"General Election - NHS Privatisation"by Diego Sideburns is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
This pandemic has demonstrated beyond doubt that the project to privatise swaths of the NHS is fatally damaging to public health. Perhaps the most scandalous example of this was when, last summer, the private company Serco was tasked by the PM to run the misleadingly named “NHS Test and Trace” program.
Why would Boris have trusted a private company, rather than our world-leading NHS, with running this integral part of our pandemic response, you might ask? And why were 70% of contracts awarded without competition from other contractors? And isn’t it awfully mystifying that our friend Boris awarded the contract to a company with a track record of lying, having admitted to presenting false data to the NHS two hundred and fifty-two times?
Well, I’m no expert, but I would hazard a guess that it might be something to do with the fact that the CEO of Serco is the brother of Tory grandee Sir Nicholas Soames. And might the former chief lobbyist of Serco, Tory MP and Health Minister Edward Agar, have played a role in the decision? Or could it all be a coincidence? I think not.
This blatant cronyism could have scraped by as justifiable if Serco Test and Trace hadn’t been an incompetent and ineffectual sham. However, as we know all too well from the last two lockdowns we’ve had to endure, it failed miserably. Don’t take this from me; take this from the 89% of doctors surveyed by the British Medical Association, who agreed that the failure to test and trace caused the second wave. Or take it from the Government’s own advisory board SAGE, who described the system as “having a marginal impact on transmission”.
3.5 billion pounds were wasted on the inoperative scheme: a report conducted by the national audit office found that at one point, contact tracers were working one hour out of every hundred they were being paid for. Whatever your political persuasion or wider view on privatisation is, that is an undeniable waste of the taxpayer’s money.
As we begin our pandemic recovery, there will be those who continue to desperately cling to the disastrous farce that is privatisation. But who knows? Maybe reason will prevail. Maybe the catastrophe that was Serco’s test and trace will serve as a lesson to our Government to trust healthcare professionals over CEOs.
Hate to say it: I’m doubtful.
Written by Albie Gavshon, 11GH
Comments