance of social solidarity and shared risk in providing for health care. But it is also based on economic analyses that lay bare the gross inefficiencies of markets in health and social care. If 'what matters is what works', this book makes clear that health care markets can not serve the British people well.” (Sir Iain Chalmers, Editor, James Lind Library )

“This is a shocking story, brilliantly told, by one of the leading thinkers in the field of public health policy. Here you will learn how the NHS, for decades vandalised by the Tories, is now being destroyed by Labour policies and politicians who, with their cronies from the private sector, are turning this magnificent institution into on the greatest pork barrels of all time.” (Raymond Tallis, author of Hippocratic Oaths, Medicine and its Discontents )

About the Author

Allyson Pollock is Professor of Health Policy and Health Services Research at University College London. A public health doctor, she researches and publishes widely on health policy issues and is a frequent contributor to radio and television discussions.

Colin Leys is Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at Queen’s University, Canada. His previous books include Politics in Britain, The Rise and Fall of Development Theory and, with Leo Panitch, The End of Parliamentary Socialism.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Verso (September 17, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1844670112
• ISBN-13: 978-1844670116
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,021,667 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant study of Labour destruction of the NHS, September 27, 2004

By 

William Podmore (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: NHS, plc: The Privatisation of Our Health Care (Hardcover)

The National Health Service used to plan and fund to meet patient needs, providing free and fair access for all. But in this superb book, Allyson Pollock shows how Labour is destroying this great working class achievement.

Labour pushes the IMF, World Bank, European Union agenda of opening up all public services - water, energy, sewerage, telecoms, post and health - to private firms. So health care is becoming a commodity as in the USA, where billing and marketing make up 30% of health care costs. In the USA, fraud by health care companies totalled $418 billion in 1990-95. For example, Columbia/HCA (allegedly helped by the British consultancy firm KPMG) defrauded the government of $1.7 billion.

In 2004, Labour lifted the ceiling on health administration costs, which had already doubled, cutting clinical care budgets so that there are fewer beds in PFI hospitals. Labour excludes doctors, nurses and health professionals from hospital management, while welcoming failed businessmen.

Surgery performed in private hospitals costs 40% more than in NHS hospitals, because of higher costs and the overriding need to return a profit to the shareholders. Private borrowing is dearer too and the risks are not transferred to the private sector. Labour has arranged public spending data and NHS accounts to hide the huge amounts of public money going straight through the NHS to private companies.

In 2002, Labour privatised practice premises through the introduction of Local Improvement Finance Trusts, which shifted control of primary care services from GPs to corporations. And Labour has forced local authorities to divest themselves of all their social service assets, including long-term care for the elderly, ending equal access to equal quality of care for older people.

Labour uses dirty PR tricks to defeat public opposition - smearing public services, lying about the huge inefficiencies of market-based health and social care, overriding evidence, bullying and sacking critics. Like the Liberals and the Tories, Labour aims to destroy the NHS. There is an alternative, which we all know.