DrNFR is pleased with reports that the government is finally accepting the organisation’s arguments that national collective pay bargaining must be ended across the public sector, including the National Health Service.  NFR is also delighted that in denationalising NHS hospitals, turning them in to genuinely independent foundation hospitals, private worker ownership and mutuality is on the agenda.  Not only will a more vibrant and competitive labour market be good for nurses, doctors and other health workers, but in removing the cap on the amount of private work former state hospitals can do, will give consumers and patients access to much more competitive provision.  For too long Britain’s private hospitals have benefited from failing state hospitals and profiteered accordingly.

It is now vital that trade unions welcome this more market based approach to healthcare and step up to the plate of supporting greater plurality of provision – including worker ownership, co-operatives and mututals.  It is vital that Britain’s private hospitals do not repeat their memorable and disasterous tactic of the early noughties; when faced with the prospect of Blair’s independent foundation hospitals they actually worked alongside an unholy alliance of Frank Dobson, left wing MPs, trades unionists and a cabal of opposition Tories to undermine the legislation. Britain’s private hospitals have long talked the talk of consumer competition, it will soon be time for them to walk the walk of a paradigm-shifting and wholly privatised market. For while NFR wants the abandonment of national collective pay bargaining, and therefore does not believe that simple regionalisation of pay goes far enough, we can be sure that the government’s proposals represent a shift towards health privatisation on the provision side. By initially putting the vast majority of the NHS budget in the hands of general practitioners, whom the patients are themselves free to choose, the government is setting up a shadow voucher scheme.  Once the money follows patients through GPs, and it can be spent in a diverse and open market of non-State provision, the next step will be to allow all providers to sell, if they choose, their own local insurance products.  For many years private health cash plans such as H.S.A. Simply Health have sold their wares giving a proportion of their profits to local NHS hospitals. In future, NFR envisions a deregulated world in which local independent health providers, both large and small, are able to advertise and sell whatever health coverage or insurance products are desired.

Today, health is so important no-one should have to go in to any hospital, surgery, or clinic owned or directed by the state.  No health professional should be tied to out-of-date and Sovetised pay scales that demean their integrity and professionalism. As such, the future is clear. The NHS is being soundly re-engineered as a funding mechanism. Provision is rightly going the way of a freer market and professionals are being tentatively liberated from the shackles of top down direction.

In time, a more open, competitive and private funding revolution must follow. So too must the private training of all health professionals and the opening up of state monopolies such as the General Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council.