(A leaflet from Defend our NHS Wirral given out at their stall this weekend. The details will differ in different areas but the issues are the same.)

Who’s running our NHS? The wrong people. For the wrong reasons.

What do you want from the NHS?

• Free health care for everyone, everywhere—or being forced to ‘go private’?
• Seeing your GP — or questions on a screen?
• Experienced professionals — or an ‘app’? or a call centre?
• A walk-in centre and hospital services near home—or not even in Wirral?
• Treatment decisions by medical staff on medical grounds—or an accountant in the USA?

Well, the people below want you to have the second choice in every case. They call it ‘efficiency’. Or ‘patient choice’ . We call it putting profits before people, with lucrative opportunities for the private sector.

What’s happening? Our precious NHS will disappear next April, replaced (here and in 41 other regions) by a so-called ‘integrated care system’ (ICS).

Already in the driving seat (yes, in Wirral as well as nationally) are giant corporations, many of them American. You know the nightmare of American ‘healthcare’; it’s here.

We have to stop the ICS. Why? In each of them:

• a “single pot” budget will cover all the people in one area (instead of paying for
•  individual treatments, like now). So waiting lists will lengthen and there will be rationing. Cash-strapped hospitals will depend on treating ever more private patients.
• there will be two boards, one of which could appoint private companies to sit on it. Companies on boards will be awarding each other contracts, and many of them will be American. Contracts will be handed out without a tendering process (like the cro nyism during the pandemic but on an even bigger scale).
• NHS staff face an uncertain future. They will be required to work with more “flexibility”. “Cheaper” staff will be expected to take on work without professional qualifications or regulation.

Who’s running our NHS? McKinsey of New York, United Health and Optum of Minneap- olis, Centene and Operose of St Louis, Cerner of Kansas City….

We think we should be running our NHS—for PEOPLE NOT PROFIT. JOIN US TO STOP THE ICS!

EMAIL defendournhswirral@gmail.com https://www.facebook.com/groups/defendournhs https://twitter.com/DefendourNHS

Published by Defend Our NHS and Wirral Trades Union Council