Britain's Health Service Is For Sale, Leaked Trade Docs Suggest

The United Kingdom's National Health Service is up for grabs in a post-Brexit trade deal with the United States, the opposition Labour Party revealed on Wednesday, despite Prime Minister Boris Johnson's unequivocal denials.

Johnson has repeatedly stated in clear and absolute terms that the NHS - which offers British citizens free healthcare at the point of access, regardless of illness - was not up for sale, but a 451-page internal government document, revealed by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, details a series of secret United States-UK trade negotiations covering a whole range of British public services - from food regulation to healthcare - to which Washington wants "full market access".

One detail suggests the UK would be open to longer patents on US-produced medicines, which Corbyn says would push up the price paid by the NHS for pharmaceuticals - perhaps by as much as 500,000 pounds ($645,000) a week.

Corbyn had challenged Johnson over the privatisation and sell-off during their first televised leaders' debate, waving a sheaf of heavily redacted papers covered in blacked-out text. On Wednesday, he said he had got hold of the unredacted version, which detailed six rounds of talks between US and UK trade representatives.

Al Jazeera's Paul Brennan reports from central London.

Jeremy Corbyn Reveals 451 Pages of Uncensored Pages 'Proving NHS Up for Sale'

Labour has obtained official documents showing the US is demanding that the NHS will be 'on the table' in talks on a post-Brexit trade deal, Jeremy Corbyn has said. The Labour leader said the uncensored papers gave the lie to Boris Johnson’s claims that the NHS would not be part of any trade talks. 'The uncensored documents leave Boris Johnson’s denials in absolute tatters,' he told a news conference in London

Jeremy Corbyn reveals dossier 'proving NHS up for sale' »

UK Election: Parties Battle over NHS - as It Reports Worst Ever Waiting Times

The NHS was already high up the list of election issues - but the data released today has shown just how big a point of contention this will be as the election campaign runs on.

All the major parties took the opportunity to say they are the ones to be trusted on turning the NHS around. But with waiting times at their absolute worst, they all face a tough task convincing the electorate.

US Wants Access to NHS in Post-Brexit Deal, Says Trump Ally

THE GUARDIAN: Before president’s visit, Woody Johnson says every area of UK economy up for discussion

The US will want business access to the NHS in any post-Brexit trade deal, the US ambassador has said, prompting anger from politicians and campaigners before Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK this week.

Woody Johnson, who is a close friend of the US president, said every area of the UK economy would be up for discussion when the two sides brokered a trade deal.

Asked if the NHS was likely to form part of trade negotiations, Johnson told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “I think the entire economy, in a trade deal, all things that are traded would be on the table.” Asked if that specifically meant healthcare, he said: “I would think so.” » | Jessica Elgot | Sunday, June 2, 2019

NHS: UK Now Has One of the Worst Healthcare Systems in the Developed World, According to OECD Report

THE INDEPENDENT: Hospitals so underequipped that people are dying needlessly because of a chronic lack of investment

The UK has one of the worst healthcare systems in the developed world according to a damning new report which said the nation has an “outstandingly poor” record of preventing ill health.

Hospitals are now so short-staffed and underequipped that people are also dying needlessly because of a chronic lack of investment. The verdict, from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), will make embarrassing reading for David Cameron who denied the cash-strapped NHS is heading for its worst winter crisis. » | Paul Gallagher | Wednesday, November 4, 2015

'Extremist’ Working as Psychiatrist for NHS

Dr Imran Waheed

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Doctor treating vulnerable patients is a senior leader of radical Islamic party that seeks to ban same-sex relationships and oppress women

A British doctor responsible for the care of some of the country’s most vulnerable people can today be exposed as a senior leader of a radical Islamist party banned in several countries.

Dr Imran Waheed is a consultant psychiatrist at Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Trust, one of the largest of its kind in the country.

He specialises in the treatment of sexual dysfunction, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and obsessive compulsive disorders, and also provides advice to courts in criminal cases on potentially dangerous individuals.

But Dr Waheed is also the spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir, which campaigns for a caliphate ruled by Sharia.

Dr Waheed is the group’s chief media adviser and is listed by the organisation as one of its six leading members in Britain.

Under a caliphate, men and women would be segregated in public places and women and non-Muslims would be banned from holding positions of power. Alcohol would also be banned, along with same-sex relationships. Critics have said his professional role conflicts with his extreme views on women’s rights, alcohol, and same-sex relationships. » | Patrick Sawer and Ben Lazarus | Sunday, April 06, 2014

NHS Doctor Accused of Being Part of 15-strong British Jihadi Group in Syria
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: An NHS trained doctor is suspected of being part of a British-led jihadist kidnap group in Syria that includes up to 15 young people from the UK.

Shajul Islam, 26, appeared in court yesterday charged with his role in the gang which kidnapped and injured British photographer John Cantlie and Dutch journalist Jeroen Oerlemans in July this year.

Islam, from Stratford, east London, has a first-class degree in biochemistry and trained to be a doctor at St Bartholomew's and a University of London hospital.

He was arrested last week at Heathrow Airport and charged with a terrorism offence after arriving with his wife and one-year-old daughter.

He is accused of being part of an extremist group that kept Mr Cantlie and Mr Oerlemans captive for around a week in the war-torn state in the summer. » | Tom Whitehead, Security Editor | Wednesday, October 17, 2012

UK Govt Bill Opens Up NHS to Private Profiteering

Foreigners to Be Offered Free Treatment for HIV on the NHS
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Foreigners are to be offered free treatment for HIV on the NHS for the first time under controversial plans backed by ministers.

Those from abroad, including failed asylum seekers, students and tourists are currently barred from receiving free HIV treatment – unlike other infectious diseases.

However, the Government is to support proposals recommended by peers which will end the “anomaly” and allow free treatment even for those not legally settled in Britain.

Campaigners argue that the free treatment is essential as it reduces the risk of Britons being infected – and can help people to be treated for HIV before their condition becomes serious and life-threatening.

However, ministers are braced for criticism that the decision may prompt so-called “health tourism” and put the NHS under financial pressure at a time when hospitals are being forced to find cuts. It typically costs up to £7,000 a year to treat someone diagnosed with HIV and an average of £300,000 per patient over their lifetime with the disease. » | Robert Winnett, Political Editor | Monday, February 27, 2012

Leading Surgeon Interrupts Cameron Hospital Visit
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A senior surgeon interrupted a hospital visit by David Cameron and Nick Clegg to complain that the TV crews filming them were not observing strict hygiene rules.


David Nunn left the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister stunned with his angry outburst during the walkabout at Guy’s hospital in London Bridge.

He stormed into the ward shouting “sorry, sorry, sorry” as the politicians were about to sit down and talk to patients, before confronting the cameramen who had failed to roll up their sleeves as medics are required to do in order to combat the spread of superbugs in the NHS.

Mr Nunn, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Guy’s since 1990, pointed out his own short sleeves and demanded: “Why is it that we’re all told to walk around like this, and these people aren’t?”

He was ushered away by aides while Mr Clegg looked on open-mouthed, while Mr Cameron attempted to calm the situation by waving the cameramen towards the door.

Mr Nunn started to speak to the Prime Minister but he held his hands up, said he agreed with him and explained to the TV crew: “It’s because we’ve all taken our ties off.” » | Martin Beckford and Stephen Adams | Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Christian Sacked after Abortion Leaflet Row

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A Christian mental health worker has been sacked after passing colleagues a booklet warning of the physical and psychological damage some women suffer after an abortion.

Margaret Forrester discussed the booklet with family planning staff at the health centre where she worked because she felt that the NHS was failing to give patients information about the risks and other options to terminating a pregnancy.

But after a six-month disciplinary process, during which Ms Forrester had to fight her own case and became ill, she was found guilty of “gross professional misconduct” and fired.

She has spoken out over the “scandal” of the pro-abortion culture in the medical profession and claimed that Christians were “an easy target” for “politically correct” bureaucrats in the NHS.

“The NHS has a pro-abortion stance which comes from a secular religion. It is a belief system which is aggressively anti-Christian,” she said. » | Tim Ross, Religious Affairs Editor | Friday, June 10, 2011

Copying the NHS Is the Last Thing the US Should Do
THE TELEGRAPH: The future health care in both countries must involve a mix of state and private provision, says Janet Daley.

Bad idea: Barack Obama has appointed a man as head of the American public healthcare programmes who professes a passion for some of the most discredited features of our NHS. Photo: The Telegraph
This week, the Coalition will offer an example of how coping with an economic crisis may serve a reforming purpose. Having to cut back the power and the expenditure of the state will provide a rationale for dismantling the monolithic, bureaucratic monster that the NHS has become. In his health White Paper, Andrew Lansley will apparently propose sweeping away the command-and-control structure in which clinical decisions are taken and hospital procedures commissioned by Primary Care Trust administrators, rather than by general practitioners who actually come face-to-face with people in need of medical help.

Fine. But if GPs are to inherit all the authority in this system, then it should be possible for patients to choose – and change – their family doctors easily and without recrimination. For, alas, Mr Lansley has decided to pass on the powers that he is confiscating from the abolished PCT mandarins exclusively to doctors rather than to patients. This is a real missed opportunity, but never mind: he is at least facing the right way, devolving decision-making down to levels where it can be done with more responsiveness and sensitivity to individual needs, rather than with the impersonal, blanket uniformity of a target-driven central authority.

The US government, meanwhile, is galloping doggedly in the opposite direction, bizarrely determined to occupy precisely the ideological ground which Britain is abandoning. Barack Obama has, indeed, appointed a man as head of the American public health care programmes who professes a passion (no other word will do) for some of the most discredited features of our NHS. Dr Donald Berwick is to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which effectively means that he will be in charge of Obamacare – the new universal health care system on which the President has staked his political credibility.

The appointment has created an extraordinary kerfuffle, partly because it was made under highly contentious circumstances – as a “recess” appointment which allowed it to bypass Congressional approval – but primarily on account of Dr Berwick’s widely disseminated statements extolling the virtues of the most disliked aspects of state-funded medical care as we know it.

Dr Berwick professes a love (which he describes in ecstatic terms that will have a tragicomic ring to most British ears) of just those evils of a national health system with which we are exasperated: the calculated rationing of treatment, and the ruthless enforcement of uniform cost limits, which often puts the most advanced medication and procedures out of reach of patients whose lives might have been extended or transformed by them. Dr Berwick thinks that our own dear National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) – which is scarcely ever out of the headlines for denying some poor suffering victim a remedy that is available in other countries – is simply wonderful. Continue reading and comment >>> Janet Daley | Saturday, July 10, 2010

Americans will come to rue the day they ever elected B. Hussein Obama into office. He is nothing other than the iPresident. That ‘i’ stands for the Internet, through which he got elected; but it also stands for incompetence, inexperience, insincerity, incapability, irrationality, immaturity, oh and, of course, Islam! – © Mark

Biggest Revolution in the NHS for 60 Years
THE TELEGRAPH: Doctors are to be given sole responsibility for overseeing front-line care to patients under Coalition plans described as the biggest revolution in the NHS since its foundation 60 years ago.

About £80billion will be distributed to family GPs in a move that will see strategic health authorities and primary care trusts scrapped.

The plan, contained in a white paper to be published next week, is designed to place key decisions about how patients are cared for in the hands of doctors who know them. Tens of thousands of administrative jobs in the health service will be lost as a result.

At present, funds are given by the Government to primary care trusts, which pay for patients from their area to be treated in hospital.

Under these plans, GPs — who are currently not responsible for paying for hospital referrals — would receive the money instead and pay the hospitals directly.

The change will be compulsory.

The Coalition hopes the new system will be less bureaucratic and give doctors and patients more control over treatment. GPs will also have to organise out-of-hours services, which may see family doctors offering 24-hour care once again. >>> Andrew Porter, Political Editor | Thursday, July 08, 2010

Coalition Government: National Health Service Faces Cuts, Says Andrew Lansley
THE TELEGRAPH: The National Health Service will not be spared the efficiency savings which the Government will impose on the entire public sector, Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, has warned.

Overall spending on the NHS will rise in real terms, he said, but the “substantial increase” in health spending over the past decade under Labour was “not sustainable for the future”.

The Government would have to go beyond the annual efficiency savings for the NHS set out by Labour, Mr Lansley said. Labour said its plans had implied savings of up to £20 billion by 2013-14 and warned that the coalition’s plans to do more would mean “real pain for the NHS”. >>> Rosa Prince and James Kirkup | Friday, May 14, 2010

General Hospital Under Threat as NHS Faces Post-poll Closures
TIMES ONLINE: The NHS is facing significant cuts in services across England and Wales despite election pledges from the main parties to protect health spending.

Analysis by The Times has revealed that the number of health bodies preparing the ground for possible closures has increased. Those seeking advice on big changes to NHS services, including shutting down hospital units, has doubled over the past year. >>> Sam Lister and David Rose | Tuesday, May 04, 2010

It’s Amazing How Easy It Is to Change Your Sex on the NHS These Days!
THE TELEGRAPH: The number of sex change operations carried out on the NHS has almost tripled in the last eight years.

Since 2000 a total of 853 men have gone under the knife to become women while in the same time span 12 women have had an operation to become a man.

Back in 2000 there were just 54 sex change operations carried out in the country while last year the figure stood at 143.

The average age for a man having a sex change operation is 42 with only one procedure in the last nine years being carried out on somebody under 21. Number of NHS sex change operations triples >>> | Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Dhimmitude Alert! NHS: Preferential Treatment for Muslims
MAIL ON SUNDAY: Muslim doctors and nurses are to be allowed for religious reasons to opt out of strict NHS dress codes introduced to prevent the spread of deadly hospital superbugs.

The Department of Health has announced that female Muslim staff will be permitted to cover their arms on hospital wards to preserve their modesty.

This is despite earlier guidance that all staff should be ‘bare below the elbow’ after long sleeves were blamed for spreading bacteria, leading to superbug deaths.

The Department has also relaxed its ‘no jewellery’ rule by making it clear that Sikhs can wear bangles, as long as they can be pushed up the arm during direct patient care.

The move contrasts with the case of nurse Shirley Chaplin, who last week lost her discrimination battle against Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital Trust, which said the cross she has worn since she was 16 was a ‘hazard’ because it could scratch patients.

Mrs Chaplin, 55, had worn the silver cross on a necklace since her confirmation. But the employment tribunal told her that wearing a cross was not a ‘mandatory requirement’ of her faith, even though Muslim doctors are allowed to wear hijabs or headscarves.

Last night she said of the sleeve concession to Muslims: ‘I don’t believe my cross is a danger so this is double standards. What can you say? It seems that life is stacked up against Christians these days.’

Politicians and Christian leaders, including former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, added that it showed the Government was prepared to accommodate minority faiths while Christianity was marginalised.

Lord Carey said of grandmother Mrs Chaplin: ‘The Muslim voice is very strong, so politicians and others are scared of it. We can only deduce that the hostility aimed at her is because she is a Christian.’

The revised rules, which health officials insist will not compromise hospital hygiene, were drawn up after female Muslim staff objected to exposing their arms in public. NHS relax superbug safeguards for Muslim staff... just days after Christian nurse is banned from wearing crucifix for health and safety reasons >>> Jonathan Petre | Sunday, April 11, 2010

Bosses at Scandal-hit Stafford Hospital Escape Scot-free
THE TELEGRAPH: The senior managers who presided over one of Britain’s worst hospital scandals, in which up to 1,200 patients died, have all escaped being disciplined, it has emerged.

Photo: The Telegraph
No one on the board at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust has faced censure and all of them were either paid off, walked into another job or allowed to remain in post. The man who ran the hospital trust received a large pay-off despite his part in the scandal.

Martin Yeates, the former chief executive, left the trust “by mutual agreement” with a pay-off of £400,000 and a pension worth £1.27 million, it has been alleged.

The lack of disciplinary action emerged after the publication of a damning report into the treatment of patients between 2005 and 2008.

An independent report commissioned by the Government found that patients were abused and neglected by hostile staff and were left in humiliating and undignified conditions. The impact on them was “unimaginable”, the report said.

Patients, most of whom were treated at the trust’s main hospital in Stafford, were “robbed of their dignity”, left in soiled bedclothes, unwashed and in states of undress in full view of others, it found.

Families of patients had to clean lavatories and public areas themselves, while food and drinks were left out of reach and, it was alleged, patients drank out of vases.

Attitudes of staff were at times “uncaring”. Managers were “in denial” about the problems and were concentrating on cutting costs and hitting targets to achieve foundation trust status, the report said.

There was said to be a culture of fear and bullying with staff concerned they would lose their jobs if targets were not hit. >>> Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor | Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Gaddafi Doctors to Be Trained by NHS as Row over Britain’s Relations with Libya Intensifies
MAIL ONLINE: Libyan doctors are to be trained by the NHS following an agreement signed by a Cabinet minister with Colonel Gaddafi's regime weeks before the release of the Lockerbie bomber, it emerged today.

The agreement is the latest in a series of moves to normalise relations between Britain and the north African state, which was an international pariah for years after being blamed for the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, which killed 270 people.

But the Department of Health dismissed as "nonsense" suggestions that the agreement had any link with the recent release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi or trade deals with the oil-rich regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Under a memorandum of understanding signed by former Health Secretary Alan Johnson in spring 2008, Libyan medical staff will be able to get a year's instruction in Britain.

Training opportunities will be available in the UK for Libyan medical staff in areas such as intensive care, anaesthetics and endoscopy, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, the Evening Standard reported.

Links have also been formed between London's Moorfields Eye Hospital and the main eye hospital in Libyan capital Tripoli.

The agreement was later discussed in a visit to Libya by then health minister Dawn Primarolo and was raised again when Mr Johnson's successor Andy Burnham met health minister Mohamed Hijazi during a trip to the country on constituency business earlier this year, said the Department. >>> | Tuesday, September 15, 2009

'Cruel and Neglectful' Care of One Million NHS Patients Exposed
THE TELEGRAPH: One million NHS patients have been the victims of appalling care in hospitals across Britain, according to a major report released today.

In the last six years, the Patients Association claims hundreds of thousands have suffered from poor standards of nursing, often with 'neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel' treatment.

The charity has disclosed a horrifying catalogue of elderly people left in pain, in soiled bed clothes, denied adequate food and drink, and suffering from repeatedly cancelled operations, missed diagnoses and dismissive staff.

The Patients Association said the dossier proves that while the scale of the scandal at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust - where up to 1,200 people died through failings in urgent care - was a one off, there are repeated examples they have uncovered of the same appalling standards throughout the NHS.

While the criticisms cover all aspects of hospital care, the treatment and attitude of nurses stands out as a repeated theme across almost all of the cases.

They have called on Government and the Care Quality Commission to conduct an urgent review of standards of basic hospital care and to enforce stricter supervision and regulation.

Claire Rayner, President of the Patients Association and a former nurse, said:“For far too long now, the Patients Association has been receiving calls on our helpline from people wanting to talk about the dreadful, neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel treatment their elderly relatives had experienced at the hands of NHS nurses.

“I am sickened by what has happened to some part of my profession of which I was so proud. >>> Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor | Thursday, August 27, 2009

Worst Nurses 'Must Be Struck Off'
TIMES ONLINE: Nurses who neglect elderly patients should be struck off, the Government’s Chief Nursing Officer said today.

Christine Beasley said that a report into the poor care of more than a dozen elderly patients, published by the Patients Association, was distressing and should make “sombre reading for the nursing profession”.

A report from the charity released today includes stories of people left lying in their own faeces and urine, having call bells taken away from them and being left without food or drink.

The report was published as NHS nurses came under fire for their “cruel” and “demeaning” treatment of patients, in particularly the elderly.

The Conservatives said today that about 1,000 people a year were dying from pressure sores in England and Wales.

The condition, linked to poor hygiene and long periods in hospital or at home, has been cited regularly on death certificates over the last five years, a response to a parliamentary question disclosed.

Anne Milton, MP, the Conservative health spokeswoman, said: “This is yet more evidence that the strain that Labour’s tick-box target culture is putting on NHS staff is having a devastating effect on hundreds of patients and families in the UK.

“NHS frontline staff are being overburdened by red tape and paperwork and are consistently being spread too thin and too wide across the service. They must be released to do the job that they are there to do — to help people — or risk yet more unnecessary and needless deaths. >>> David Rose, Health Correspondent | Thursday, August 27, 2009