How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs

RT @leftfootfwd: How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs: http://bit.ly/kLjSST writes @DanielElton

RT @leftfootfwd: How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs: http://bit.ly/kLjSST writes @DanielElton

RT @leftfootfwd: How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs http://bit.ly/iSM2uA #dontbreakbritain

How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs I Daniel Elton I Left Foot Forward – http://j.mp/miQsMp

RT @DntBreakBritain: RT @leftfootfwd: How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs http://bit.ly/iSM2uA #dontbreakbritain

"@leftfootfwd: How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs: http://t.co/SpQdkrM writes @DanielElton" very worrying

RT @leftfootfwd: How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs: http://bit.ly/kLjSST writes @DanielElton

Competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs argues @DanielElton http://bit.ly/kLjSST

RT @wdjstraw: Competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs argues @DanielElton http://bit.ly/kLjSST

RT @wdjstraw: Competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs argues @DanielElton http://bit.ly/kLjSST

RT @leftfootfwd: How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs: http://bit.ly/kLjSST writes @DanielElton

RT @wdjstraw: Competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs argues @DanielElton http://bit.ly/kLjSST

RT @wdjstraw: Competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs argues @DanielElton http://bit.ly/kLjSST

RT @leftfootfwd: How competition in NHS may push up health costs http://bit.ly/iSM2uA @prateekbuch I know @soclibforum is worried 'bout this

RT @danielelton: RT @leftfootfwd: competition in NHS may push up health costs http://bit.ly/iSM2uA I know @soclibforum is worried 'bout this

RT @wdjstraw: Competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs argues @DanielElton http://bit.ly/kLjSST

Labour introduced private providers in the NHS in 2004.

Why weren’t you complaining then?

How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs: http://bit.ly/kLjSST #ConDemNation

“It may be that in systems based on competition and choice, the lack of expertise on behalf of consumers means that providers can overcharge or charge for treatments which, in all honesty, probably do not have that much chance of working.”

This looks frighteningly plausible to me.

As you say, the fact that GPs play a role in ‘choosing’ appropriate treatments should help; but it certainly doesn’t solve the problem. We could find that patients start ‘choosing’ one GP over another partly on the basis of their perceived willingness to give patients the treatment they’d ‘choose’ for themselves – antibiotics for colds, homeopathic remedies for migraines, etc. – leading to a situation in which GPs could only successfully ‘compete’ for patients by being prepared to waste money on in-demand but inappropriate treatments.

@West4MP on NHS competition, read this by @DanielElton @leftfootfwd http://bit.ly/iSM2uA – food for thought #NHSreform

@1 Competition was not introduced in 2004. It was re-introduced. The 1997 election was carried on a pledge to stop the internal market, but as you point out, it was re-introduced after a few years.

Lots of us did complain, then, and before, and we are complaining now. We got a referendum on a pointless and ineffectual change in the constitution but we are denied a referendum on vast changes to the NHS. Our political overlords know how far to trust us.

To the OP. I am not convinced from those figures. The US is a *totally* different system to ours. What we need is information about UK providers. The government keeps saying that the NHS has declining productivity and quote ONS figures that show a decline of a mere 4% over a decade. (That is neither here nor there.) There are no public productivity figures for the private sector. It should be a requirement that for any private company given an NHS contract they must provide information comparable to the NHS: productivity, HAI data and be fully open to FOI.

What about Germany? They now have a majority private provider system. Their costs have reduced at the same time paitent satisfaction has gone up.

This is one of the many salient reasons why Liberal Democrats are pressing hard for substantial changes to be made to Lansley’s misguided reforms, without which they will not pass through Parliament.

Prateek,

Lib Dems cannot disentangle themselves from this mess that easily. Paul Burstow was and is heavily involved, while Nick Clegg himself signed it off. It’s not simply that the Tories put forward a terrible idea and the Lib Dems ride in on white horses to save the day!

Like most of the population, I imagine, I don’t understand the full implications of the Bill. Lansley’s communication has been poor and the media has been interested solely in lambasting a private sector bogeyman rather than elucidating the key aspects. It can’t simply be ‘public good, private bad’ (or vice versa, for that matter). I don’t care who’s providing the service so long as it is high quality and the government (i.e. the taxpayer) can afford it.

I just hope that the government gets this one right. It’s too important to mess up.

Richard Blogger – OK fair enough…

Ed,

You say,

“What about Germany? They now have a majority private provider system. Their costs have reduced at the same time paitent satisfaction has gone up”

The issue is not one of public vs. private healthcare. Both Germany and France, arguably, have demonstrated much better performance than the NHS and both are predominantly private sector oriented. However, Holland has a virtually exclusive public healthcare system, and consistently has outperformed the former three. The primary distinction between these nations and the UK relates more to a larger investment in healthcare which all three continental nations have committed when compared with the UK investment in the NHS.

Let’s be clear. The Tory elite have never and do not today like the NHS. It stands outside their economic dogma in which the Market and exchange value determine resource allocation. The NHS is founded on collectivist values that they hold in disdain. Allied with the drive to generate large profit for their sponsors, they aim to break the NHS. This is the opportunity they have waited many years to grasp.

Introducing the market to doesn't drive down costs; the state can be the only fair provider of medical services. http://bit.ly/jjjffU

Privatisation may push costs up, not down RT @leftfootfwd: How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs http://bit.ly/iSM2uA

The NHS is too expensive and needs more competition to make it more efficient? No, no it doesn't. http://bit.ly/jjjffU

A key argument against the NHS reforms, competition does not necessarily drive down costs | http://j.mp/miQsMp

RT @leftfootfwd: How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs http://t.co/Wiq23f4

How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs | Left …: It is often repeated that more competition s… http://bit.ly/jlM5wA

Richard Blogger says NHS productivity has fallen a “mere” 4% over 10 years during which productivity should have risen by 28% according to the theories fed into ONS by New Labour. So that is underperformance of 25%! Can you name any private sector company that would still be in business if its productivity had underperformed by 25%? No, I didn’t think so.
I do believe, and have done done since I was in short trousers when the concept was first explained to me, that we should have a taxpayer-funded NHS. My objection is to the utter mess that we now have [one example under New Labour is that I am summoned to my son's school to take him to hospital because he has been injured by one of their thugs and, oh no, a teacher cannot take him (health and safety rules - where were they when the thug picked him up and threw him on the floor as a joke?); when I get there and need to carry him into A&E, I cannot park in the hospital car park because it demands more coins than I have in my purse. At 15 he still weighed less than 8 stone so I could carry him from the nearest residential street (but more often it's the mother who has to pick up the child and sometimes the child weighs more than the mother). Then we had more than a two-hour wait before he was seen by a doctor, so that's four hours. A cold compress applied immediately (and the thug thrown out on his ear) would have resulted in less damage and quicker healing.]
The advantage of competition is that it will show up where some NHS Trusts are performing abominably (see above – access to hospital should not be denied on how many coins you have in your purse when emergencies strike or any other totally irrelevant factor).

How competition in the NHS may push up costs http://fb.me/WE1Wqtji

RT @leftfootfwd: How competition in the NHS may push up healthcare costs http://bit.ly/iSM2uA

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