Blair call for more private-sector involvement in the NHS.

 

When Margaret Thatcher, was once asked what her greatest legacy to the country was, she replied without hesitation, "Blair and New Labour." It was Blair who lied us into a war with Iraq to please U.S. military and economic interests, and it is Blair, who is the real architect of Brexit.

After leaving British politics, Blair spent most of his time filling his pockets with cash and acquiring multiple properties. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), in 13 years of New Labour, 80% of new jobs in the UK, went to migrants from Eastern Europe. Many of these migrant workers came from the former Communist Eastern bloc countries like Poland, Hungry, and Slovenia, which became members of the E.U. in 2004. Although most E.U. member states placed limits on the number of migrants entering their countries, Britain under Tony Blair, opened the door to all of them.

Blair, a derided carpet beggar, is now campaigning for greater private sector involvement in the NHS. This is already Labour Policy and all successive British governments, have been privatising the NHS by stealth for years. In 1983, the Tories under Margaret Thatcher, introduced "competitive tendering" to outsource ancillary services such porters, kitchens, and cleaning, to private companies. This led to a rise in hospital-acquired infectious diseases and dirtier hospitals.

In 1991, the Tory Prime Minister, John Major, introduced the 'internal market' and the "Purchaser-Provider" split. This led to more NHS bureaucrats and increased NHS costs by 10%. John Major's government then introduced the "Private Finance Initiative" (PFI) an expensive way of borrowing money for new hospitals which locked the British taxpayer into long-term debt.

In 1997, Tony Blair and New Labour, funded 100 New Hospitals using PFI's at a cost of £12.7bn, with repayments reaching over £80 billion. When the debt is fully repaid, the public still won't own the hospitals. As the debt rose, NHS Trusts have been forced to sell assets and to shrink capacity leading to fewer hospital beds and lower nurse/patient ratios.

In 2000, New Labour, introduced private provision of medical services into the NHS for the first time. Many medical practices were contracted out to the private sector, at greater cost for the NHS. In 2003, New Labour introduced "Foundation Trusts", arms-length business entities independent of government control.

In 2012, the Conservative/LibDem coalition government, introduced the Health & Social Care Act (HSCA), which abolished the legal foundation of the NHS and removed the Secretary of State for Health's legal duty to provide healthcare for all. This responsibility has now been handed over to quangos, such as NHS England.

The doctor's union, the British Medical Association (BMA), argue that successive British governments have been presiding over a "managed decline" of the NHS for many years. There seems to be some truth in this. The so-called crisis in the NHS, which has led to staff shortages, longer waiting times for medical treatment and bed shortages, seems to have been largely engineered and manufactured during the last 13 years of the Tory government. They want to privatise the NHS, which was always the dream of Margaret Thatcher, who never used it.

More people are now paying for private medical treatment or fund raising to pay for it to obtain urgent medical treatment. As this increases, it's likely that we will lose the NHS by default and private medical care will become a reality for most of us.