Tories are accelerating destruction of the NHS, just when we really need it
Money: Matt Hancock is more interested in making a profit for private firms than in your family’s health.
If you ever needed evidence that the Conservative government is hell-bent on wrecking as many UK lives as possible, this is it.
Just when the coronavirus pandemic is proving that the worst thing possible for a nation’s health is a privatised, profit-driven health system, Matt Hancock and his gang are using it as an excuse for more privatisation!
Apparently he reckons this is a great chance to push through the changes because they aren’t being subjected to proper scrutiny.
In recent weeks, ministers have used special powers to bypass normal tendering and award a string of contracts to private companies and management consultants without open competition.
Doctors, campaign groups, academics and MPs raised the concerns about a “power grab” after it emerged on Monday that Serco was in pole position to win a deal to supply 15,000 call-handlers for the government’s tracking and tracing operation.
Deloitte, KPMG, Serco, Sodexo, Mitie, Boots and the US data mining group Palantir have secured taxpayer-funded commissions to manage Covid-19 drive-in testing centres, the purchasing of personal protective equipment (PPE) and the building of Nightingale hospitals.
Now, the Guardian has seen a letter from the Department of Health to NHS trusts instructing them to stop buying any of their own PPE and ventilators.
From Monday, procurement of a list of 16 items must be handled centrally. Many of the items on the list, such as PPE, are in high demand during the pandemic, while others including CT scanners, mobile X-ray machines and ultrasounds are high-value machines that are used more widely in hospitals.
Centralising purchasing is likely to hand more responsibility to Deloitte. As well as co-ordinating Covid-19 test centres and logistics at three new “lighthouse” laboratories created to process samples, the accounting and management consultancy giant secured a contract several weeks ago to advise central government on PPE purchases.
The point on PPE purchases is crucial: the government is making it more expensive to buy this vital equipment, at a time when it should be widely available to as many people as possible.
Just think how different this would be if Jeremy Corbyn had won the 2017 election (it has been alleged that he only lost because of a right-wing faction in his own party that sabotaged him): these items would be free.
More people are going to die as a result of these decisions. Your friends and family perhaps. Maybe even yourself.
I think it’s time Matt Hancock had a nickname. What should it be?
Murdering Matt? Hancock the Hangman?
Source: UK government ‘using pandemic to transfer NHS duties to private sector’ | Business | The Guardian
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Halfcocked Hancock
Don’t you mean “Nick W***ock”?
No – and let’s not descend to that kind of abuse here, please.