Boris Johnson’s Queen’s speech includes this statement:
“New laws will be taken forward to help implement the National Health Service’s Long Term Plan in England.”
A Camden New Journal article ‘Beware false prophets’ published last month, reports:
“The most alarming feature of the Long Term Plan, however, is that it completely locks in the contracts on offer through the adoption of Integrated Care Partnerships (ICPs).
“These ICPs are the planned outcome of NHS England’s Sustainability Transformation Plans and Accountable Care Organisations, and are non-state organisations with a single management structure. Included within them are hospitals as well as primary and community care services – and possibly social care too.
“These giant five to 10 year multi-million-pound commercial contracts will be open to bidding, and they will not be subject to public scrutiny (information is routinely withheld on grounds of commercial confidentiality). This will open the way to bids from giant international health corporations that already run similar de-skilling of healthcare in the US and elsewhere.”
“For a decade our NHS has been run down, carved up, and prepared for privatisation. A Labour government will reverse this. We’ll repeal the Tory-Lib Dem privatisation Act of 2012. We’ll give our NHS the resources, equipment and staff it needs. That means more GPs and nurses and reduced waiting times. And under Labour prescriptions in England will be free.
“And we’ll make life-saving medicines available to all by ensuring Big Pharma can no longer hold our NHS to ransom. The prices pharmaceutical companies demand don’t reflect the costs of the drugs they make. They simply charge as much as they can get away with.
“We’ll use compulsory licensing to secure generic versions of patented medicines and create a publicly-owned generic drugs manufacturer to supply cheaper medicines to our NHS, saving our health service money and saving lives.
“Only Labour can be trusted with the future of our NHS.”
Please see Mariana Mazzucato’s The Value of Everything, especially Chapter 7 “Extracting Value through the Innovation Economy”. It explains value extraction by Big Pharma.