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I would have thought that by now some knowledge of a topic would be essential before launching a discussion, and I’m being generous with use of that word!
It’s very evident already that there is a lack of understanding on what constitutes "privatisation" and what it actually means! A "Private " hospital is not the same as a public hospital run privately. What this thread is really about is Public Private Partnerships, or PPSs which already exist in many parts of the world, and including the UK! Look it up!
The primary advantage of PPPs is that management and Boards of Trustees are able to focus their efforts on what they’re good at, letting the private sector take responsibility for finance, construction, operation and maintenance of facilities etc. Experience in both the United Kingdom and Australia shows that the partnership approach, when properly implemented, gives rise to better results!, and as an improvement in health care is what everyone wants, why wouldn’t it be considered, or is it considered a bad idea because Labour is in opposition?
Unless of course the words "Initiative" and "Innovation" are foreign concepts!
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Quoting: Colin Hall I would have thought that by now some knowledge of a topic would be essential before launching a discussion, and I’m being generous with use of that word!
It’s very evident already that there is a lack of understanding on what constitutes "privatisation" and what it actually means! A "Private " hospital is not the same as a public hospital run privately. What this thread is really about is Public Private Partnerships, or PPSs which already exist in many parts of the world, and including the UK! Look it up!
The primary advantage of PPPs is that management and Boards of Trustees are able to focus their efforts on what they’re good at, letting the private sector take responsibility for finance, construction, operation and maintenance of facilities etc. Experience in both the United Kingdom and Australia shows that the partnership approach, when properly implemented, gives rise to better results!, and as an improvement in health care is what everyone wants, why wouldn’t it be considered, or is it considered a bad idea because Labour is in opposition?
Unless of course the words "Initiative" and "Innovation" are foreign concepts!
Alright Colin, I do believe it’s you who doesn’t understand whats going on over here. This is not a PPS it’s a private company taking over a hopital. In Answer to you ’dig’ at Labour, you should remember that Labour created the NHS, the Tories voted against it. By you answer in is apparent that you think profit margins come before healing the sick & have a short memory as you seem to have forgotten Labour improvements the NHS.
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Quoting: John (scouse) Hirons
This is not a PPS it’s a private company taking over a hopital. .
No it isn’t, and their own website says so!
"Braintree Community Hospital offers a wide range of NHS services under one roof so that you can meet a consultant, be diagnosed and have treatment in the same place, often on the same day.As well as convenience, this hospital is exciting because it brings together the best in public and private healthcare to provide free services to NHS patients". Note: NHS!!!!
"Braintree Community Hospital offers a wide range of NHS services under one roof so that you can meet a consultant, be diagnosed and have treatment in the same place, often on the same day.As well as convenience, this hospital is exciting because it brings together the best in public and private healthcare to provide free services to NHS patients". Note: NHS!!!!
So why don’t you like that?
Hi Colin
I think the bit the NHS does is the non-profitable bit. Like a lot of privatised & public/private partnerships, the less lucrative, more labour intensive work always goes to the public financed NHS. Ditto for the railways and everything else that has ever been privatised that should not have been.
If we turn our minds back to the time before privatisation, we would have found that our public industries then were in dire straits and not fit for purpose. The trains running under British Rail were old stock and the butt of every comedian’s joke for not being on time, the sewer system was archaic and had never been up-dated since Victorian times, the telephone system needed to come into the new telecommuications age which was about to appear on the horizon and the demand for electricity could not keep pace with existing provisions.
More investment on a very large scale was definitely required to bring these services into a modern age. So where was this money to come from? There were two alternatives, either through taxation where the biggest burden would have been on the ordinary tax payer on income or alternatively private investment. If the government of the day had decided to take the taxation route then the increase in taxation would have been so great that disposable income would have been reduced to such an extent causing an enormous reduction in demand for goods and a subsequent contraction in the British economy would have occurred. This not withstanding, the British people would not have stood for it and booted the government out at the next General Election. Thus the chosen route for such huge investment had to be privatisation. Many believe this was selling off the ’family silver’ and of course they are possibly right to think so. Even those on the left who condemned this policy at the time, came to agree that privatisation was the way forward, as the Labour Party after much debate in the Smith and Kinnock years, eventually dropped Clause 1V, one of its founding principles, under the Blair government.
One advantage of course of privatisation was the opportunity for ordinary people to have a stake in these privatised industries. By investing a relatively small amount of money, I believe approximately £100 to £200, a great many people could become investors and in present times have seen benefit in that investment growth.
One other issue perhaps should be raised as a consequence of privatisation.. Should we ask, do the present privatised industries give us the standard of services required for a modern industrial country or is there still room for much improvement and public scrutiny? Also, the NHS which is entrenched in our psyche as a free service for all but so demanding on public resources, should we ask, will it benefit and become more efficient from private investment and a public private partnership? That is yet to be seen but perhaps will come to fruition in the future.
As I have said in previous posts my opinion is only one on this forum and is always open to discussion for counter arguments but I hope rational coherent ones.
