Sunak cheekily claims privatisation works in the NHS, when evidence shows it fails

We Own It are urging people to write to their MPs after the prime minister made this unsubstantiated claim. Let’s show them that the gaslighting STILL isn’t working on us! My letter is below.

You can write to your MP via We Own It’s website here.

Dear Craig Mackinlay MP,

Despite privatisation of healthcare (in the NHS and outside of it) being something that the majority of British people do NOT want, Rishi Sunak has said NHS privatisation has “worked in the past and we are going to do more of that going forward” (Conservative Home).

Worked for whom?

Privatisation means that financial surpluses generated are taken out of the NHS, away from healthcare and into the bank accounts of private profiteers. That money could be reinvested into frontline care and better salaries that greatly improve retention of highly trained staff. The public don’t agree with it.

Privatisation in the NHS led to the preventable deaths of 557 people, according to a recent study.

Using private hospitals to ‘help’ with long waiting lists is not a viable idea either, it’s based on the premise that private hospitals have spare capacity, which they don’t. The medical staff they use are all NHS staff working in the private sector in their spare time, therefore it’s not spare capacity, it’s stolen. It depletes the NHS, moving the queue from one setting to another (less safe) setting.

Private companies made £831 million in profits from NHS contracts between 2011 and 2017 from just one form of NHS outsourcing. That is £831 million of public money siphoned out of our health service into private wealth.

Look at what your own voter base thinks.

Conservative voters: 68% want private companies out of the NHS.

Only 17% of Conservative voters want more privatisation.

Privatisation of healthcare leads to lower safety standards and higher costs per head for treatment.

MPs like yourself could and should try to steer government away from NHS privatisation, in whole or in part. Both are toxic and the public know it.

Yours sincerely,

Carly Jeffrey