Did you know 84% of UK’s population favours public ownership of NHS? (yougov)

NHS offering £127m of contracts to private companies !
Independent

I can’t be believe that I am starting my first blogpost with something political. Well, it’s come to this, so as the title says, I blog about events that I am passionate about. NHS is something I am passionate about because of its impact on the nation!

Here goes ! Please read it, keep the comments hearty, peace and blessings ! My aim is only to inform you, so that you can make your own decisions.

Organisations differ from each other in terms of their structure and ownership. Companies exist in either public sector or private sector.

Private sector organisations can be any of the following: Sole proprietorship, Private limited (Ltd), Public limited company (plc), Partnerships, Limited liability partnerships (LLP) or Joint venture etc.

Public sector organisations are government owned and they are funded through government expenditure and taxes. Publicly owned services are allotted budgets, this government budget is then implemented through local councils on a micro level. At the macro level, the budget is decided through the population, age and other statistical measures for the welfare of the society, where improvement is required and where attention is needed. One of the main measures of performance in the public sector is the 3E’s model; Economy, Efficiency and Effectiveness to evaluate and compare the entity’s performance with the other organisations providing the same or similar service (Benchmarking). The public service is scrutinised for constantly improving idea and the reason that generating profit is not the main objective hence, the 3E’s are used to assess the service.

Nationalisation of public services is a process through which, privately owned services are transformed into publicly owned services. Industries which are usually subject to nationalisation are the health, transport, railway and educational services etc. Nationalisation often results in fair pricing, free of charge services as in schools and the NHS. The action may be the result of a nation’s attempt to consolidate power, resentment of foreign ownership of industries representing significant importance to local economies or to prop up failing industries. Although many failing industries are privatised to save them and provide better but, in most cases expensive service.

Looking at the historical statistics many of the services have been nationalised in the post-war era 1946-1950s in the UK, bank of England in 1946, railways in 1948. The main advantages of nationalisation are the centrally controlled services for better planning and coordination. It can be further considered that the nationally funded and planned railway network will help to control pollution and congestion. Other advantages include economies of scale and efficient supply. Nationalisation of the major services such as the healthcare, schools, transport and energy sector play a key role in the living standard of the general population. On the contrary, the privatisation has taken place especially in late 70’s and throughout 1980’s. The failings in the state-owned industries and services has called for the need for these industries to be privatised.

Public sector organisations often find it challenging to meet the demand and consistency of the service, these challenges are the results of growing population, restricted budget and few means of raining investment. The management of these services can often be trapped in a onerous routine lacking innovation and motivation to continually perform as expected and meet targets. Privatisation results in availability of finance and efficient use of resources linked with reward schemes and incentives.

Below Figure 1 shows the view of the locals and which services should be run in public sector or private sector taken from YouGov survey of May 2017. This shows that the public is in favour of 10 out of the 13 services to be publicly owned in this survey. Only banks, airlines and telephone and internet providers should be privately owned in public’s view and latest research show that there are four services that the public is especially keen to have in public hands: the police (87%), the NHS (84%), the armed forces (83%) and schools (81%).

(YouGov, Nationalisation vs Privatisation: the public view)

Figure 1

Stakeholders are people or organisations affected by an entity. The grid below shows the Mendelow’s power/interest matrix (Kaplan Stakeholder Analysis)

The Mendelow’s matrix maps the stakeholders who hold key positions and affect the decision making of the entity in grid D, the stakeholders who must be kept satisfied in grid C, the stakeholders in grid B should be kept informed and stakeholders in grid A require minimum effort. Considering the NHS, we can identify these six groups affected and their relative position in the Mendelow’s matrix

Private GPs operate independently but some however, do share reports on patients’ database. However, if NHS fails they might move along the matrix also resulting in higher market share of health services.

The news agency and media have to be informed regarding the new laws and legal framework and any other highlighted issues such as low pay for staff, so they need to be kept informed.

The NHS operates by employing doctor and nurses, patients are the users of the service and all major changes brought to the NHS affect them, so they are considered among stakeholders that need to be satisfied.

The two stakeholders’ group are considered key players in the NHS. Government passes laws and regulates the NHS while, the big pharma develops new profitable medicines to profit.

Having given a simple background and structure to what NHS represents for the entire country, how it’s run and for whom. Let’s look at the articles below, whether it is still a fully public sector body!

The articles listed below are the main reasons why the NHS is suffering, how the taxpayers’ money is being misappropriated and misused. When you read the articles, you will find that a lot of the contracts for NHS are being tendered to private companies. When those companies operating for profit get involved internally in NHS and take over services that are being then provided to the public. A conflict of interest arises, where the aim for those companies is to maximise their profits too, aside providing a benchmarked service. This leads to taxpayers’ money (government spending) to be wasted excessively. This is what is happening, and I am trying to give you a breakdown for how this money is accounted. How the money flows and whose hands does it end up in!

They say when something fishy is going on, follow the money. The money trail at NHS shows that it has been starved of much needed funds in the last 9 years of Tory rule, in the name of austerity. Instead the costs to NHS have only further increased by outsourcing to private companies. Essentially the service to the end user is still the same in monetary value terms (i.e. how much the patient pays for the NHS and mental health service). Therefore, these increased costs clearly represent the amount of taxpayers’ money that is being misused!

I have only attached two articles for the sake of simplicity and to highlight what is happening! The internet and information is all out there, if you want to try to find out the truth. The truth is, the public is never told the proper and real truth.

The Guardian: The view on NHS privitisation and £92bn pounds question

Independent: NHS privitisation

References

http://kfknowledgebank.kaplan.co.uk/KFKB/Wiki%20Pages/Mendelow%27s%20matrix.aspx

Nationalisation

http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Business_economics/Nationalisation.html

Nationalisation vs Privatisation: the public view

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/05/19/nationalisation-vs-privatisation-public-view/