Take action to stop our NHS being disintegrated this year

5 January 2021

How to oppose further NHS privatisation before the deadline of midnight January 8th!

1) Go to the NHS 'Integrated Care Systems' survey, (by scrolling to the bottom of the page) making sure to say you're a 'member of the public' or 'patient' (they're the same thing to us!) and that you're responding as an individual, NOT on behalf of an organisation. 

2) Answer questions 4, 5, 6 and 7 using the template questions responses from Keep Our NHS Public here! We think it's really crucial that thousands of people respond to this, saying why you think a reeorganisation into 'Integrated Care Systems' will downsize and reduce the capacity of our NHS. Then you're done - thank you so much.

Want more information, or to personalise your response?

Here are some key reasons why 'Integrated Care Systems' are bad news for OUR NHS in England (and for all the UK long-term)

In 2021, Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson have promised to bring in legislation that will hand over the current organisation of NHS regions to something called 'Integrated Care Systems'. These plans will lead to more of our health services being handed over to private companies. But how?

  • These new bodies will commission health services for an area, but they could have private companies sitting on their boards.  The bodies have been criticised for encouraging under treatment or rationing of services, as members of the board (which could include private companies) will get to keep any money they don't spend, and they will bring an area under tight financial controlsAll of this sounds familiar right? More private involvement, more contracts to private companies and less funding for the NHS to look after people so that they need other, private options.
  • After a particularly bad year of private companies with no experience getting huge contracts and failing us completely (but serving their shareholders well), the move to ICS's will even remove public contract regulations so organisations aren't judged on their previous track records, or have to follow labour standards. 
  • While key experts say there will be a reduction of 'accountability and democratic oversight' over our NHS, what's even more concrete and worrying for some is that there is discussion of 'sharing' the 'rewards' with private companies. This means money that could be spent on health services will be leaked as profits to private companies.  There is also the likelihood that much bigger, long-term contracts covering entire areas could be given to multi-national companies, as opposed to the multiple smaller and shorter term contracts given currently.

Want to read more about this?

Keep Our NHS Public have been keeping on top of these developments for years. Here are some great articles you can read.

Dangerous NHS restructuring to go ahead despite Covid

Keep Our NHS Public's analysis of what lies behind the "Integrating Care" proposals

NHS England pushes for “integration” … but not as we know it

We can't let them get away with us. Please spend 5 minutes responding to their survey on ICS now, using Keep Our NHS Public's model response.

Do you believe in public services for people not profit?

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Comments

Diane Margolis replied on Permalink

I am an expat American and know how venal and ruinous a private health-care system is.

People here do not realise that people in the US sometimes have to sell their homes to pay their medical bills,

or declare bankruptcy, or simply go without treatment.

One of the reasons I wanted to live in this country, which I believed to be more civilised. Is it?

Simon Hill replied on Permalink

Hopefully NHS wont stand for in the future No Health Service.

GILL ROSS STRONG replied on Permalink

The NHS must be rebuilt and refunded as a public service. This Pandemic has shown how vital it is and how grossly undefunded it has been.

Mark Cameron replied on Permalink

They have to listen -,they are a disgrace and should be ashamed of the way they treat/ ignore/ destroy our great in spite of not because of this endless Tory regime. So disheartening

Bernard Harper replied on Permalink

The Tories have never believed in a NHS their words of support are pure rhetoric and fail to fund the service properly so that their rich friends can profit from privatising services

Jamie Wallace replied on Permalink

We need and want a Public Health Service . There must be no part of it put out to tender to private firms!

John Taylor replied on Permalink

If COVID-19 has shown anything it is what great public service the NHS is and how incompetent this government is.

Elly Corcoran replied on Permalink

We have to fight any selling off of our NHS. As been mentioned before it is only because with have the system we have is that we can possibly survive this terrible virus and anything else that is required to look after all of us from birth to grave. I am aware as so many of you are what happens in the USA when it comes to people suffering with cancer or any life threatening issues, you pay or you die! This government is only in power for a short time, no way sell what is so precious to us or suffer the consequences.

Sylvia Ann Jenkins replied on Permalink

The NHS was conceived to give health care to everyone from cradle to grave, we must not go down the road of the US system thje NH BELONGSto the people and is not for sale

Robert J. Cormack replied on Permalink

The public have been paying for the NHS since its inception.

It must not be sold to make a profit from the nations sick.

Annette Gamble replied on Permalink

This government is only interested in money, Not the welfare of the people.

simon shepherd replied on Permalink

The NHS must be free at the point of need for everyone and provided on a not-for-profit basis’ not to be skimmed by spivs.

Lesley Kettlewell replied on Permalink

The millions of ££s already wasted on cronies of Govt. members is disgusting and criminal. All money for public health should be channelled via the NHS - that's their job, to look after the Health Service, it's what they do well. They know what's required and that it certainly doesn't need to take account of stakeholders in private companies.

John Bailey replied on Permalink

The NHS should be kept funded by tax and free at the point of need. It should not be offered to private investors and for profit-making companies.

Tom replied on Permalink

We need to bring this evil right wing corrupt government down !!!

Tarlochan Kaliroy replied on Permalink

Healthcare is a right and the profit motive has no place in the NHS; the internal market, a parasite inbeded in the NHS, for pseudo improvements in delivery of services, needs to be ripped out to allow the NHS to heal itself to deliver healthcare to all and sundry freely at the point of need.

Peter EHLERS replied on Permalink

The NHS is a unique service for the health and wellbeing of all in the UK, and it must be kept that way for the sake and benefits of all future generations of this nation!!

Jon Brody replied on Permalink

ICS is a scourge on our society and needs to be stopped.

Debra Sneade replied on Permalink

Keep fighting to keep our NHS in Public hands

our NHS is not for Profit greedy companies!!

Patrick Owen replied on Permalink

The government does not have an electoral mandate to privatise the NHS. It is doing so by stealth and introducing powers to enter into trade agreements by executive diktat avoiding Parliamentary approval and scrutiny. The government's failed neo liberal free market agenda has crippled the public realm at the expense of shareholder profit and must be stopped now.

christine Hartley replied on Permalink

Health service should be free for all. If people want to pat for treatment it should be done through. Nhs so that profits can be plough back in to the system!

Jenny Howell replied on Permalink

Corrupt contracts to the current Government's friends have been the running theme of 2020. They are not to be trusted with our healthcare.

Elizabeth Chris... replied on Permalink

Our NHS Is for the benefit of the people not for profiteers.

Martin Moss replied on Permalink

The outsourced response to the pandemic has been atrociously badly managed and has clearly demonstrated that the current government wants to give money to its cronies and is not bothered about saving lives.

Roger Plenty replied on Permalink

the last year has shown that only a public service, funded by taxes, whose duty is to serve the public, is best equipped to save lives. The first duty of private companies is to make money for their shareholders. That is a completely wrong approach.

Jeremy Millington replied on Permalink

Just add up what the average person gets in a lifetime from the NHS. Remember what they do for you and recognise the problems are mainly caused by business practices based on competition and profit.

James Parks replied on Permalink

Something for a discussion on Question Time I think with Hancock on the panel and watch him squirm!

James Hutchins replied on Permalink

The Tories keep saying they are putting more money into the NHS, but are they? Or are they just paying private companies to supply NHS services?

Susan Brown replied on Permalink

This present Tory government must be held to account for their poor handling of the Coronavirus pandemic. The NHS needs to be funded properly after years of austerity.

Julia Parry-Jones replied on Permalink

The NHS must NOT be privatised in any way, there will always be those who need what we have at present , treatment , free to all at the point of need.

I will never support any kind of back door change to that , people Die all too often in countries with inhumane , health ‘care ‘ systems . People deserve far better !

Jacky Apps replied on Permalink

Yes lives matter Boris keep your hands off our national health

Michael Stanley replied on Permalink

The NHS as a concept and a public institution is the envy of the world. It cannot afford further disruption through more unjustified privatisation.

Alun Llewelyn replied on Permalink

I was born in January 1940 just a few years before the NHS was born. And so I grew up with the NHS and felt secure. But then Thatcher came along and Labour Tone Blair undermined the public NHS and we will have to take all our energies to save and reverse the privatisation that has already occurred.

Dave Voisey replied on Permalink

The NHS has already been privatised! The NHS symbol is little more than a symbol of approval like the old UK "kitemark" or the EU "C" symbol. The money that goes into shareholders pockets should stay within the NHS.

Sarah Gallagher replied on Permalink

We the people own the NHS through paying our taxes. This government have forgotten they are just the caretakers, they do not own it to be able to give it away or sell it. We need to keep fighting for what is ours

Martin Sookias replied on Permalink

Unlike the US, making profits out of vulnerable patients should have no place in this country.

John Gray replied on Permalink

The NHS must at all costs remain in the Public Domain,

Privatisation or even Contracting with Private Sector Organisations has never been in any awy effective and has always resulted in heavy financial losses.

No matter what the Political persuasion the current plans to in any way privatise the NHS must be resisted!

Annie Griffiths replied on Permalink

Our National Health Service is the last great thing about our society. It is ours. We pay for it and it must remain in public hands utterly and completely.

Sheila Fox replied on Permalink

I have needed hospital treatment over the past couple of years and my husband has had cancer twice. I also worked for the NHS for 10 years ad saw on a daily basis how the Tories deliberately underfunded the NHS. This wonderful service should be kept in public hands, not used as a cash cow for the Tories and their friends in private health companies.

Ken Wilde replied on Permalink

The NHS should ALWAYS be kept out of private companies grasp, as the obscene amounts of money wasted on PPE plus track and trace companies during this pandemic has shown.

susan Lane replied on Permalink

Our health service is being privatised by stealth .

It needs to stop . Fat cats getting fatter at the cost of the NHS it has to stop .

Jane Dew replied on Permalink

The National Health was formed in '47, just after l was born. Formed for the health of the Nation, not to line the pockets of international corporations.

The idea of a government,elected by the nation for the nation, have the idiocy to try to turn the health of the nation into big business is horrendous.

How dare they sell off what belongs to all of us!!!

Colin Carr replied on Permalink

The NHS must be publicly run and publicly funded. Private companies operate for profit, not as a service.

Joe Stoner replied on Permalink

The present pandemic is proof , if any more were needed, that the market cannot produce a response to save lives, and that only a Public Health Service, not for profit, funded by central taxation will provide for the health needs of a population.

Stephen Clarke replied on Permalink

There is, by all evidence, no need to privatise except as a means of diverting public money into private (and probably tax-exiled) bank accounts.

The NHS is uniquely financially and humanly efficient. I have never met a doctor who felt the need for 'reform' in this direction, not one.

Anonymous replied on Permalink

this government will sell our souls for more profits for themselves and there friends

Marilyn Hill replied on Permalink

We must do everything we can to preserve our NHS the way it is but of course make it even better

kenneth john mckay replied on Permalink

this government will sell our souls in the name of profit for their friends and themselves

B.Ecuyer replied on Permalink

Last year saw how lavish spending on private companies produced catastrophic incompetence and organisational chaos. Where NHS had to bail out Test and Trace fo mention but one area. There should be no role for the private sector in our health service. Too much NHS money has already been syphoned off. Properly funded we have a truly world beating service.

Josephine Green replied on Permalink

We need our NHS

Nigel Canter replied on Permalink

The NHS is for all, not the profit of a few.

George Gornall replied on Permalink

The NHS is funded through our taxation and national insurance and free at the point of use. It is not the property of private money for private profit and must never become a privatised asset to be sold to the highest bidder. Or as with our government, given away to the friends of the conservatives and Tory donors.

John David Seymour replied on Permalink

The aim of the NHS is to give a service to the public, free at source. This must be run as a not for profit organisation with the treatment of patients as its aim with absolutely NO BUSINESS MODEL nor any outside business involvement. The cost of the best possible treatment for the patient must be born by public taxation. The moment outside business is involved private fortunes can be made out of public funds, proved by reports of PPI suppliers making huge profits, as reported in the national press.

Sarah Clews replied on Permalink

People before profit. Save the NHS.

Diana Smith replied on Permalink

The free health service is best thing we have in Britain. Where would be be in this pandemic without them. Just look at the deaths in America.

PETER MCCABE replied on Permalink

We must do everything to protect the NHS from this Tory government

Pat Corkish replied on Permalink

Don't keep privatising the NHS

Jean Malcolm replied on Permalink

Having just had a vivid demonstration of the failure of attempting to use private contractors for significant health care activities it is clear that health care has to be one of the services for the community organised and run on their behalf by a National Health Servcie.

Tom Peckham replied on Permalink

The NHS is effectively privatised. The GP practices are independent businesses and so many hospital operations and services are farmed out to [rivate companies. It is all too late.

Mike replied on Permalink

The NHS is owned by us.

Dont invite companies to own any of what rightfully belongs to us.

John Lewthwaite replied on Permalink

This piecemeal approach must stop. Look at Langley!

We need a Royal Commission to look at the future of the NHS

Mick O'Neill-Duff replied on Permalink

The NHS belongs to the people and not this so called Government who cannot wait to get their grubby hands on the public treasured asset Our NHS. The NHS is not for sale.

Ann Marshall replied on Permalink

This is our NHS, I paid my NI to keep it going for years, the people like myself couldn't afford private insurance, bad enough having to pay for my dental costs as I can't get to see an dentist. Hands of not for sale..

Hazel Wilkinson replied on Permalink

This corrupt government is making me sick

Tybulus Tyburn replied on Permalink

The NHS is the people's health service and not available for privateers wishing for a quick profit

Tom Faulkner replied on Permalink

We need the NHS to be as transparent and accountable as possible and this integration will involve more secrecy and less democratic influence over the NHS. It should not be part of any trade deal with the USA.

Trevor Rigby replied on Permalink

The NHS is one of the finest things this country has ever created. Instead of breaking it up,it should be properly financed so that it is able to cope with the next pandemic.

Kim Rogers replied on Permalink

The NHS must be kept intact, no privatising it!! Leave our NHS alone.

Diana Hill replied on Permalink

Please keep fighting and involving the general public.

Fatima zahraa M... replied on Permalink

Hello

Happy new year

People have a right to have a PUBLIC health service

Please help the people that are in need

If I were you I would have DONE something about this ASAP because I feel responsible for the people that are

in need

If you want the people of the country That your living in To be happy everyday I’m sure you would Want to save the NHS asap And make people happy and satisfied

me as a young teenager would like to have a public NHS health service in this country that I’m living in

Please do something as soon as you read my message

My sister has a heart problem and we don’t WANT a PRIVATE health service in this country

I want you to help people and support people and make people happy instead of people becoming upset with the private health SERVICE that their being provided with

PLease help us and save the NHS ASAP

i hope you And your family have a successful year ahead

I hope you and your family have a year full of happiness and joy

Bob Lawson replied on Permalink

It seems the NHS is being set up to have its assets stripped to the benefit of big business, Dan Poulter, GP, MP was instrumental in selling Bio Products, an NHS asset, for £200m to Bain Capital, an American outfit who promised to invest in it... They sold Bio Products about three years later, to Creat, a Chinese company... For £800m

Now, who benefited most? NHS? Bain? Creat? Anyone else? Why was Matt Hancock happy to be seen in a paid for feature (advertorial) in the Evening Standard for Babylon Health's "GP at Hand" app. Babylon's run by Ali Parsa, the guy who thought he could run Hinchingbrooke hospital, Cambridge. He couldn't, gave up, and got £500,000 for his failure... Then there's the overpayment for PPE, the paying for stuff that never arrived, and the failure to distribute stock efficiently. Even the warehousing of stock is privatized...

Thrust Conservatives as far as you can throw them.

Carol Cooke replied on Permalink

Keep up your excellent work

Stanley Copland replied on Permalink

Tories stop yOur underhand privatisation of the NHS.

Our Doctors & Nurses are doing a wonderful job.

The British people will hate you for evermore if you steal it from them

Peter Horitz replied on Permalink

No to further privatisation of any sort and make our NHS wholly state funded again

David Harrison replied on Permalink

The NHS is for people not profit.

Edward Davies replied on Permalink

As Clive Amos succinctly puts it - ' free at the point of need for everyone and provided on a not-for-profit basis'. Full stop - nothing to add to this or the original Beveridge Report.

Robin collingwood replied on Permalink

I’m with you.

James Willis replied on Permalink

It’s not for sale!

Linda Hollingsworth replied on Permalink

This government is privatizing our NHS. We have to keep fighting to stop them.

Edwin Picton replied on Permalink

Public ownership is vital to protect us all from the destruction of the democratic processes of our country by greedy corporate and corrupt cabals.

shane helsby replied on Permalink

keep the greedy fat cats off our N H S

William Lee replied on Permalink

This government's decision making process allowing private companies to operate independently of the NHS for profit is proof that the pandemic has spiralled out of control. The NHS should have been allowed to control track and trace procedures and full lockdown procedures should have been undertaken sooner instead of the way it has to suit the corrupted science given by the government to cover up their inability and incompetence to deal with the pandemic properly

Ian Stalker replied on Permalink

We must keep the NHS in public hadns and take back controal of any services already privatised. ~Th nation's health is too mimportant to be run for profit.

Peter Stock replied on Permalink

Let’s keep it, doing remarkably well at the moment considering the pressure they are under !

Trevor Holloway replied on Permalink

Health care should be a fundamental human right. Profiting from suffering is immoral. The further privitisation of the NHS should be a major issue in the media but we are being let down by the lack of honest journalists.

BESS MILES-DUNCAN replied on Permalink

It is important for us all.

Suzie Litton-Wood replied on Permalink

The National Health Service is owned by the citizens of the United Kingdom. It was set up as a pact between the government and the working people of this country to provide a public health service for all classes and in return the British people would contribute a percentage of their wages each week/month to enable this to happen. So when did anyone ask the British people to end this pact. When did the British people indicate they were in favour of introducing a third party into this relationship? And that this third party would be wanting to make a healthy profit from our Public Health Service, taking money out of that service in payment for their 'role' in this threesome. There seems to be a gross imbalance in this relationship...two partners putting money in, while the third takes it all out, regardless of whether or not there is a profit at the end of each financial year!! Our National Health Service was never intended to provide shareholders with large unearned dividends at the end of each year. It was set up specifically to provide as much money as the service raise, to ensure that working people had access to the best medical treatment the 'pact' could give them. I for one Do NOT want to upset that equilibrium by including a Private Sector partner into the two sides partnership, as agreed to by our parents & grandparents in 1947/8.

Carole replied on Permalink

We must keep the NHS true to fits original principles. The NHS should be funded by the government through taxes and otherwise free to everyone at the point of need. What the Johnson government is proposing threatens to endanger the future good health of the nation, for profit.

Russell Van der Wert replied on Permalink

The fiasco that is “Track and trace” the” vaccine tzar”

The singular failure of the private sector to achieve anything they were set to do ( mainly the easy bits) in this pandemic has shocked and infuriated me .

Even the recruitment of volunteers and “returners”

was an exercise in allowing private companies to “take the money and run “leaving the local NHS public services to pick up the pieces .I volunteered in the last week in March as a GP returner after 6 months of repeatedly competing the same data sets I was still not engaged .

Only when my own gp faculty and CCG became involved was I helped and within 5 weeks was back in harness .

The Conservative administration hates to see anti public sector body succeed and years of defunding , underfunding of public bodies particular their last “ sacred cow” The NHS has brought it to a brink running on a wing , a prayer and tons of good will.

Seeing the disaster of the Covid response across the Atlantic suggest we don’t need any lessons from a private health system.Sorry this is such a long entry !!

Janet Sivorn replied on Permalink

NHS is a great British achievement and needs to be sustained for access by all

ANNE DUNLOP replied on Permalink

NHS NEEDS TO BE KEPT IN PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND FREE TO ALL CITIZENS AND NOT BROKEN UP AND SOLD TO PRIVATE ORGANISATIONS. NHS TEST AND TRACE WAS OUTSOURCED TO PRIVATE COMPANIES LIKE SERCO ETC IT WAS NOT NHS, MISLEADING TO PUBLIC

David Jones replied on Permalink

We need to move back to a public integrated NHS free for all and away from a public-private mish-mash.

Avril Van Reyk replied on Permalink

Our NHS is unique and it’s ideals are something to be very proud of. Free healthcare at the point of delivery for all who are eligible is precious and should be preserved. Any other private/insurance based system only EVER favours the wealthy and advantaged. Any government

must properly fund the NHS.

Lauren Daniels replied on Permalink

Despite my disappointment in people when it came to leaving the EU, I can move on and hope this isn't going to be as bad as I thought it would be. That being said lets not drop the ball and watch the government closely. Our PMs would sell us out for hundreds of throusands, not millions. Don't let them slowly privatise the NHS.

Sheilagh Walsh replied on Permalink

The NHS must be kept free for everyone, and not vitiated by interests of profit.

Rosemary Johnson replied on Permalink

Already private companies have taken over previously public services. When I was 8 I got my first glasses from a NHS clinic, I also saw the dentist there. My children did the same albeit in a different town my grandchildren go to a dental practice and get their glasses from specsavers. Dentists used to deal with dental hygiene but now you have to pay a hygienist on top of the NHS dental charge. Chiropody is another area that is effectively privatised

Ann Catherine Walker replied on Permalink

must be provided on a not for profit basis and free at point uf use

Sarah Gale replied on Permalink

The NHS is our most beloved institution. It has been there for my family throughout our illnesses - cancer, brain surgery and heart attacks. It bestowed my father with 5 more years of life and then a peaceful and dignified death.

Nye Bevan’s legacy must be upheld at all costs - the NHS is the green light at the end of the dock and a beacon of hope for all who can not afford healthcare. It must not be privatised. Stop PFI now!

John replied on Permalink

Common Law & Constitution is the real Law. Article 61 Magna Carta. Practical Lawful Dissent No Contract, I do not Consent. Consensus Facit Legem

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