NHS privatisation: paying profiteers means there’s no money for healthcare and patients are harmed
Recruitment difficulties for NHS ambulance trusts have meant private ambulances are being used, with untrained staff, leading to incidents in which patients have suffered serious harm.
This is what happens when you waste money that should be spent on healthcare, paying profit into private company bank accounts.
The cost of hiring private ambulances is draining funds that could be used elsewhere, while private firms are cutting corners and failing to provide the care that patients need, according to the Unison representative quoted in the report (below).
While ambulance trusts said they were struggling to recruit staff because each person has to have three years’ training, the Care Quality Commission found private ambulance services were employing staff who had no training at all.
It reported “evidence of incidents of serious harm to people from staff that had not been properly recruited and vetted”.
I would like to know what this evidence is, and how many patients suffered serious harm as a result of Tory healthcare privatisation.
I would like to know which Conservative MPs were directly responsible for inflicting this harm on people who are ill, or injured, and vulnerable.
And I would like to know what action may be taken to call them to account.
England’s ambulance trusts spent more than £92 million in the last year on private ambulances and taxis to transport patients, Press Association (PA) research found.
Some trusts said they rely on private ambulances due to a chronic shortage of NHS staff and ongoing problems with recruitment.
In some parts of the south, almost one in five emergency calls result in a private ambulance being sent to the scene.
Earlier this year, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) published a damning report warning that patients were being put at risk by private ambulances.
Source: Patients ‘at risk’ as NHS spends £92m on private ambulances and taxis | The Independent
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
I applied for a post with Arriva Patient Transport who were desperate for more staff as a response to numerous local press reports of patients waiting for 6 hours or more.
At the interview, two questions troubled me :-
1. Do you have any problem with paying £800 for your own uniform and training ?
2. Do you have any problem with other Ambulance Transport Staff on old NHS contracts working beside you on almost TWICE your minimum wage ?
If this is a reflection of how Private Medical Ambulance Staff are treated it is more than troubling.
“NHS privatisation: paying profiteers means there’s no money for healthcare and patients are harmed” – actually LESS money rather than NO money – but a LOT less money!
Dont even bother saying ‘that man’ sais they wouldnt sell the NHS to America. They have already inflicted what could be terminal damage and a bit more of the same will finish tne job. They have done a masterly job of destrying the Social Contract as Thatcher intende.
I don’t know who the worse MP is out of Thatcher (flogging off the council houses on the cheap) the Cameron + Lib Dems who couldn’t wait to start needless austerity on us all.. the sick, the weak, the disabled, the work less
set neighbors against each other etc..
Then we got May (which I think was the worst of them all) but now we have Johnson . . . it looks bad
for us all & woe betide us..
Something must be done about this my mother is suffering because of this their are more NHS trust so called trained staff that don’t know what they are doing my mother has had unexplained black eyes …medicine that didn’t make her well and they keep doing this well I for one will be sueing these people it’s disgusting the government are no different than when the king sent soilders out to rob the poor and it’s still going on in this day and age and when you speak out they take no notice well I will be doing something about it