Free healthcare is a right we take for granted - but is the UK's NHS safe from private hands?
Varisha Tariq
The UK’s National Health Service - which provides universal healthcare for free - is something Britain can be proud of but it isn’t entirely safe. Increasing privatisation of our public health service is leading to a creep in business interests, with a private insurance system being just one proposed aspect of this.
NHS doctors and many other healthcare professionals, especially those who owe their nationality to migration, have been actively fighting to safeguard the NHS. Their own dual experience as part of the diaspora community ties them to two different types of healthcare facilities; one that the UK provides, and one where they might have their originating roots from. The same migrants who are often looked on as enemies are some of the biggest champions of the NHS because they understand the importance of it.
Dr Kambiz is a retired GP and senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, with an Indian GP grandfather who migrated to the UK in 1926. His father and grandfather have worked for the NHS since its inception, and as a member of the Socialist Medical Association his father campaigned for its creation.
“Part of the struggle to improve NHS general practice and primary care has involved fighting cuts in NHS spending imposed by successive governments. But with the coming of neoliberalism in the 1990s, any extra money that was put forward for the NHS was always linked to directing that money through private companies as new entrants.” says Kambiz.
When healthcare provision becomes a business, the patient-provider relationship is distorted. Patient care, according to a study done at Oxford, after an increase in privatisation, has become worse, even leading to higher rates of preventable death in some hospitals.
One of the ways the newly appointed Labour party could prevent this would be by not renewing private contracts. 94% of private contracts for the NHS will expire just around the end of term for the newly appointed Labour party, according to the analysis by public ownership campaign group We Own It.
But conflicting interests will likely prevent this type of bold action from Starmer’s Labour. Dr. Chandra Ghosh is a retired psychiatrist with the NHS and a member of the Labour party. “I don't think the current Parliamentary Labour party wish to reduce privatisation of the NHS. There are members of the party who are directors of several private health services and Insurance companies.They will continue to benefit.” According to Ghosh, activism for the NHS would involve “campaigning to remove the internal market and also holding the Labour Party responsible for damaging the welfare state.”
Dr. Ameet believes the biggest enemy of the NHS are the politicians who are funded by big corporations. Dr. Ameet is a psychiatrist, and a member of Ealing Save our NHS. He is a strong advocate and his activism to save the NHS is integral to his work. He spoke about Wes Streeting, a Labour party politician, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care of the United Kingdom. Streeting has received donations from John Armitage, the founder of Egerton Capital.
“Among its almost £19 billion of investments, Armitage’s fund owns shares worth almost £834 million in United Health, the huge US private health corporation that has played a significant role in the ‘Americanisation’ of the NHS, initially under New Labour and later under the Tories.”
The billionaire’s favourite scapegoat for the collapse that the NHS is currently witnessing will always be immigrants, despite the fact that immigration is as old as the world is. The strain that the NHS is under is not an immigrant problem. An increase in health insurance by the Sunak Government was yet again a suggestion that the solution to the problems in the NHS has to come from migrants. The health surcharge for migrants have only been increasing over the past few years, with this year’s charge increased by 300 pounds.
Yet, the problems are not people who have migrated to the UK, who contribute so significantly to the UK's economy. Rather the problem lies in the privatisation of the NHS. In the past decade, the NHS has lost almost 10 million pounds a week to private contracts.
In the USA, more than fifty thousand people die every year because they do not have medical health insurance. The reason why it is important to consistently compare with America is because the UK healthcare is being ‘Americanised’. As someone who has experienced living in a developing country, I can say that the NHS is still a very strong structure that can recover from any loss if it is funded, as these doctors have been advocating for.
The UK is probably one of the few healthcare systems in the world that offers services based on need not financial wealth, and it’s all the more urgent that we fight to preserve it.
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