We, the electorate however have not had a chance to say yea or nay to these drastic changes as neither the Tories or LibDems saw fit to put them in their manifestoes.
Even after the election, their Coalition Programme, published on May 20th 2010, foresaw a gradual evolution of existing structures for the NHS, rather than drastic upheaval, but by the time of The White Paper in July 2010, there had been a significant change of plan.
All of England's 152 primary care trusts (PCTs) will be abolished, as well as 10 strategic health authorities (SHAs). GPs will instead be responsible for buying-in services for patients, overseen by a new commissioning board. The bulk of the £100 billion budget will therefore be in the hands of GPs.
Our current NHS hospitals will become Foundation Trusts and will have to compete for business with the third sector (charities) and private companies. It has been stated categorically that NHS hospitals will have to survive in the competitive market or they will be allowed to fail and will then be taken over by private interests.
Wait A Minute, That Rings A Bell
Just by pure coincidence, a number of Conservative Party donors have got close ties to the healthcare industry. John Nash for one, then chairman of Care UK, which provides GP surgeries, walk-in centres and other specialist services. He and his wife donated £203,500 to the Tories over the last 5 years.
Of this £21,000 went directly to Andrew Lansley to fund his office before the Tories got into power.
Nash is also the founder of a City Firm, Sovereign Capital, which coincidentally runs a number of private healthcare firms. The co-founder Ryan Robson, another major Tory donor has given the party £252,429.45. £50,000 of this got Robson, a managing partner of Sovereign Capital, into the Tory “Leader's Group” which quietly provides cash for access.
Another Tory donor with a financial interest in healthcare is Dolar Popat, who gave £209,000 to the party coffers. He became a Peer shortly after Mr Cameron took office. Dolar Popat founded and runs TLC Group which provides nursing and care homes for the elderly.
Philip Scott, of the Priory Group, most of who's income comes from NHS and local council referrals, donated a mere £20,000. The Priory Group runs hospitals, clinics and special schools.
Your Health Is Of "No Clinical Value"
The major effort to cut the NHS bill by £20 billion is leading to the rationing of healthcare which can only result in unnecessary deaths and greatly increased suffering for many people. Yet in his wisdom, Mr Cameron tells us that his “health reforms” are not about cutting services and damaging the wellbeing of the British people, but about “choice”.
This “choice” means that the NHS will no longer be allowed to carry out 57 different surgical procedures. A government directive has stated:
operations which will only be carried out in exceptional circumstances include, removing tonsils, varicose veins, hysterectomies, fitting grommets, removing skin lesions, haemorrhoid surgery, wisdom teeth extraction, cataracts and joint replacements.
It has been stated that even operations with an 80% success rate will be categorised as of “no clinical value” and stopped. These types of surgery are classed as “elective”, even though they may mean an enormous difference to the quality of life a person may have and can mean that without surgery, a condition will then deteriorate and could become acute or even fatal.
Don't imagine that this policy is hypothetical and may never happen, because it is already being implemented in selected areas which include Bury, Oldham, Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale.
Another area of healthcare which is undoubtedly leading to untimely deaths is the practice of passive euthenasia. Since 1993 in the Bland ruling, assisted suicides which involve omissions, ie the removal of life-saving care are not illegal. This is a very distressing subject, which many of us may not want to even consider, but this is happening now in the UK.
Barrister, Jamie Bogle has said the following about the current BMA guidelines: “In fact the guidelines do not refer only to patients who are dying ... It may also refer to a serious long-term chronic state.
The problem here is that we are talking about withdrawing food and fluids and because in the very narrow circumstances of persistent vegetative state, that has been re-defined as treatment, what these guidelines will do is widen it right out into a whole range of conditions, many of them, non-terminal, in which we will be talking about intentionally terminating a patient's life by dehydration. That must be wrong.”
You might want to read the above again and bear in mind that here in England and Wales, nutrition and even water, if they have to be given medically, are categorised as “treatment” and can be withdrawn in certain circumstances. There is every indication that this is an increasing practice in our hospitals.
Don't Mention The War
Palliative care, often called “comfort care” is carried out by first sedating the patient. This is known as TS, (Terminal Sedation). It is also known as total sedation or palliative sedation, but regardless of it's name it's purpose is “to induce a state of decreased or absent awareness (unconsciousness)”.
Nutrients and fluids are then withdrawn and the patient is allowed to starve and dehydrate. This approach has been adopted in many UK NHS Hospitals.
During the 1930's, Nazi Germany instigated a programme of euthenasia known as Aktion T4, named after Tiergartenstrasse 4, the street address of the headquarters of the Gemeinnutzige Stiftung fur Heilund Anstaltspflege, translated literally as the inocuous sounding “Charitable Foundation for Cure and Institutional Care.”
NICE.
To reassure the German people about T4, the government carried out a campaign of propaganda to change public opinion to be in favour of euthanasia. Leaflets were produced, posters and short films pointing out the costs of maintaining asylums for the incurably ill and insane until gradually the practice became more and more widespread. Recent research based on files recovered after 1990, give a figure of at least 200,000 physically or mentally handicapped people, who were killed by medication, starvation or in the gas chambers between 1939 and 1945.
Is it possible that we are seeing the surreptitious beginnings of such a policy here in the UK?