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Privatisation of Scotland's NHS has begun


Scotland was grateful for the protection devolution gave our NHS when the Westminster Tories broke up England's NHS to create a "commissioning model" to privatise the NHS in England.

But what the people of Scotland do not realise is that 129 MSP's, under cover of the referendums, reformed our NHS to do the same as England - without holding a discussion with the people of Scotland.

MSP's have merged all NHS services (except hospitals) with every social work department in Scotland and more importantly merged the budgets of both in each health board region of Scotland.

MSP's have created new "Health and Social Care Partnerships" across Scotland so they can "commission services" for the NHS and social work (privatisation by stealth).

MSP's have also "partnered" every single hospital with universities without consulting the nation and Ms Sturgeon has signed two contracts to share our medical records - as university establishment and big pharma serving "scientists" from the Queen's royal bodies want to get their hands on our medical records to see who exactly they can use as guinea pigs and lab rats under the changes on how drugs are to be tested (thanks to Westminster)

To explain exactly what MSP's have forced on Scotland, here is what has happened in the Ayrshire & Arran Health Board area - which has been replicated across every health board region and council in Scotland.

All NHS services and budgets (except hospitals) and all social work budgets for North, South and East Ayrshire have been merged and then broken up across the three new Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) commissioning boards.

Each HSCP has one councillor from each political party from their council area on the board along with the members of the unelected NHS board.

This means members of the health board sit on all three HSCP boards along with a councillor from each political party (all in it together) in each council area. Instead of NHS Ayrshire & Arran controlling all NHS services - the services have been divided between the three new HSPC's - so each board is responsible for "commissioning" different NHS services.

North Ayrshire HSPC commissions services for mental health for all Ayrshire and children's services for all Ayrshire - meaning despite no one in East Ayrshire or South Ayrshire voting for councillors in North Ayrshire - a councillor from each political party in North Ayrshire makes all the decisions for the whole of Ayrshire for mental health and children's services policies and commissioning of services.

East Ayrshire HSPC (with one councillor from each party) is responsible for commissioning services for all primary care for all Ayrshire (except mental health), out of hours social work for all Ayrshire, out of hours ADOC for all Ayrshire and NHS prison care (as the prison is in Kilmarnock).

South Ayrshire HSCP (with one councillor from each party) is responsible for the sexy services - which are Allied Health Professionals and Technology Enabled Care - notice the richest council area manages the professional services while the poorest council has to manage mental health and children's services. So this means budgets and social work services in South and East Ayrshire Council are no longer controlled by those local councils and instead budgets and management of all of their services has been transferred to the control of North Ayrshire HSCP - where the unelected health board will make the decisions with the 4 councillors in North Ayrshire on how to commission social work and mental health services. So NHS and more council powers and budgets have been transferred to bodies which are undemocratic and effectively unaccountable to the local people, with councillors from other councils controlling their services.

figure 1 - example of the break up of Scotand's NHS and local democracy - here is the new model for Ayrshire

So why have MSP's merged Health and Social Work into more unelected quangos?

The reasons are three fold -

1. By merging social work budgets for three councils with NHS funds for everything except hospitals this disguises cuts to all 3 councils social work budgets and cuts to tthe regional NHS budget.

2. This allows services to be split up and privatised and stops the new model being accountable to local people and democracy.

3. This allows the HSCP's (on behalf of MSP's) to steal NHS funds and transfer them to be used to cover the cost of free personal care which is meant to be funded by council tax increases - so council tax increases don't happen - stealing medical care from under 65's to ensure all over 65's keep getting free personal care which the current model shows the councils cannot afford.

Even now with the free personal care bill running at £371 million the entire system is in chaos and councils across Scotland are having to cut other services to try to meet the free personal care obligation forced on them by MSP's from ever party at the time.

In September 2017 the Herald reported

"Patients in a huge swathe of Scotland’s west Highlands have gone without food and water and missed doses of medication because there are not enough home carers to cover shifts, according to a leaked report seen by the Sunday Herald.

Vulnerable people have been left in bed for hours and had no personal care because Argyll and Bute health and social care partnership (HSCP) is dealing with a “home care crisis in Oban and the surrounding area” with service users at "high risk" under the Health and Social Care Partnership."

And things are about to get a whole lot worse as the government and councillors know the cost of the free personal care policy is about to increase five fold - from the current £371million to a colossal £1.8 billion in coming years because the baby boomer generation is gradually retiring.

MSP's and councillors don't want to tell voters they need to massively increase their council tax to try to cover their free personal care policy - so their solution has been to say nothing and merge NHS with social work - to steal NHS budgets to plug the massive shortfall in funds from council tax HSCP's need to cover the free personal care policy.

This of course means the only generation who had near full employment their entire life, a majority of whom have very generous private and public pensions, own their home outright and have plenty savings as a result - don't pay the council tax increases required to pay for the free personal care - they can well afford - free personal care the nation cannot afford - as our NHS and our medical care is sacrificed on the alter of bribes for the baby boomers by every political party.

And of course this all means we no longer have a national health service in Scotland as Westminster wanted - why Nicola Sturgeon is in the Queen's UK Privy Council for life - to orchestrate what the UK wants to be applied in Scotland - why Scotland's NHS has been effectively broken up and all social work and NHS services being "commissioned" by people in an undemocratic way.

Already the HSCPs went well over budget just to set up this undemocratic model - which was confirmed at a meeting in Irvine of the North Ayrshire HSPC - where no councillors were present at the meeting - instead volunteers from charities saying how wonderful it all is - as NHS and social work funds now being syphoned off to their charities too - as the HSCP's "commission" charities to take over NHS and social work services and responsibilities.

Already shocking decisions are being made by these unaccountable HSCP's - but that will require another article to report on that - article to follow very soon. This is how Scotland's NHS has been dismantled in a way they made sure the Scottish nation is totally unaware - with the North Ayrshire HSCP team admitting they have not been publishing minutes of their meetings - so local people were kept in the dark as much as possible while they plotted against democracy and our NHS together.

When every political party in Scotland has been working on this dismantling of our NHS so services are broken up and commissioned in an undemocratic way - and kept quiet about the colossal coming five fold increase in free personal care costs (not £125million a year as Henry McLiesh claimed - but nearly £2 billion a year very soon - all keeping quiet so there is no national public debate as their was in England - shows the sheer contempt the Scottish political

class and the establishment they serve in Scotland have for the people of Scotland. This nation will now have to stand and fight against that Westminster trojan horse in Hollyrood to restore our NHS and restore democracy - and to achieve this we must kick out all five of the current parties to corruption in power - every MSP and councillor and find a new way to run Scotland so democracy and the people are in control - here is the idea to achieve that.


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