UK to privatise health service which could put diabetics at risk of deaths

I think you should have said "might". More likely they would outsource specific services and do deals for the NHS to buy American drugs.

 

Political scaremongering on Twitter? Surely not.
The government has bought up vast swathes of private capacity to deal with the virus so I would suggest the trend is in the other direction.
However given the backlog caused by the lock down those who can afford it may well choose to go private so we may end up with a 2 tier system in any case. Not that a private health insurer wants to go near diabetes!
We have chucked the weekly equivalent of 3 new hospitals weekly into the cost of lockdown so I am afraid that unless we can get growth going very strongly (note the disappearance of the V shaped recovery) then we will start to notice more rationing. Not now but in the next 3-4 years .

 

Yet another scaremonger, who just posts without checking, there is no intention to privatise the NHS, the amendment was voted done, as I understand,as it was irrelevant to the bill going through Parliament, Please don’t post this sort of thing as it can and does cause a lot of unnecessary concern confusion and worry to people

 

Is that a good thing, though? For example, HIV medication Tenofovir/Emtricitabine (branded Truvada) is still patented in the US and costs about $2000 for a month's course. Meanwhile, generics with the same active ingredients cost about £20 a month in the UK. I'm concerned that US organisations will try to bring with them an exclusive use of those expensive, still US patented drugs, vastly increasing the costs to the NHS and the taxpayer and the money going straight to the US pharmaceutical giants. Or worse still, that a trade deal will outlaw the import of the generics, leaving the expensive US patented drugs as the only option.

Disclosure here: I'm a user of PrEP (supplied and monitored by the NHS, or at least Virgincare on their behalf) which is where you take Truvada to provide almost 100% immunity to HIV, rather than as a treatment once you're infected. NHS England has been dragging its heels for years, stretching out a 'trial' that basically limited access to the drug, and kept it from many people in the risk groups that would benefit from it. They've finally agreed that the benefits in preventing the spread of HIV outweigh the costs, but if the drug ends up costing nearly 100 times as much as it does now, they will almost certainly have to start rationing it again.

 

It is certainly not a good thing and I didn't suggest it was. The Tories claim the NHS is safe but when there is an amendment to put that into law they whip their MPs to vote it down. However the OP's suggestion that they were going to sell off the NHS was speculation presented as fact. (The post has now been edited by the OP).

 

Agreed. I could have worded it better. Maybe I should have asked whether that scenario was any better.

From the perspective of outsourcing, it's already going on. I don't see how it makes much difference if US companies are allowed to tender for contracts on the same basis as UK ones. If anything, it just adds competition to the market, which is likely to bring down costs. I do worry what's coming in through the back door. Expensive patented US drugs being one of my major concerns. I also worry about impartiality. When a consultant, doctor or nurse is employed by a third party company, are they being instructed to push that company's treatments (that it can profit from) rather than ones that might be better suited to your case, or more cost effective for the NHS?

 

Scaremongering? Unfortunately NOT. Project fear is now project fact. MP's voted down legal bid to protect the NHS from US/UK deal. There is a reason why NONE of the other 27 EU states even want a referendum, even the right winged countries. They dont want to sacrifice their standard, their healthcare etc etc.

 

On the other hand...
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ans-the-nhs-is-now-unquestionably-up-for-sale

 

I didn't post a view either, it's good to hear both sides of the argument surely?