An open letter to Matt Hancock on the Private Healthcare announcement

It better not be for profit!

To assess the absence of "profit" the full costs and full income streams need to be compared. Many companies apparently make no profit - but only because their costs are deliberately inflated by payments to directors and shareholders. Open book arrangements are needed here.

Our demand here - about showing us what's in the deal -is just the kind of basic accountability and open-ness which we need to sustain in our democratic society. And the ideas about keeping our NHS Public are also about accountability. They're also of course about making sure private companies don't end up - immediately or in the future - profiting from this crisis. I've just registered as a volunteer with the RVS; I'm not expecting to gain anything from that apart from a sense that I'm acting as a good citizen.

Provision of Health care is not something that should ever be driven by profit. Universal Health Care should be (is) a Human Right.

This is OUR NHS, you are not allowed to change it without our permission, Mr Hancock. One more thing: you were elected as an MP to do our bidding so remember, the electorate voted for you to be their representative. A representative should represent the wishes of the electorate and not further their personal interests. We, the electorate, want an NHS owned by the public not a “health service” owned by a private business concern - forget that at your peril...

Tories for once tell the truth.

We the people of this country did not give the government permission to sell any part of the NHS and demand we take it back and finance the NHS as it should be not cutting the finance all the time

This crisis lays bare the damage already done to the NHS through years of surreptitious privatisation. Now is the time to throw out all private companies and rebuild a properly funded, fully publicly owned, well-run NHS again.

Private health providers should not be able to profit out of this. There should be legislation in place that stipulates that under certain circumstances, such as this, private health providers MUST work with the NHS with NO financial implication involved other cover the true cost of the service involved. Where organisations are found to make a profit out if this sort of situation, they MUST be penalised. The NHS is clearly struggling and it is the responsibility of all healthcare providers to provide a service to those who need it.

The NHS....Is the best health service in the world.......yet the Governments have underfunded it for years.....even whenin the declared No one National threat. has been declared to be .."A Global Pandemic." The Nuclear Threat is secondary yet gets £205 billion...with out asking. We need an end of stupid policies like. The ending of student nurses bursaries....which has caused an awful manpower crisis, totally predictable.

It is high time took good care of our NHS.... in the Nations Interest

The NHS has been paid for by all working people and should be for their benefit not for private profiteering.

The Tories have already put millions of our taxes and NI which should be going to OUR NHS and not lining the pockets of the Tory mps with shares in these companies.

The NHS must stay in the public domain, almost a third has already been privatised and must be given back. The government is given money by us and MUST use it for our benefit not for their own profit.

Maybe one good thing that will come out of this corona virus emergency will be that the government finally realises that privatisation has decreased the capacity of the NHS by, as you said, taking money for providing profitable services while leaving the NHS to deal with costly and more difficult cases. I can only hope that the need to unite all services in this crisis will lead to a full public NHS afterwards.

Fund the NHS according to its needs as a comprehensive, cradle to grave, national service. It's a question of priorities. It was not established to make profits for private companies but to provide free health care for all. Abolish prescription charges!

Over 17,000 NHS beds have gone since 2010, meaning patients were already being sent to private hospitals for treatment. The NHS should not be paying the private health companies.

Jpohnsons first priority will always be his fat cat business chums

More care for more people is needed

Our NHS has been subjected to privatisation by stealth. You are in power because of the lies and the secrecy . Please show honest leadership and give us back our NHS as it was created by be an Bevan in 1948. Anything less than this will cause death and hardship for millions of people.... We do not want an American style health care system

After this crisis it is obvious that all privatisation of the NHS should stop...that there is no place for private health care/privatisation of a public service because as is obvious from this emergency the only way that public health can be protected is through a publicly funded free at the point of use health care service that is based on clinical need and not one's ability to pay.

And of course the dreadful immigration fee of now £600+ should be scrapped.

Government is telling the people that we are on a 'war time' footing - and people are certainly responding by giving up on many of the activities that make their lives enjoyable & rewarding . We all despise the stories of profiteering that deny decent folk from having their fair share .

Surely , after all the sacrifices the Great British public is making , it's not too much to ask that medical companies TRULY forego the profit motive during this dire emergency . Let's not forget - in war times requisition of services is mandatory . We all need to know that private health care companies are operating within the spirit of community good .

Dear Matt Hancock please work with the we own it team to beat this Coronavirus and properly funded nhs Thank You

Yes, every dot, every comma - YOU are here to serve US, the people of the UK, not private providers. As a taxpayer, I want full TRANSPARENCY and an end to privatisation by stealth. I've already seen the negative effects of this for patients in the job dealing with health complaints.

For too long the NHS has been privatised by the backdoor giving contracts to private companies.

Private hospitals drain the NHS. It is imperative that the sacrifice they are now making is free and doesn’t take vital money from the public purse when the opportunity to rebuild our country comes after the end of the present crisis.

I absolutely agree. No private company should be making profits out of this crisis. The Prime Minister stands every day in front of a banner saying ‘The NHS’. After the current crisis is over let the government continue to stand behind the NHS by properly funding it and stopping and reversing the privatisation of our health services.

No comments. I agree with what you have said to the Health Secretary.

Govt is elected by the people.For the benefit of the people.The people own the NHS not the politicians or Big business. TAKE NOTE. THE PEOPLE'S BUS PERIOD

Transparency has always be paramount to nurses Drs an£ the NHS

We need the Government to be transparent with us too

Keep our NHS public

Support the (NHS) Reinstatement Bill!

Should not have made a deal and just comandeered them it is a national emergency.

The NHS belongs to your citizens and should not be sold off to the highest bidder

Keep our NHS properly funded in all it's parts.

It's been ours for 72 years and it's going to stay that way !

We need everything this government does to be transparent. They have proved themselves untrustworthy. They need to be called to account re their actions on the pandemic and their statistics need to be thoroughly investigated as published numbers are suspect.

Simply,thank you.

I look forward to seeing the NHS properly funded!

The NHS was introduced on my second birthday. My whole family were apparently delighted that they no longer had to pay high rates of cash to see the Doctor. Can you imagine what would happen today if we had had a fee paying health service and Aneuran Bevan came forward with his idea now. He would be slated by much of the press because of its socialist philosophy. We should remember that the introduction of the NHS was opposed by many Tories at the time.

Dick Moody

Nobody should profit from this crisis.

Shareholders must not profit from this.

Whilst communities are forming groups to help people, some others still want to profit, even from people's misfortune.

Come on private hospitals, do your bit.

No profits for privateers, no concessions, no sweetners, no 'understandings'. Resource the public's National Health Service properly.

Our PM is appearing to be on the right track now, but we can't afford to forget that his mantra is still: "Me, The Party, then the Nation". So Yes, v. good news about the private sector chipping in, but we can't afford to trust it, or him.

One can always be redeemed.

All medical facilities in the country must be united in working towards solving this crisis without a profit motive!