Here’s the reality from my own, current frontline experience. Hospital beds blocked by a failing or failed social care system. The no-longer acute needing to go to a nursing home, current waiting time 6-8 weeks; or to have a care package, which probably means 2 or 3 fifteen minute home visits a day, current waiting time 3-4 months. As with many of our current ills, the causes can be traced back to a previous Big Economic Experiment, when the care system was privatised at the end of the 80s, and all sorts, from (literally) builders to bankers took grants to become care home owners. The grants disappeared, big corporates moved in and made the whole thing unaffordable. So the whole thing now needs a much bigger and very much more radical rethink; which will come too late, alas, for many.
“NHS is off the table and stay out of our elections, UK prime minister tells Trump”
In the real world, large chunks of the NHS are already sort-of privatised. In Gloucester, many cataract operations are carried out by a private company; which, yes, has cut waiting times considerably. In Oxford, three GP practices are now owned by a private company....
