Many of us will have heard the term Slash, Trash and Privatise. It is the preferred approach of many governments wishing to gain public support for the privatisation of a vital service. And this government is proving to be no different, They are slashing the funding of our NHS then watching the service deteriorate and the public satisfaction grow. Could all the recent talk about the current pressure on A&E units do nothing more than signal to our government that now would be a great time to tell us the NHS is being sold off? The words we use when we discuss the NHS may be the deciding factor.
It is certainly not wrong for members of the public and journalists to talk about the drop in standards of care that many people are now experiencing in the NHS. But unless we talk about why this drop in standards is happening we are failing our precious healthcare service. We need to be outraged by the whole mis-management of our healthcare system first and foremost. A drop in care standards is simply evidence of our Government’s failure to manage the NHS.
We should be able to trust in the Government to find solutions for societal problems, but right now we need to accept we can’t do that.
The problems in the NHS have been manufactured by the people who we elect to work for us. They are unlikely to be surprised by the current crisis and maybe possibly pleased with it. Our Tory Party has been hell-bent on eventually selling-off the whole healthcare service of the UK since the 2010 General Election. They have pulled out every trick they can to hide from the public just how determinedly they have been pursuing the death of our NHS. It can’t be easy to get public support for an action so damaging to society. Even Tory party voters are worried about the current NHS crisis.
So now we need to be prepared. We need to shape a better outcome for the NHS and changing how we talk may help us do just that. We need to always emphasise why problems with our healthcare services exist. We must not take the lazy route that some of our news broadcasters adopted and claim it is simply a matter of increasing funding. We need to talk about how funding is spent. The emphasis must always be on the reasons why care has detiorated. We must arm the population with facts so as their dissatisfaction grows they will not be fobbed off with some erroneous claim about where the solution lies.
The collapse of Carillion should be enough to indicate that the benefits of privatisation are nothing more than fantasy.
