Do you want your health service run from a tax haven? The Tories do
[Image: Evolve Politics.]
Much of that money will be handed to shareholders in tax-free profits, doing nothing whatsoever to help people suffering from health problems and contributing to the worsening of – for example – the regular winter crises in Accident and Emergency departments across the UK.
And there is the question of corruption to consider: Care UK funded former Health Secretary Andrew Lansley when he was drafting his Health and Social Care Act, the lamentable piece of legislation that allowed private companies into the NHS. Did they provide him with £21,000 on the condition that they receive contracts worth millions?
The whole situation stinks like a cesspit. The sooner a Labour government takes office and kicks out these lazy freeloaders, the better.
It was announced last week that Care UK had secured a £55m contract to provide elective healthcare services at the North East London Treatment Centre, Redbridge.
Care UK reported in 2013 that public funds accounted for 88% of the company’s revenues and admitted to using “tax-efficient” financial structuresinvolving the Channel Islands. Its sister company, Silver Sea, is domiciled in low-tax Luxembourg. In 2014 the Guardian published a story claiming that Care UK had not paid a penny in corporation tax since it was bought by the private equity firm Bridgepoint Capital in 2010.
Claims that the Tories are selling off the NHS and other public services to their city banker mates have been rubbished as apocryphal by their supporters. But you only have to look at cases like this to see the truth of the matter.
These companies are simply in it for the profit, and the only way for them to make a profit is by charging more than the service costs to provide. In the public sector that difference would be ploughed back into the service for the benefit of all. For private companies, it goes out of the NHS and usually out of the UK, squirrelled away from the tax authorities in offshore havens. If they don’t make a profit they don’t stick around for long.
The Tories are always looking for ways to a) make money from our public services, and b) abolish the NHS. It really is as simple as that.
If the Tories manage to cling on to power for much longer they will do untold damage to decent people and the economy. Their lust for power, domination and greed must be stopped. We do need the Unions to get up to speed.
So if I read this correctly this private company has procured business from the NHS, upon which no, or little tax, is collected from their profits because they are tax efficient and offshore were competing against I presume less tax efficient companies who actually paid back into the UK tax coffers. So did the Procurement deciders take this fact into account in their decision ie did they get an equally tax efficient procurement deal that reflected this advantage they held over what I will call more tax honest UK companies who paid tax on their profits. Where did this equation get sorted within the decision making process ….with central Government or with the NHS locally and just who were the winners and losers. Once again the wiff of Tories swirl around the donation money………..