Friday, 12 January 2018

Branson's NHS Billion

When I was a hospital porter we used to joke about "Virgin Health". It was an exaggeration at the time; we never imagined that truth would eventually catch up with our jest. Richard Branson's Virgin Care company has just earned the biggest haul of privatization licenses ever seen in the NHS. Over four hundred separate contracts now belong to Branson's empire. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/29/richard-branson-virgin-scoops-1bn-pounds-of-nhs-contracts. It's interesting that the article uses the word "dysfunctional" to describe the privatization procurement process. Why does it not simply say "corrupt"? The theory behind NHS privatization and the reality of its effects are separated by so vast a gulf that it makes me despair that so few people are talking about it. It was a strategy just beginning when I joined the NHS. A year into my service the porters were contracted out to a company called ISS Mediclean, an outfit that was already running the domestics there. There was a tendering period where several firms put in bids to run the portering service and the privatization committee "gave it their consideration." During this period we noticed that the Facilities director seemed to be spending a lot of his time in the company of the local Mediclean manager. They took their lunch breaks together etc. We knew then what was really going on and when Mediclean won the porters contract we were not surprised. We later found out that the Facilities manager was given a "finders fee" by somebody behind the scenes, a shareholder we imagine; which is just a euphemism for "bribe" as far as I'm concerned. Of course it's all legal and above board... which is what is so frightening about it. Through the decade Mediclean ran the porters, quality of service fell through the floor. I watched it happen; unable to do anything to stop it. We've never completely recovered from that Dark Age. No matter how many bad reports the monitoring officer, a former senior porter, submitted to the trust management nothing was done. Under Blair's Labour government privatisation accelerated past the point of no return and now the entire NHS is basically nothing more than a network of these tin pot contractors supported by another network of robotic and amoral bureaucrats. The only competition in the NHS is who is willing to grease the backhanded palm of the correct regulator the quickest with the crispest unmarked banknotes. Sorry to start 2018 with news that is so pessimistic and black pilling, but these are merely the facts. RIP the National Health Service.

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