Unfortunately, Farage appears to be suffering the delusion that the NHS is at the end of the rainbow. The NHS was originally not set up to ‘make money’. It was set up to bring good healthcare to all.

For the first time, hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, opticians and dentists were brought together under one umbrella organisation to provide services that are free for all at the point of delivery.

The central principles were clear: the health service would be available to all, and financed entirely from taxation, which means that people pay into it according to their means.  

Through the 1970s and 1980s, it became clear that the NHS would never get the resources necessary to provide unlimited access to the latest medical treatments, especially in the context of an ageing population. This led to the beginning of a major process of reform, starting about 1980.

In spite of intensive opposition from the BMA, who wanted a pilot study of the “reforms” in one region, the untried, untested ‘internal market’ was introduced.

In 1990, the National Health Service & Community Care Act (in England) defined this “internal market”, whereby Health Authorities ceased to run hospitals but “purchased” care from their own or other authorities’ hospitals. Certain GPs became “fund holders” and were able to purchase care for their patients. The “providers” became NHS trusts, which encouraged competition but also increased local differences.

The Blair Government, whilst leaving services free at point of use, encouraged outsourcing of medical services and support to the private sector. Under the Private Finance Initiative, an increasing number of hospitals were built (or rebuilt) by private sector consortia; hospitals may have both medical services (such as “surgicentres”), and non-medical services (such as catering) provided under long-term contracts by the private sector. A study by a consultancy company which works for the Department of Health showed that every £200 million spent on privately financed hospitals would result in the loss of 1,000 doctors and nurses. The first PFI hospitals contained some 28 per cent fewer beds than the ones they replaced.

In 2005, surgicentres (ISTCs) treated around 3% of NHS patients (in England) having routine surgery. By 2008 it was expected to be around 10%. NHS Primary Care Trusts have been given the target of sourcing at least 15% of primary care from the private or voluntary sectors over the medium term.

The NHS also encountered significant problems with the IT innovations accompanying the Blair reforms. The NHS’s National Programme for IT (NPfIT), believed to be the largest IT project in the world, was running significantly behind schedule and above budget, with friction between the Government and the programme contractors.

Originally budgeted at £2.3 billion, 2009 estimates were £20-30 billion and rising. There was also criticism of a lack of patient information security. The ability to deliver integrated, high quality services required care professionals to use sensitive medical data. In the NPfIT model it was, sometimes, too tightly controlled to allow the best care to be delivered.

One concern was that GPs and hospital doctors had given the project a lukewarm reception, citing a lack of consultation and complexity. Key “front-end” parts of the programme included Choose and Book, intended to assist patient choice of location for treatment, which missed numerous deadlines for going “live”, substantially over-running its original budget, and is still probably available in only a few locations.

The programme to computerise all NHS patient records also experienced great difficulties. Furthermore there were unresolved financial and managerial issues on training NHS staff to introduce and maintain these systems once they were operative.

“At 2.10pm on the afternoon of Tuesday, 27th March 2012, immediately after prayers from the Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, The Health and Social Care Bill repealing the legal foundations of the NHS in England was given royal assent and became law.” – read NHS SOS

This Coalition government did not have a mandate from the people!

We did not vote for the abolition of the NHS. Neither was it part of the Coalition agreement. And, unlike those citizens who reside in England, citizens of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will continue to have an NHS – under the law. – read NHS SOS

Unfortunately, we have been conned, good and proper. They HAVE actually privatised the NHS before our eyes, and it should no longer be called the National Health Service, because it is trading under a false premise. There are many different companies involved in the running of it, and each is in it to make a profit, thereby ensuring that shareholders will gain whilst ‘customers’ lose.

Read to the end Alex, and I weep with you. I think we have all been conned by successive governments since the mid 1970s. I also think that if the people could have stopped all the thieving, lying and corruption that goes on in both houses of the privileged on the Thames, we still would have been a first class nation, with one hell of a National Health Service. Bad government ruins nations not the citizens of those nations and we have one of the worst governments this country has ever had.

Nothing wrong with streamlining the management of the NHS which has become bloated in the run up to the full privatisation that the conlablibdum party members appear to be in favour of. UKIP wants the NHS to remain public be fully public funded and for the minister for health to become accountable and responsible for it once again after it was given away to a number of committees by the privatisation mad conlablibdums. and I am one of the people living in the field by Stafford Hospital to try to keep our services in Stafford, we don’t want honours or money out of it, just to keep our hospital open and working properly.