How privatisation is stripping your assets

So in the last few weeks Carillion has collapsed, Chris Grayling has bailed out Stagecoach/Virgin to the tune of £2bn and Branson's Virgin have sued the NHS.  It is difficult to understand how all of this affects you, so I would ask you to cast your minds back to 2012 for a great example.

Croydon's conservative council, whose manifesto pledged to protect libraries as a key aid to social mobility, decided to close some libraries and outsource others.

The manifesto had served them well during the election, but was obviously as expendable as the social mobility of those that didn't vote for them.

To cover their obligations, the council minutes included 3 lines that said "we do not have the skills or a library model to compete with the private sector" despite this clearly being a lie (An independent study of South London Libraries had shown that Upper Norwood library, that Croydon jointly funded, was being run at less than half the price of other libraries).

Basing all of Croydon Libraries upon the Upper Norwood's model would have saved the council millions, but Croydon Tories decided not to let the facts get in the way of ideology.

Croydon pressed ahead with a joint outsourcing process with Wandsworth but reneged on the joint aspect when the deal was given to Greenwich Leisure (a non-profit set up to take over Greenwich's outsourced libraries). Instead, Croydon handed the deal to John Laing building services! (This was all about the construction company's skills in running libraries and nothing to do with the fact that they were about to rebuild the centre of Croydon!)

John Laing then themselves pulled out of the deal as the projected profits weren't sufficient and presumably they realised that they are a building company and know bugger all about running libraries.

Anyway, the contract was then handed to Carillion, libraries were closed and Upper Norwood Library, that was enshrined in a Victorian Trust and therefore could not be outsourced, was defunded, staff were made redundant and it's depleted resources means that it now opens on a part-time basis and now depends upon volunteers and ingenuity to stay afloat.

Now Carillion has redirected profits to shareholders and directors and has gone bust and the library is back in the hands of the Croydon's Labour local council.

Surely somebody should be accountable for this amazing ineptitude and there should be a far more robust tendering process. A process that has been bad for social mobility, bad for communities who have lost their hubs and hearts, bad for employees who lost their jobs, bad for taxpayers who are paying many times over the odds for this redirection of wealth, and bad for the country which is saddled with the all of the risk whilst the corporate backers syphon off the rewards.

The NHS's "unacceptable practices"- Oh Matron!

NHS Trolley Dollys involved in "unacceptable practices"

Well that’s a relief then!

The good news this week is that there is no humanitarian crisis at our beloved NHS and that such talk by the Red Cross is all “overblown”.

The PM thankfully also reassures us that “there have only been a small number of instances where unacceptable practices have taken place” which must be great news for the 52,769 people who waited more than 4 hours on a trolley last year.

Last time I went to hospital you had to wait on a horrible hard seat so a nice comfy trolley is a marvellous luxurious step in the right direction

Lifestyle related illness and the NHS

There are ever louder calls for the NHS’s coat to be cut according to its cloth and to restrict care for those who have self- inflicted ailments.

First it will be irresponsible drunks in A&E, the obese who carelessly ate fatty fast food on the hoof so that they could work the 60 hours a week needed to keep the wolf from the door,

If you have ever smoked, secondary smoked, known or kissed someone who smoked, then you are in trouble.

But why stop there, if you own or have ever owned or even breathed in emissions from a diesel car, have inadvertently chafed yourself on a pig's head, or have smelt and have heavily inhaled a methane filled fart (yours or anyone else’s) then you can forget about that life saving operation.

On the other hand, the powers that be will soon argue that if you have lived on a diet of organic quails eggs and caviar you should be given priority treatment.

The NHS Health Tourist Agency

Health Tourism is often blamed for NHS problems and you can see why: Johnny Foreigner has a bit of tummy trouble and decides to travel to wonderful Blighty for a 10 hour Trolley wait in the hope that he will get an admission.

This will include being tucked up snugly in a hospital bed with Hattie Jacques as Matron, regrettably the corridors are full and he is left in a storage cupboard for 2 weeks, has a heart attack and only survives by consuming his own personal supply of raw garlic, sausages and urine.

Unfortunately, close analysis of statistics show that Health Tourism only totals about 0.3% of the annual NHS budget. (3)

Anti Social Care

For many years Care Homes Providers went round neighbourhoods with large nets, knowing that every dribbly or slightly nutty old person they could round up would send profits through the roof.

But with £4.6bn cuts in Social Care from 2010-2015 this has increased bed blocking by 42% year on year (2). November 2016 saw the NHS lose 193,680 days in just one month due to blocked beds at an average cost of £400 per day, that’s £77m in one month (3)

The old and infirm need to seriously up their game and make themselves a far more attractive proposition. Unless the dribbly start wearing bibs, the incontinent use corks and those with mental health issues start self-prescribing mogadon, then we are in for a rough ride, as most local authorities providing elderly care have seen social care or providers close, cease trading or hand back unprofitable contracts to a provider. (4)

In my humble opinion I would suggest that if the government has a problem with an internal blockage they should go and see a doctor.

Sleazy private healthcare

On the plus side all of these delays and blocked beds have help increase the revenue stream for Private Healthcare companies.

I for one am reassured that whilst I endure pain and embarrassment as another doctor lubricates my ample rear end for a colonoscopy, that I can bring a smile to the face of a shareholder of an offshore hedge fund whilst they have to sit on their yacht in the Caribbean.

It’s only right that such philanthropy in our health should be justly rewarded with a pound of flesh, even if it may have gone off a bit whilst sitting on a trolley for 10 hours.

I am also pleased to see that wonderful people with the best interests of the Nation’s health should freely give away their money to oil the wheels of democracy (5).

The Tories have received over 744 brown envelopes containing over £20m from Healthcare companies since 2001 and privatised NHS work has doubled since 2010 from 4% to 8% or £8.7bn pa (6).

Over a Billion pounds of these private NHS contracts have gone to companies with links to Tories (7). Quite right too, those MPs having worked their arses off in parliament to ensure that these companies were awarded these lucrative contracts.

Save money on Bunk-Ups

So now you are thinking, well… what is your solution to this problem, at which point I need to remind you of a Nursery Rhyme.

It goes “there were ten in a bed and the little one said roll-over, so they all rolled over and one fell out….”.

And this is precisely our problem, with the NHS. Beds are down 56% since 1987, mental health beds are down 70%, whilst hospital admissions have doubled.

So, if you are not prepared to increase funding for more beds, and you have already optimised your efficiency, then you must do more with what you have.

The nursery rhyme takes me back to family holidays during my childhood, when 2 to a bed, top to tail, would be common practice.

So let’s see more patients in each bed and get Doctors cracking on some decent cloning, if they start replicating themselves and give their other-selves nice "affordable" Junior Doctor Contracts then the NHS and the nation will truly start laughing again.

1) http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-much-health-tourism-actually-9307953
2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35481849
3) https://data.gov.uk/data-request/nhs-hospital-stay
4) https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/26/nhs-elderly-care-close-to-collapse    
5) http://www.nhsforsale.info/database/impact-database/conflict-of-interest/GOVERNMENT-POLITICIANS.html
6) https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/15/creeping-privatisation-nhs-official-data-owen-smith-outsourcing
7)  https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/03/healthcare-companies-links-tories-nhs-contracts

David Cameron's real letter responding to Iain Duncan Smith's resignation

Iain Duncan Smith resignation response letter from David Cameron (Satirical)

Dear Iain, Thank you for your letter this evening. 

We are all very proud of the welfare cuts which this government has delivered over the last six years, and the reduction in support from those most vulnerable, in which you have played an important part.

As a government, we have done a huge amount to force the great unwashed people into work, reduce disability and promote social injustice. There are now more people in underpaid work than ever before in our country's history, with 2.4 million more zero hours, no paid or low paid jobs created since 2010.

I regret that you have chosen to step down from our regime at this moment. Together we designed the Personal Independence Payment to remove the crutch from the most vulnerable and to give disabled people a lot less money. They could barely afford to heat their houses or eat properly before this cut and this change will stimulate them getting out of the house and taking part in Great British life.

We all agreed that the resources being spent on disabled people should be properly managed and focused on those who need it most. So we also cut housing benefit for sheltered housing; which will move on many mentally and physically handicapped from housing that could be used for "hard working" people who stimulate the economy. It will also help push up house prices so we are all better off.

That is why we collectively agreed - you, No 10 and the Treasury - proposals which you and your department then announced a week ago. I find it a little ironic that the Gengiz Khan of my cabinet is now coming over all compassionate. 

Today we agreed not to proceed with the policies in their current form and instead to work together to spin these policies and make them more palatable for the gullible UK public.

In the light of this, I am puzzled and disappointed that you have chosen to resign. Would you mind ATOS checking whether you are right in the head.

You leave the government with my thanks and best wishes. 

While we are on different sides in the vital debate about the future of Britain's relations with Europe, the government will, of course, continue with its policy of welfare cuts, matched by our commitment to social injustice, to reducing the life chances of the most disadvantaged people in our country, and to ensuring that the corporates who most need help and protection continue to receive it.

Yours David