NHS reform could see GP surgeries on stock market

[muriel_volestrangler]

But in documents obtained by Channel 4 News and passed to the Guardian, one private health firm, IHP, proposes that the commissioning budget for patients be handed over to a private company in which family doctors would own a 20% stake.

IHP is in talks with three GP consortiums to set up a company that would turn underspends in their annual budget – in effect, savings on patient spending – into profits. This company, which aims to list on the stock market in three to five years, would treat patients at 95% of the cost of the NHS. This putative saving, amounting to £40 per patient, would be booked as "profit".
...
At such a scale, representing about 5% of England's population, potential annual earnings would be about £80m. With profits as large as this, a share listing could net individual family doctors a windfall of almost £1m. Money raised from the stock market would be used to build hospitals and IT systems – motivating private money to build healthcare facilities that would rival the NHS.
...
The IHP plan works by using a loophole in the legislation that allows a private firm to be handed a GP consortium's commissioning budget by claiming it is a provider as well as a purchaser of healthcare.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/mar/02/nhs-reform-surgeries-stock-market

Fuck, no GP better take part in this. They do not truly 'own' part of a consortium - they should not be able to get any 'windfall' at all from this. It would be a bribe. And I want to see the Lib Dems cut this off before it can happen anyway. Though I've pretty much give up expecting anything from them by now.

[LeftishBrit]

1. Ugh

Hope the GPs have enough sense NOT to get involved in this.

In the election, the Tories were full of reassuring noises about the NHS. That should itself have been a warning.

[non sociopath skin]

2. I feel your pain, Mu.

I did hope that the LibDems would prove to be possessed of at least one testicle between them.

This and today's Dirty Digger Disaster prove yet again that, as a restraint on Cameron and his chums,they are as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

The Skin