THE Health and Care Bill will be launched this week.
The Bill will break the national NHS into 42 separate Integrated Care Systems (ICS), each with its own tight budget forcing cuts in care.
Local NHS provision will be tied to a plan written by the ICS board, open to the private sector and dragging local authorities into a financial project without real democratic accountability or public control.
The Bill will be promoted as an end to privatisation. It is the opposite - a transition to an unregulated market in healthcare.
It will mean unbridled collaboration with the private sector and is certain to be endorsed by Sajid Javid and by the Prime Minister’s NHS advisors including the former CEO of Operose, the UK branch of the US insurance giant Centene, Samantha Jones.
Already some 200 firms, at least 30 of them US-owned and prominent in the health insurance market, are accredited to support the ICSs. They include Operose, OPTUM (owned by the largest US health insurance firm United Health), IBM and Palantir.
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As money drains from healthcare to shareholders, it will have significant consequences for patients from more companies being given access to confidential patient information with no clear protection for patient privacy, more digital services creating a two-tier health service depending on access or ability to use technology. It will also lead to more patient care being directed by computers and manuals along with a growing expectation that patients will “self-care”.
There will be an increased risk that services will be cut or rationed and non-urgent referrals to hospital delayed or refused because of pressure on ICSs to make savings.
On hospital discharge, family carers may also be expected to take on more unpaid care due to lack of community services.
It will have huge impact on NHS staff, local authorities, democratic accountability.
This is the Brave New World the Government is planning for the NHS as a whole. It should ring warning bells for all of us.
Prue Plumridge
London Road, Maldon
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