There is one thing that most people in the UK are sure of, is that at no time did they vote for the privatisation of The National Health Service. Yet we are well on the way to having a privatised health system in this country. Bit by devious bit, the market is being slotted in to all aspects of the NHS. One sector of the health service that has seen a dramatic rise in health service for profit, is the ambulance service. This service is an integral and necessary part of the NHS, but to the corporate world it is just another money spinner. The recent rise in the use of private ambulance companies within the NHS is quite staggering, it is big money. During the year 2010/11 in Yorkshire the NHS spent approximately £500,000, on private ambulance services, for the year 2012/13 that had risen to £1.8m. an increase of £1.3m. London showed an even more dramatic increase in NHS money going into the coffers of the corporate ambulance business, growing from approximately £400,000 in 2010/11, to £4.2m. in 2012/13. Other areas are seeing the same sort of increases, that's a lot of NHS money being creamed off for a bunch of well-heeled shareholders, and at the same time jeopardising a core service at the NHS. Of course as we all know that when it comes to the corporate world, profit comes first, safety and standards come somewhere down the line. There has already been complaints about lives being put at risk by this creeping privatisation, and the body set up to check those standards is not quite doing its bit, "Last year the Care Quality Commission (CQC) released figures revealing that of the 245 private ambulance companies that it has registered, only 54 have been inspected."
Of course we mustn't forget that £5 billion, "money from ill health", giant BUPA and the five private-sector hospital operators – General Healthcare Group,
Nuffield Health Hospitals, Ramsay Health Care UK, Spire Healthcare and
HCA, running alongside the NHS bleeding its resource for the benefit of those well-heeled shareholders. Is this what you voted for, is this what you want? No matter who you vote for, this is what your going to get, after all it was Labour that introduced the private ambulance service to the NHS, The millionaire ConDems are just oiling the wheels.
