GORDON Brown made clear yesterday that his intention was to continue with the Blairite NHS counter-revolution. The message was that there were ‘no no-go areas’ as far as NHS reform, ie privatisation, is concerned.
Brown stated that the issue was no longer what the NHS could do for you but what you could do for the NHS by helping yourself and your family with self treatment.
The millions of the elderly are a very expensive item as far as NHS treatment is concerned.
In the new order the elderly and the chronically sick will be caring for themselves at home, engaging in self treatment and in contact by phone with a doctor.
As far as the younger element is concerned, the issue is getting rid of the bad lifestyles that produce the need for expensive NHS treatments for obesity and drunkenness.
This will be taking place in the context of a mass closure programme of District General Hospitals, and with it mass sackings of junior doctors and nurses.
Brown’s future NHS is no NHS at all. It will be a cut and closed service as far as hospital treatment is concerned with the changes that he is proposing made not to enhance people’s health, but to slash billions from the NHS budget so that it can be handed over to the military to buy more wmds.
The main soundbite was: ‘The NHS of the future will not be the NHS of the passive patient – the NHS of the future will be one of patient power, patients engaged and taking greater control over their own health and their healthcare too.’
They will be treating themselves in their own homes, it will be a case of out of sight being out of mind. They are going to be left to die at home.
Brown continued to orate about the ‘new’ NHS, that the issue was ‘not what it can do for you but what, empowered with new advice, support and information, you can do for yourself and your family. . .
‘There are 15 million people in England with long-term conditions ranging from asthma to heart disease. Many are already taking more active roles in their own care – for example, by using new technologies that allow remote monitoring of their condition via the internet or on the telephone.
‘And earlier this year on a visit to Southampton hospital, I met Robbie who was managing his treatment for a heart condition from home, monitoring his own blood pressure and weight, and feeding his results back to his doctor.’
Let us hope that Robbie never misdiagnoses his condition!
Brown continued: ‘So over the next few years we will give 100,000 people with long-term conditions the opportunity to manage their care in this way as “expert patients”.’ The number of expert patients is then to be increased to 15 million!
The message is we don’t need hospitals at all, and that we can sack thousands of consultants, junior doctors and nurses – no problem.
You are entitled to ask just why did we need expert consultants in the first place, if the answer to the NHS crisis lies in ‘expert patients’, the equivalent of amateur do it yourself pilots.
This brave new world ‘will depend on a new flexibility and responsiveness in primary care, and new partnerships with the voluntary and private sectors where they can contribute and innovate.’
Central to this will be ‘more than 150 private sector hospitals working as part of the NHS and at NHS cost and standards of quality’, and of course consuming billions of the NHS budget.
As well as this there is to be the cane for bad patients. ‘So patients who do not turn up for appointments, for example, should not have the same entitlement to waiting time guarantees.’ This is of course discrimination and the start of excluding people from the NHS entirely!
Workers must defend the NHS by taking action to bring down the Brown government to bring in a workers government that will defend the NHS and nationalise the drug companies.