I think he may mean people with doctorates in things like “Economics of Privatisation” are in charge!
“You may be interested to see what my local MP Hugo Swire has to say about the NHS Bill and the mythical additional “£10billion”. Do doctors feel as though they are in “operational control for the day-to-day running of services”? I retype his letter here in full:
“Dear Cllr Dr Gardner, Thank you for your email dated 23 November.
I believe that the proposed NHS bill would be the wrong approach to improving the NHS. In my view, giving operational control for the day-to-day running of services to doctors was the right decision as they have the best understanding of their patients and local needs.
The Government has actively supported the NHS’ own plan for the future. that is why it is providing the additional £10 billion of investment per annum in real terms by 2020/21 – compared to 2014/15. Yours sincerely……H Swire”
East Devon Watch 
“Liar Swire, your pants are on fire”
The fantasy that the government has given £10bn to the NHS has been comprehensively debunked by the Health Select Committee, the National Audit Office and the UK Statistics Authority, who say that the real figure is closer to £4bn than £10bn.
But even £4bn is not to be sneezed at, so why hasn’t the £10bn that Hugo lies about or the £4bn real money translated into better NHS services? Why do we instead have most hospitals being in an ordinary crisis with some hospitals being in an extraordinary crisis?
The answer is also public knowledge – the costs of running the “market” for NHS services (i.e. administration and profit margins etc.) has been estimated at between a conservative £10bn and £30bn PER YEAR – more than enough money to fix the NHS if it was put into front-line services rather than being squandered on administration of a “market”. An NHS “market” cannot and does not work because:
1. Market forces only work when services can be allowed to fail. In the case of public services like the NHS (or essential infrastructure like electricity or water or gas), you cannot allow competition to push prices down to the point that companies fail – because people will die (or for utilities daily life will grind to a halt). And if companies cannot be allowed to fail then market forces do not apply and they have no incentive to be more efficient than a publicly owned service – they just take the profits anyway.
2. Market forces only work in our favour in a market where Supply exceeds Demand. In a market where Demand exceeds Supply, you simply get increased prices and bigger profits for the private health companies like Virgin Health who can charge what they want.
What we are seeing here are the results of Conservative Party dogma not based on reality and hidden agendas which are pushed through using smarmy sounding names like “Clinical Commissioning Groups” (administrative overhead), “Success Regime” (cost cutting hatchet people parachuted in to force through cost-cutting measures which are half-baked, dangerous proposals without clinical evidence of either effectiveness or safety) – and in other fields “Academy Schools” (privatisation) etc. etc.
But of course, the Conservative Party is funded by large corporations and rich individuals, so is it any wonder that they are privatising left, right and centre for the benefits of themselves and their friends?
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