Davis Jacky - NHS SOS

Ken Loach

The reform of the National Health Service is, of course, to bring it back into the marketplace and degrade it back into making health care a commodity so its not reform at all.

If we dont understand that weve got to do everything, up to and including breaking the law, to defend the National Health Service, then were finished.

First the words of a distinguished GP, then those of a former Liverpool dock worker. Across society, there is a realisation that the National Health Service is one of our greatest social achievements and that to keep it is an enormous political challenge.

This book is a weapon in that struggle. It shows how politicians of all parties, to a greater or lesser extent, have prepared the way for privatisation. It is a familiar pattern. The process in the health service began in the early 1980s, with the subcontracting of cleaning services. Why have we taken so long to respond? Are we so gullible that we believe politicians who say that the National Health Service is safe in their hands when all the evidence is to the contrary?

In order to fight back, we need to understand the reasons for the attack on the NHS. This is an ideological issue. If it were simply a matter of finance, there are solutions to hand. There are billions of pounds in unpaid and uncollected taxes. Trillions, we are told, are kept off shore, beyond the reach of national governments. The wealth that is created by the work of ordinary people is siphoned off so that it cannot be used for the common good. If the political will to sustain a publicly funded health service existed, a way would be found.

It is a battle for ideas. To some, the drive for profit is a necessary discipline. Private business will see a need, provide the service in the most cost-effective way and make money in the process. Greed is good. When everyone pursues their own self-interest, so the theory goes, we all benefit.

Except that we dont. When the need cant yield a profit, the need goes unanswered. The health service and care services are full of examples of where peoples requirements are not met. All who work there could fill many pages with stories. Further privatisation will widen the care gap and the so-called austerity programme diminishes every aspect of our life.

The resistance to this has been very weak. Those organisations that should be our first line of defence have let us down. The trades unions, crippled by Thatchers government and abandoned by the Labour Party, have barely made an intervention. The Labour Party itself has followed the same path as its Tory predecessor in government. While trying to present a more humane face, it has continued the policies of privatisation and deregulation. When Labour adopted the slogan Labour Means Business it was not immediately apparent that it was meant literally.

This has left a political vacuum. Who puts forward the idea of working together for the common good? That we should be our brothers and sisters keeper? That we have the technology and the knowledge to provide a decent life for all but we are in the grip of an economic ideology that makes that impossible?

There is a fight-back taking place across Europe. Strikes and direct actions are seen in the countries hit hardest by mass unemployment and other consequences of economic failure. In Greece, France and Germany there are new political movements on the Left, putting forward alternatives. It has not happened yet in Britain. When people ask who they can vote for to defend the NHS, what do we tell them?

This book explains how current politicians have betrayed the principles of the NHS. In my view they are not worthy of our vote. If ever there was a time for there to be a broadly based movement, democratic and principled, which stood for the interests of the people against the demands of business and the politicians who speak for them, that moment is now.

ACEVO Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations

APMS Alternative Provider Medical Services

ARM Annual Representative Meeting

BMA British Medical Association

BMJ British Medical Journal

CQC Care Quality Commission

CCG Clinical Commissioning Group

CCP Co-operation and Competition Panel

DoH Department of Health

EGM Extraordinary General Meeting

FESC Framework for Procuring External Support for Commissioners

FT Foundation Trust

GPC General Practitioners Committee (of the BMA)

GPCos GP Provider Companies

HMO Health Maintenance Organisation

ICO Integrated Care Organisation

IPA Independent Practitioner Association

ISTC Independent Sector Treatment Centre

KONP Keep Our NHS Public