Britain's National Health Service
Our Health Service in Hock for many Years to come and for future generations to pay off. Anne Palmer 26.8.2006.
The Health Service WAS ours. We paid for it through our taxes and it remains (for now) free at the point of service. We pay for it in the same way we pay for our politicians to allegedly work for us, and they, on our behalf keep the National Health Service free at the point of delivery.
I am writing this to open the public’s eyes at the way EU law forces Member States to reorganise their welfare services, looking also at the affects of free movement and competition practices on health care. It tends to result in national welfare institutions being replaced by private providers. The process is not being discussed by the public because it is not being debated openly by our MP’s. What comes under “Welfare reform” is not being led by welfare reform at all. The major cause is that EU law as it stands authorises a great deal more interference in welfare than has been thought about. Our National Heath Service that developed here in the UK after the Second World War may be gone forever (if we do not fight for it to remain) and there may never be a public discussion about this but it may disappear without anyone realising it
Welfare is perhaps the last bastion of nationalism, but it is one nationalism that the vast majority of people will most definitely want to keep, it poses however, a problem for the European Union, for how can the Union, that is dedicated to the removal of national borders allow our welfare state to remain as it is when other member state’s welfare systems are not all free at the point of delivery? Are WE the odd one out, yet again?
Even now, although people are concerned at how many hospitals are closing and nurses and doctors are being made redundant, have no idea WHY this is happening, and even less understand perhaps why I am putting the first point of blame on to our involvement in the European Union and my second point of blame to the present Labour Government.
What happens to our Welfare system brings the EU right into our homes because there are very few people that get through life without at least one spell in hospital. I have only touched on the subject lightly because in everything else to do with the EU, it will eventually require our hospitals to be “liberalised”, “opened up” magic words, “open to competition” taken over in the same way that most of our great industries have been taken over.
There are two choices, one, just stand back and let it happen, or two, fight for your health service as those before you fought to get it put there for us all to use free at the point of delivery.
I can remember the day our National Health Service was born. Although it was the Atlee Government that created the National Health Service (NHS) based on the Beverage Report in 1942 Aneurin Bevan carried out the actual introduction of the Service for the launch July 5th 1948. I never met the man although I spent one whole afternoon with Jenny Lee, his wife, in my mid 20’s when taking part in a fashion show. (Organised by the Local Labour group) She was a remarkable dynamic lady.
Before the introduction of the NHS, we as a family used to pay hospital ‘fee’s’ of one (old) penny a week, but at least we were able to have hospital treatment as long as we were ‘in the hospital fund’ club.
The NHS covers four separate (once) publicly funded systems, General Practitioners, Accident and Emergency, long term health care and Dentistry. Since 1948 we have all had the use of them and perhaps taken them for granted far more than we should have done.
There has always been Private Health care for those that could pay for it or prefer the privacy provided by private care. It is usually paid for through private insurance. NHS services on the other hand are “free at the point of delivery” paid for by our taxes and I understand the budget for 2006-7 is £96 billion. It employs over 1 million people and is reputed to be the largest employer in Europe if not the world, depending on who is the teller! We, the people, by way of our taxes, employ them all.
Things seemed to roll along fine until 1997, but the urge to join the euro by Prime Minister Blair started the changes I am writing about here. My attention was drawn to The Times (In 2003), which reported that if (and we may not have that option of “if” one day) we join the Euro, the European Central Bank had warned Britain it might have to give up its National Health Service. Even the Bolton Evening News, May 2003 reported that, “Britain would be forced to scrap the NHS if we joined the euro, so warns the ECB, saying free health care could be slashed to just emergency services”.
Also, “The ECB recommends jettisoning the NHS in favour of private health care, saying Britain’s aging population will send NHS costs soaring, and euro-zone rules would not allow Gordon Brown to borrow necessary funds to foot the bill”. Does Britain have an aging population more so than any other country?
But hold on, this is a Labour Government we are talking about and a Labour Government to boot, that brought the NHS into being, it was their pride and joy, yet we now have a Labour government that wants to end our Sterling currency by joining the euro, has signed up to an EU constitution and knowingly by their actions now, are destroying our NHS system. How can I say that? Because it is privatising our NHS “by the back door”. I have read two quite separate papers that refer to what they are doing as “Enron by the Thames”, and, “an Enron accounting system”.
An informative booklet on the “Services Directive” (A race to the Bottom) by Brian Denny, explains how EU rules attack public services, jobs, pay, pensions and collective bargaining rights”. Plain speaking indeed. “Following the exclusion of healthcare from the Services Directive, the EU Commission immediately announced plans for a new separate directive by the end of 2006 to open up health services to free market competition. Not surprisingly, the ECJ ruling have helped this process along by using internal market arguments first mooted in the Services directive.” If the EU does not get their way in one matter, they will get their way in another.
“Page 5”, “EU Health Spokesman Margaritis Schinas said that the ECJ ruling on patient mobility, ‘clearly states that there is scope for community action to achieve public health objectives’. He went on to claim that patent mobility was covered under Art 95 of EU Treaties covering internal market rules.
As already pointed out above, the ECB report from May 2003 called on Euro zone members to reform health services and although we are not in the Euro, we still have to abide by the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). One way round the removal of the ability to “borrow” more money was to introduce Public Private Partnership (PPP) or, Private Financing Initiative (PFI) into the Health Sector and turning hospitals into Trusts. According to Brian Denny, these moves have already led to a cash crisis in the NHS and the loss of over 7000 jobs.
The EU also wants more power over healthcare, which does not surprise me at all. Alan Milburn once said though, “As long as there is a Labour Government, the NHS will be funded from general taxation and health care available according to need and not ability to pay”. I think he forgot to mention that the Health Service as we know it would be gone, that it would be slashed with hundreds of excellent nurses and Doctors abandoned, Hospitals closed, with not all medicines available to all.
Is this what all this is about? To come into line with the ECB? So that we can abandon sovereignty over our sterling currency and reserves or the authority to control our interest rates? Only the rich will be able to have peace of mind if they fall ill for they will be the only ones that will be able to afford to pay. The elderly, old and poor will no longer be cared for. Vote for Labour?
According to the World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3860 March 2006 (By Jack M Mintz and Michael Smart), “Incentives for Public Investment under Fiscal Rules” (page 10) “To produce health services, governments employ doctors and nurses and construct hospital buildings. The hospital buildings are obviously capitol inputs used in producing health services and should be amortized under capitol budgets and doctor and nurses salaries should be expensed. The health services, however, are arguably consumption goods to reduce pain and suffering even though an element of public capitol might be entailed if current health services improve the long-run productivity of workers (who later remit taxes to the government). Some judgment is needed to determine whether any health service expenditure should amortise under public accounts since a majority of health expenditures tend to be focussed at the end of a person’s life”.
(Page 12) “The Maastricht Treaty contains a provision requiring member states to avoid running “excessive” deficits, whether or not they have adopted the euro. A protocol to the treaty specifies in turn that members’ fiscal stance is to be judged by two criteria; whether the budget deficit is less than 3 percent of GDP, and whether the total government debt exceeds 60 percent of GDP. If the Council determines a deficit is excessive, there is a procedure to encourage its elimination. The Council may issue warnings and impose deposit requirements and, eventually, fines. The SGP corresponds to the provisions of the Maastricht excessive deficits procedure, but it clarifies the terms, introduces monitoring procedures, and it gives the Council greater teeth in the event of violations. Under the SGP, deficits may exceed the 3 percent level if the excess is “exceptional, temporary, and limited in size”. Some discretion is accorded to the Council in determining whether this provision should apply”
(Page 13)“The UK has also moved to accrual accounting for financial reporting. For budgetary purposes, the UK Government focuses on two main “flow” measures of the fiscal stance.
(i) adherence to the golden rule is measured by the current budget surplus, defined as difference between tax revenues and current public spending (including depreciation):
(ii) the government also reports public sector net borrowing (PSNB). Both measures are accrual-based concepts: the PSNB can be contrasted with the previous use of the Public Sector Net Cash Requirement (PSNCR), which was essentially the cash deficit.
“ In particular, proceeds from privatisation and other asset sales are excluded from the PSNB, but not the PSNCR. Both the current budget surplus and the PSNB are cyclically adjusted before the fiscal rules are applied”.
“These rules impact on public investment spending. The UK for example is WELL WITHIN the 60 percent gross debt limit specified in the Maastricht Treaty (its own 40 per cent net debt limit is surely more binding). Net borrowing in the UK is currently about 1,8 percent of GDP, and substantially less on cyclically adjusted bases. While an increase in investment there is planned, it may be that the UK Government’s reliance on largely off-budget Public Finance Initiatives means that the Maastricht deficit limit is unlikely ever to be more binding than the golden rule policy” End of quotes.
Although this paper is mainly about the NHS, and the mess we are in through PFI/PPP, the latter two have been used in many areas, the London underground for one major venture. Recorded in Hansard for the 24th July 2006, Col 1387W A question was asked about PFI Contracts. The answer given was, “There are currently over 500 projects that have been signed and are now in operation. Around a further 200 projects have reached financial close, but are yet to become operational. The combined capitol value of all signed projects is over £48 billion. Information on PFI projects that have reached financial close may be found from the ‘PFI Signed Projects List’ on the Treasury’s public website”.
“At the time of the Budget around 80 projects were at the preferred bidder stage and around 155 had yet to appoint a preferred bidder. The estimated capitol value of these projects is around £26 billion”. End of Quote.
I am looking at PFI as, ‘on the never, never’. If I ran up hire purchase debts into the hundred thousands, it would not just take me thirty years to pay off, but it seems as if I might expect my children and grandchildren to continue paying off my debts long after I have left this earth. From all the businesses that I have found, this Country will ‘be in hock’ if not bankrupt, and what for eh? So that we can either eventually join the euro, and/or stay in the European Union and be governed by it forever? How can one Government, a Labour Government at that, that is supposed to be all for the people, run up so much debt and what on earth for? Labour has taken something very special from which each and every one of us at some time in our lives, have been glad the NHS is there for us, yet is prepared to see it trashed just to remain in what is, without doubt, about turning into a federal, political state and a totalitarian state at that. Many MPs we now know, (and can prove) knew that from before we joined the European Community.
My poor father, a very strong true Labour man, must be spinning in his grave. Mind you, he would not recognise these men of Labour as the Labour’ he once so admired.
George Monbiot woke up to what was going on in this field on 27th June 2002 when he wrote, “PPPs are a Public Fraud”. He began his article with “Poor visibility corrupts; invisibility corrupts absolutely.” He wrote, (please remember this was written in 2002), “ As the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) points out, the government allows public bodies to reclaim the VAT on privately funded projects, but not on publicly backed schemes, thereby favouring private finance by 17.5 percent. National health Service trusts have to pay the Treasury a 6 per cent “capitol charge” on the buildings they own. Private builders have no such obligation. The Government gives local authorities an annual grant of 11.5 percent of the value of the Public Finance Initiative scheme they commission, but there is no corresponding sweetener for publicly funded projects. Private financiers are permitted to use “discount rates” way out of line with inflation. This false accounting masks the appalling value for money offered by private finance. As the British Medical Journal (BMJ) report shows, 39 per cent of the price of PFI hospitals is incurred by the extra cost of borrowing. Governments have a better credit rating than corporations, so they can borrow more cheaply. As interest is levied across the 25 or 30 years of the project, small differences in rates contribute vastly to the cost.”
He asks, “So why is the Government forcing public bodies to fleece the taxpayer? In 1997, it claimed that the purpose of the PFI was to reduce government borrowing. But PFI does not reduce borrowing: instead it defers and extends it.” One of the headlines used was, “The policy has the potential to bankrupt the UK”, and I believe that to be true. End of quotes.
How on earth did we get into this mess? Under funding of the NHS to begin with? In the mid 1990’s, under the Conservative Government of John Major, a number of hospitals effectively opted out of central NHS to become Trusts. Can anyone else remember the waste of money on new logos? At around the same time we started to see or hear of hospitals and medical centres being built using PFI. Which as we already know involves the building of public buildings by private companies, which are then “rented back” to the NH Trust at a higher long-term price which is only to be expected because the firms have to make a profit to stay in business. Under the NHS, the taxpayer owns the hospitals and paid the salaries. Where is our compensation for losing that asset? We are expected to pay far more now under PFI.
This disastrous PPP/PFI adventure has almost gone off the scale, under New Labour. To me, we are beginning to see ‘rationing’, we are being kept fit, we have to lose weight (might we not be treated if we are overweight?) We have to stay healthier so we are discouraged every which way from smoking. (Will we be refused treatment if we DO still smoke?) Our children may not be allowed the “Gob-stoppers” we once used to stuff our mouths with because the “We are watching what you eat” patrol are on the lookout, what the children eat at meal times. (Animal farm was but a comic compared to today’s lot)
In the “Health Unions Briefing for MPs”. July 2006, it becomes obvious the Unions are concerned, for they “recognise that across England (Scotland etc are devolved) NHS organisations are being forced to make cuts which affect patient services. Trusts have been told by the Government that they have to pay off their debts by the end of the year and are having to cut jobs and services in order to meet this target”. “Nearly one third of all trusts are in debt. There have been a growing number of compulsory redundancies in trusts across England. Although these have, largely, been dealt with through freezing posts and natural waste there are a whole range of measures taking place such as closure of departments and severe cuts in education and training, which will have a huge impact on standards of care and services to patients, both in the short and long term.”
Although there is a great deal more to this subject, I will say ‘finally’ in looking to Hansard on the last day before recess in the House of Commons where there is a mixture of questions and comments from different MPs that reveal what is happening (or not happening) in their area re Health care and in the hospitals. It is not only enlightening, but also frightening. It may well bring anger in the revealing. The closing of wards, beds and hospitals could be prevented if we came out of the European Union now.
We could build and pay up front for the hospitals we need if we did not have to obey EU laws or pay our alleged “Share” of the EU budget that is wasted, wasted, wasted. We could do what we liked with our own money; we most certainly would not have to be held back by the Stability and Growth Pact. We would become a sovereign State once again and our own politicians would have to do the job we pay them for from the day they are elected. The Union is still attempting to become the all-powerful state it wants to be, (It is stealthily and undemocratically working toward that end now) it must become one without the United Kingdom of Great Britain for we will indeed be “Better off out”. Anne Palmer.
Notes: Others quoted in the paper above. Jack Mintz is the Deloitte and Touch LLP Professor of Taxation. J L Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and President and CEO of the CD Howe Institute. Michael Smart is Associate Professor, Dept of Economics at the University of Toronto. The paper was prepared as part of the World Bank’s Latin American Regional studies program.
Last day before recess,
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm060725/debtext/60725-1069.htm I urge you to read it.
Works noted and read, from Dr Mica Panic (Fellow, Selwyn College Cambridge and Vice Chairman, UN Committee for development Policy. George Monbiot is the author of Captive State: The corporate takeover of Britain. He is also honorary Professor at the Department of Politics in Keele.
Bevan Brittan LLP. Works of Sir Peter Gershon. Works of Professor Allyson Pollock in Chair of Health and Policy and Health Services Research at UCL and Director of R & D at UCL Hospitals NHS Trust. Work of Michael Burnett, Lecturer-EIPA Maastricht. Government Research Papers on PFI
COM(2004) 327 (30.4.2004)
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