In light of Labour’s failure to seriously tackle the issue of NHS funding in its manifesto, the new plan to give already limited NHS resources to private care homes is confusing. After fifteen years of government cuts to local authority budgets, social care is dominated by private equity companies, which extract billions in profits from the social care system. Handing over NHS money for them makes little economic sense and exacerbates an already major problem.
Research by public ownership campaign group We Own It analyzed more than 72,000 NHS outsourcing contracts worth more than £130 billion and estimated, based on corporate profit margins, that since 2012, private companies have lost £6.7 billion, or £10 million per week, earned from NHS contracts. We Own It activists Delivered this investigation to Wes Streeting’s constituency office on June 17.
For many politicians, privatization is a neutral choice. It doesn’t matter to them who provides a service, as long as they do a good job. But the reality is that privatization ultimately deprives the NHS of much-needed resources.
Labor doesn’t want to make big funding promises. This should make the party more concerned than it currently appears to be about ensuring that NHS money is not diverted to the bottom line.
Johnbosco Nwogbo
Lead campaigner, We Own It
It is good to see ideas from political parties on how to reduce pressure on hospital beds and A&E departments. But the Nuffield Trust website states that in the period 2012 to 2023 there will be a decrease in the number of nursing home beds from 11.3 to 9.3 per 100 people over 75. The trust also confirms that recent data on delayed discharges from hospitals indicates that a large number of people are waiting – as would be expected – in a permanent place in a care home.
Changing the ownership or allocation of some care home beds from the care home owner or manager to the NHS will not increase overall stock. It could accelerate the pace of hospital discharges, but would that come at the expense of people struggling to survive in their own homes and needing care home admission?
Problems in the social care sector need to be addressed as much as those in the NHS – the two sectors are closely linked and interdependent, and should be seen as one integrated health and social care system.
John Harvey
Hayfield, Derbyshire
Oh great – more plaster! What about all the people who are not hospital patients but are waiting for a place in care homes? We need a thorough overhaul of the entire healthcare system, not more tinkering with the margins. If not now, on the brink of a Labor government with a solid working majority, then when?
Rodney Smith
Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire