The short walk up Whitehall this weekend provided one snapshot of why hundreds of thousands of us turned up to protest.
Shuffling past Nick Clegg’s Cabinet Office, amidst the banners and bells, and beautifully timed to a soundtrack of Dolly Parton’s ‘Nine to Five’, I looked to the right and there they were: Clegg’s true ‘alarm clock heroes’, a group of doctors and nurses gathered outside the Department of Health. Four hours into the march and they were still loudly condemning health secretary Andrew Lansley’s plans to fling open the doors of the NHS to private healthcare companies.
Five minutes further up Whitehall, however, and we got a timely reminder of the government’s unwavering support for the private sector. Outside the smoked-glass windows of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (lobbyists for the big drug companies), stood an impenetrable line of police. Whether the protective shield was the idea of the ABPI or the government is irrelevant. What is clear is that the pharmaceutical industry enjoys a relationship with the government that is off limits to the public.
It’s not just big drug companies that enjoy close ties with our politicians. Private health companies across the board have built a dense and largely opaque network of political contacts with one aim – to influence policy in their interests. They don’t have to shout.
Take just one private healthcare company, General Healthcare Group (GHG), the UK’s largest private hospital firm. Its chair is Peter Gershon, who was appointed by David Cameron to advise the government on public sector spending cuts. GHG is up front about the ‘opportunities’ it sees from public sector reform.
GHG’s majority shareholder is Netcare, South Africa’s largest private hospital group. Netcare sees the NHS as “one of the largest and most attractive healthcare markets globally”. According to its CEO: “We have targeted the UK healthcare market for expansion, as the long-term demographic trends and prospects for development… offer significant future growth potential.”
As well as directly courting politicians, GHG’s lobbying campaign to usher in this lucrative dawn has involved funding the H5 Private Hospitals Alliance, a lobby group for the big 5 private hospital groups in the UK (launched in Parliament); surveying MPs on the role of private healthcare providers; hiring extra hands with lobbying agency College Hill; and funding the free market think tank, Reform.
GHG’s sponsorship of Reform (a £6000 annual fee plus £6000 per event it sponsors), has bought the firm influence and privileged access to politicians: a 2009 GHG-sponsored conference, for example, called ‘The Future of Health’ saw Fawcett share a platform with Lansley and other key health politicians.
This complex web of influence has been constructed by private healthcare to get the reforms it wants. Follow any other thread and you’ll find similar:
Before joining the think tank, Reform’s deputy director, Nick Seddon, was head of communications at private hospital firm, Circle, which at the end of last year became the first private contractor to take over the running of a whole NHS hospital. Circle replaced him with Christina Lineen, a former aide to Andrew Lansley.
Reform supports the pro-market lobby group Doctors for Reform, headed by Dr Paul Charlson, a GP but one that runs a private clinic specializing in anti-aging treatments. Charlson is also chair of the Conservative Medical Society, which is affiliated to the National Union of the Conservative Party, and a director at pro-market think tank 2020health. Its chairman is former Tory health minister Tom Sackville, who is also the chief executive of a global network of private health insurers.
For the nurses out protesting on Saturday, getting their voices heard above the roar of the crowd is nothing compared to shouting above the legions of lobbyists surrounding Lansley.
We know who currently has his ear.
The ‘lobbying network’ above features in a new book The Plot Against the NHS by Colin Leys and Stewart Player, published by The Merlin Press on April 14th.
Take a short tour of some of the private healthcare companies, as well as lobbyists they hire and think tanks they fund, which are pushing for reform of the NHS.
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