[Post edited 27 Nov 2019 18:44]

[Post edited 27 Nov 2019 19:35]

So, the NHS is up for sale by BlueBadger 27 Nov 2019 12:36
They won't be stupid enough to do an overt privatisation. What they *will* do if have 'NHS' on letterheads and buildings for 'brand recognition' but wholesale services will be run by profiteers reaping profits from an unregulated 'internal market' funding by NI contributions on an even larger scale than we have now. A US trade deal will see something like CCGs being pressured or even obliged to add extra weighting to US companies when considering bidders A lot of services will become narrower in their focus, most likely with staffing cuts and anything remotely complicated, will be passed over to an ever-smaller sector which is truly publicly run. It's be wonderful for those with 'single issue' conditions but terrible for the those(who tend to be the non-profitable majority or people like Your Poor Old Mum Who Does Very Well Considering with a combination of acute and chronic conditions.

I quite agree about structural changes. The current system is overly red-tapey. Not helped by the internal market which forces tendering of services and costs upwards of £4billion a year. for context the much-reviled 'health tourists' bill is 8 times smaller than that, at top estimate.

Blair and Brown may have tinkered around the edges, but what we're talking about here is wholesale(in every sense of the word) deregulation and selling off which will be of benefit very few, certainly not patients, staff or taxpayers.