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    How to Dismantle the NHS in 10 Easy Steps
    How to Dismantle the NHS in 10 Easy Steps
    How to Dismantle the NHS in 10 Easy Steps
    Ebook108 pages1 hour

    How to Dismantle the NHS in 10 Easy Steps

    By Youssef El-Gingihy

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    About this ebook

    Dr Youssef El-Gingihy – a GP – tells the story of how the NHS has been gradually converted into a market-based healthcare system over the past 25 years. This process is accelerating under the Coalition government and the very existence of a National Health Service is in danger. He fears that there will not be an NHS as our generation grows old and certainly not for our children. Yet the British public remains largely unawares of this and the media, with few exceptions, have failed in their duty to inform them. The NHS is being broken up into an universal insurance system based on the American model. This book matters to all who use the NHS or are concerned by the privatisation of public services and the dismantling of equitable healthcare and welfare. If you want to understand the real story behind the headlines and find out how you can preserve the NHS for the future then this book is essential reading.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn Hunt Publishing
    Release dateJul 31, 2015
    ISBN9781785350467
    How to Dismantle the NHS in 10 Easy Steps
    Author

    Youssef El-Gingihy

    Youssef El-Gingihy, BA HONS OXON MBBS MRCP MRCGP, is a GP working in Tower Hamlets at the Bromley by Bow Centre. He studied medicine, neuroscience and English literature at Oxford University graduating with a BA honours in Neuroscience and completed his clinical studies at Guy’s, King’s & St Thomas’ in London. He has been working in the NHS since 2006 and has been at the Bromley by Bow Centre since 2011.

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      Book preview

      How to Dismantle the NHS in 10 Easy Steps - Youssef El-Gingihy

      First published by Zero Books, 2015

      Zero Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., Laurel House, Station Approach, Alresford, Hants, SO24 9JH, UK

      office1@jhpbooks.net

      www.johnhuntpublishing.com

      www.zero-books.net

      For distributor details and how to order please visit the ‘Ordering’ section on our website.

      Text copyright: Youssef El-Gingihy 2014

      ISBN: 978 1 78535 045 0

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2015931661

      All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

      The rights of Youssef El-Gingihy as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

      A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

      Design: Lee Nash

      Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY, UK

      We operate a distinctive and ethical publishing philosophy in all areas of our business, from our global network of authors to production and worldwide distribution.

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

      Step One: Create an Internal Market

      Step Two: Introduce Public-Private Partnerships

      Step Three: Facilitate the Corporate Takeover

      Step Four: Install a Revolving Door

      Step Five: Organise a Great Big Sell Off

      Step Six: Run a PR Smear Campaign

      Step Seven: Legislate for the Dismantling of the NHS

      Step Eight: Plot Against the NHS

      Step Nine: Brew the Perfect Storm

      Step Ten: Introduce Universal Private Health Insurance

      Reading List

      References

      Dedicated to all those who have fought for the NHS and to a future

      NHS for all time.

      I would like to thank those, who showed the way and illuminated my understanding of what has been happening to our NHS. It is only through their contribution that I have been able to write this book. All those years ago, they were lone voices. More people are now becoming aware of the marketisation and privatisation of the NHS and are determined to fight against vested interests to preserve it.

      Introduction

      I am a doctor. I work as a GP in London. Like most of you, I was born in a National Health Service hospital. I studied medicine and worked as a junior doctor in the NHS. I wrote this book because I fear that there will not be an NHS as our generation grows old and certainly not for our children. Yet the British public remains largely unawares of this and the media, with few exceptions, have failed in their duty to inform them. The remit of my book is charting how the NHS has been insidiously converted into a market-based healthcare system over the past 25 years. This process is accelerating under the Coalition government and the very existence of a National Health Service is in danger. This matters to all who use the NHS or are concerned by the privatisation of public services and the dismantling of equitable healthcare and welfare. The NHS—long the envy of the world—is being broken up into a universal insurance system based on the US model. Multinationals are opening the NHS oyster following on from the Health & Social Care Act 2012 and in preparation for the forthcoming Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP EU-US trade agreement). This is about much more than the NHS; it is about turbo-charged neoliberalism—the ideological doctrine that encompasses privatisation, deregulation and shrinking the state.

      We are on the eve of an epoch-defining general election in 2015. Put simply, this election is likely to define whether the NHS continues to exist as a cherished institution or whether it is gradually dismantled into a privatised, insurance-based system. The election, in the context of the financial crisis and austerity, would seem to be as significant as 1979. The issues at stake extend to the current neoliberal political and economic model and the kind of society we want to live in. It is likely to have huge ramifications for the direction Britain is heading in, at a time of great change, turmoil and chaos across the world.

      NHS politics is an area that can be dry and foreboding to the public. The concept of this book is to make it accessible and to communicate clearly what is happening to our NHS. I want to shine a light on the deliberate destruction of the nation’s most sacred institution whilst the majority of the British public have been kept in the dark by a neoliberal agenda pursued by the main political parties and the media. I only became aware of what was happening in 2011 at the time that the Health & Social Care Bill was making its way through Parliament. Incredibly, they don’t really teach you much at medical school or as a junior doctor about how the NHS works and the history of its evolution. Maybe they should—there’s certainly enough time in five years of studying.

      Healthcare affects us and our loved ones arguably more than anything else in our lives. It would be a tragedy if the NHS were to be dismantled by vested interests—to great detriment to all of us—without the British public even having a say in the matter. People often feel impotent in the face of powerful interests. Yet the NHS belongs to us and we are the only ones who can fight for and save it.

      Lots of questions are being asked of the NHS by politicians, the media and the public, such as:

      • Can the NHS survive the current crisis?

      • Is the NHS affordable?

      • Where will the money come from?

      • Would we be better off with universal private insurance?

      • I will try to answer them in this book. But what if these are the wrong questions diverting us from the real issues?

      The National Health Service was created in 1948. It is one of the pillars of the welfare state. It was created as part of a planned economy to rebuild Britain after World War II. It is based on the principles of universal, comprehensive, free healthcare from cradle to grave with equity of care. It is part of our social fabric—‘a fundamental component of solidarity and equal citizenship’.¹

      The founder of the NHS, Aneurin Bevan, officially opened the first NHS hospital—Park Hospital in Manchester—on 5 July 1948. He met a 13-year-old girl with a liver condition by the name of Sylvia Diggory (née Beckingham), who became the first patient to be treated under the NHS. Ironically, the birthplace of the NHS, now renamed Trafford General, is one of many hospitals facing cuts and closures.²

      Aneurin Bevan—a coal miner’s son who

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