Tories planning to hand private firms ’10-15 year NHS contracts’ to stop Labour from renationalising

From Evolve Politics: A former Medical Director in the NHS has exposed deeply worrying details of ‘secret’ plans hatched by the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to force through a ‘raft of secondary legislation’ (a method used by ruling governments to impose new rules without requiring a full vote in Parliament) that essentially allows the Conservative Party to hand unprecedented 10-15 year contracts to private healthcare firms to run NHS services – contracts that would be hugely expensive for any future government to get out of.

Jeremy Hunt’s ‘NHS-Americanisation’ style plan will reportedly give the Tories free reign to privatise numerous NHS services and award contracts that would ensure any future Labour government would have to pay through the roof to fully renationalise the service as they wish to do so, should they obtain power in the coming years.

The Tories’ latest plan to ‘save’ the NHS is by establishing Accountable Care Organisations (ACOs), a system propagated in the highly inefficient privatised United States healthcare system. These ACOs will be given the power to make the most important decisions about how to allocate NHS funds, resources and medical care for people in certain areas.

Currently, this vital service is performed by publicly accountable bodies who are regulated by law, and established by Parliament after thorough public consultations, not to mention an intense public debate in which we all get a chance to voice our opinions and views on our NHS.

ACOs, however, are the complete opposite and can be run entirely by the private sector and not-for-profit bodies. Shockingly, ACOs are not mentioned in any current legislation and are therefore not subject to the statutory duties that the rest of the NHS must abide by.

But it gets even worse: NHS England already has plans to establish several of these ACOs.

[Read full article on Evolve Politics website…]