Blair & the NHS at 75: we’re still not learning from our history
5th July is the 75th anniversary of the NHS. The moment in 1948 when health care (including at that point dentistry)became free at the point of use. It is a principle and practice that has to be campaigned and fought for ever since. There remain voices in the Tory media and politics who want a US style health insurance system.
Tony Blair has used the opportunity to make another of his occasional interventions arguing that the NHS needs to engage more with the private sector to flourish in future.
This is not exactly news. Its what Blair has been saying for 30 years. During the New Labour Governments of 1997-2010 it was carried through in practice and it has continued since then.
The NHS is a massive institution and employer, rightly so, and should be able to call the shots in any relationship with the private sector. That was not what happened in the New Labour years and its not what Blair means now.
Public Private Partnerships in effect left the public to take all the risks and the private sector to take all the profit. The operation of the market in the health service runs directly contrary to it being a public service unless its put in a tightly controlled framework that benefits the many not the few.
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