PFI, NHS FUBAR
I live in Sussex. I'm not proud; its just where I've ended up, thats all. There are many good things about Sussex. I can't think of any off the bat, just take my word for it. However, one of the things thats gone wrong here is the jolly old NHS. Its in a huge amount of debt at the moment, and operations are now going to be denied to the obese because its they're fault that they're fat. Alchoholics could also be denied treatment, which is interesting because alchoholism is a psychological condition. In the future I expect I'll be denied treatment for lung cancer because I smoke, though this won't be a problem for me because I intend to be a cyborg by then.* Basically the lack of funding is causing a dramatic decrease in the quality of services which is going to get worse. Patricia Hewitt blames this on overspending by the trust, but I, in my wisdom, have another explanation: PFI.
NHS trusts can't get funding for new buildings and services unless it involves private consortiums in the projects. Basically what happens is a consortium comes in, buys the land and pays to design, build and maintain the hospital or clinic or whatever. The NHS trust then pays the consortium an annual fee for this, like a mortgage. This fee goes towards maintenance, staff costs and so on, but mostly it goes into the pockets of rich investors. What happened in Coventry is a good example. Their trust needed to rennovate its two large hospitals, but a rennovation scheme would not pull in private investors. So it was scrapped and under the PFI, a private consortium was brought in to demolish both hospitals and build one much smaller hospital on an out of town site. The hospital was designed small so that the consortium could use the remaining land for more profitable developments. This represented a huge cut in staff and beds. The trust in Coventry is paying this consortium £36 million a year for this reduction in services and will be until the contract expires in about 30 years. The origional rennovation plan would have involved a one off payment of £30 million. Things like this are happening all over the country, and it basically amounts to a massive transfer of public money into the private sector. There are a lot of other issues associated with this, have a look here http://www.unison.org.uk/pfi/index.asp if you're interested in this fucking enormous scandal. Don't listen to that Hewitt creature. She's lying in your face. Watch the next time she's on TV. See what I mean? She's lying. And she's patronising you. If your not interested...well, fuck you.
*I'll elaborate on my plan to become a cyborg in a later post.
NHS trusts can't get funding for new buildings and services unless it involves private consortiums in the projects. Basically what happens is a consortium comes in, buys the land and pays to design, build and maintain the hospital or clinic or whatever. The NHS trust then pays the consortium an annual fee for this, like a mortgage. This fee goes towards maintenance, staff costs and so on, but mostly it goes into the pockets of rich investors. What happened in Coventry is a good example. Their trust needed to rennovate its two large hospitals, but a rennovation scheme would not pull in private investors. So it was scrapped and under the PFI, a private consortium was brought in to demolish both hospitals and build one much smaller hospital on an out of town site. The hospital was designed small so that the consortium could use the remaining land for more profitable developments. This represented a huge cut in staff and beds. The trust in Coventry is paying this consortium £36 million a year for this reduction in services and will be until the contract expires in about 30 years. The origional rennovation plan would have involved a one off payment of £30 million. Things like this are happening all over the country, and it basically amounts to a massive transfer of public money into the private sector. There are a lot of other issues associated with this, have a look here http://www.unison.org.uk/pfi/index.asp if you're interested in this fucking enormous scandal. Don't listen to that Hewitt creature. She's lying in your face. Watch the next time she's on TV. See what I mean? She's lying. And she's patronising you. If your not interested...well, fuck you.
*I'll elaborate on my plan to become a cyborg in a later post.
posted by Ben at 11:34 am
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