Scum-watch: We know better than the workers.
Today's Scum is highly annoyed about Brown and Alan Johnson daring to decide not to hand over yet more vast sums to private health companies who were getting paid for operations and treatments regardless of whether or not they actually were used or not:
Instead of leveling the blame with Blair and Johnson's predecessors for drawing up contracts which paid a lump sum to the private sector firms rather than on the actual amount of work they did, Brown gets in the neck. £100million is a disgraceful amount of compensation to pay to firms which must be laughing all the way to bank with the way the NHS works; they build hospitals with fewer beds than the ones they're replacing, and then have years' of payments still to look forward to under the hugely wasteful private finance initiative, and when they get their contracts canceled because they're not treating enough patients they still get paid! The blame however lies with Blair and his ideological fervour for marketised solutions which has imposed such madness on the NHS.
The Scum's leader knows who's really to blame though, and would you believe it, it's the unions:
This is nonsense. Almost all of the centres being scrapped were not seeing the volume of work they expected to; patients were voting with their feet through the choice system to go with the state rather than the private sector, even if it meant a slightly longer wait. As Alan Johnson set out, one of the services in the West Midlands had a take-up of 5%. Continuing to pay for 100% take-up when it was only doing 5% is economically insane.
True, but so is continuing to pay private health firms in full when their centres were sitting idle, especially when their introduction in the first place was completely unnecessary.
Christ, unions caring about protecting jobs? What's next? The police only caring about catching criminals? Rupert Murdoch only caring about his own self-interest? In any case, the unions don't just care about protecting jobs; they also care about how the NHS is little by little being broken up, being readied for inevitable full-scale privatisation whenever the government decides that a free at the point of use service is no longer "economically sustainable", as the treatment of Karen Reissmann demonstrates.
Quite right. The Sun and the CBI know better than the workers on the front line what's best for the NHS, and yet more private snouts in the public trough is the only way forward.
The PM could have built two children’s hospitals, or hired 4,000 nurses with the cash.
Instead, he has used it to compensate private health firms after axing their NHS contracts.
Instead of leveling the blame with Blair and Johnson's predecessors for drawing up contracts which paid a lump sum to the private sector firms rather than on the actual amount of work they did, Brown gets in the neck. £100million is a disgraceful amount of compensation to pay to firms which must be laughing all the way to bank with the way the NHS works; they build hospitals with fewer beds than the ones they're replacing, and then have years' of payments still to look forward to under the hugely wasteful private finance initiative, and when they get their contracts canceled because they're not treating enough patients they still get paid! The blame however lies with Blair and his ideological fervour for marketised solutions which has imposed such madness on the NHS.
The Scum's leader knows who's really to blame though, and would you believe it, it's the unions:
AXEING private contracts for the NHS is foolish.
This is nonsense. Almost all of the centres being scrapped were not seeing the volume of work they expected to; patients were voting with their feet through the choice system to go with the state rather than the private sector, even if it meant a slightly longer wait. As Alan Johnson set out, one of the services in the West Midlands had a take-up of 5%. Continuing to pay for 100% take-up when it was only doing 5% is economically insane.
Spending £100million to compensate companies for tearing up their contracts is shocking.
True, but so is continuing to pay private health firms in full when their centres were sitting idle, especially when their introduction in the first place was completely unnecessary.
And it’s a disgusting price to pay for appeasing the unions, who only care about protecting jobs.
Christ, unions caring about protecting jobs? What's next? The police only caring about catching criminals? Rupert Murdoch only caring about his own self-interest? In any case, the unions don't just care about protecting jobs; they also care about how the NHS is little by little being broken up, being readied for inevitable full-scale privatisation whenever the government decides that a free at the point of use service is no longer "economically sustainable", as the treatment of Karen Reissmann demonstrates.
Mr Brown should ignore their selfish bleating.
And put patients’ lives first.
Quite right. The Sun and the CBI know better than the workers on the front line what's best for the NHS, and yet more private snouts in the public trough is the only way forward.
Labels: NHS, private health centres, privatisation, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, unions
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