Category: Privatisation

Americans, Fanny Trollope observed in that acetic manner of hers, pursue the DOLLAR with such a unity of purpose, such a sympathy of feeling as found nowhere else, except, perhaps, in an ants’ nest. “The result” she added “ is exactly what might be anticipated. This sordid object, for ever before their eyes, must inevitably produce a sordid tone of mind, and, worse still, it produces a seared and blunted conscience on all questions of probity.” To which we on Blighty’s shores might happily reply “Amen to that”, were it not that American ants’ nests have lately appeared with pestilential frequency in NHS offices up and down the land.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first send to the King’s Fund. The current Chief Pongo at the Fund, an academic cove who was publishing papers when Dr No was still in cap and shorts, has spent a life-time studying health policy and management at a variety of red-brick institutions. The trouble with studying health policy and management is that it is so dull that it addles the brain. Over a period of years, a selective memory loss sets in, leaving victims unable to recall what happened last time the NHS was re-jigged. The condition, known as hamnesia after the eponymous Professor, is progressive, and has no known cure.

By a coincidence last week saw both the announcement of the coalition government’s shake up of the NHS, and the start of this summer’s season of ritual humiliation in The Dragons’ Den. On the face of it these two events have little in common, but it does not take long to see that The Dragons’ Den is in fact the model for the coalition’s vision of GP based commissioning. Most jobbing doctors will see it as an irritation and a diversion, but a hardcore of latent fundholders will emerge – indeed already have emerged – to grasp what some have called a poisoned chalice, but what Dr Dollar will see – indeed already has seen – as a Golden Opportunity. Before we know it, Dr Dollar and his pals will form up into consortia, and the BBC will spot a chance for another easy reality show. The GPs’ Den will be the new Dragons’ Den.

Big business is all about big branding, and nobody does branding better than Branson. His red logo is just about everywhere – travel, banks, media, mobiles, you name it – except healthcare. Until now, that is. Earlier this week, the Virgin Group bagged a three quarter share in Assura Medical, the company that runs the Khazi Klinics.

Virgin have been sniffing the panties of healthcare for some time, but, like most novices, were for some time unsure about how to proceed. “For us, this is the culmination of what has probably been five years of knowing we wanted to be in this space but really not finding the right entry point,” said Gordon McCallum, chief executive of Virgin Management. Now they have found the ‘entry point’, the shagging can begin in earnest.

Just as the Church of England is the Tory party at prayer, so is the Medical Profession the Tory party at work. Doctors, for all sorts of reasons, are natural conservatives.

But they tend – they are doctors after all – to be a particular type of conservative. They tend to be ‘One Nation’ conservatives. And that allows them to be both conservative, and, at the same time, as most doctors do, value the principles, if not the day to day practicalities, of the NHS, and all that it stands for.

One of the more toxic forms of health care delivery is a system known a “managed care” – an American import which takes a car fleet maintenance approach to looking after the punters.