NHS plc: The Privatisation of Our Health Care

By Allyson M Pollock
Verso £9.99 PB

Reviewed by Mandy Vere

NHS plc is an account of how Britain's National Health Service, which established health care as a right, and has served as an international model, has been progressively dismantled and privatised by successive governments over the past quarter-century. Allyson Pollock argues that the systematic nature of the process has been hidden in the rhetoric of "diversity" and "choice", but she details convincingly the commercial forces at work and the real costs of privatisation in lost efficiency, lost services, lost universality and lost equality. At the same time the professionals who worked to build up services to give the best quality of care to all patients are being replaced by agents acting on behalf of corporations and their shareholders.
While at pains to explain in the introduction what she does not cover - the different situations in Scotland & Wales for instance, and more detailed coverage of services for mental health, people with physical disabilities, paramedical and public health services, etc - Allyson concentrates on three main areas of health care: hospitals, primary care and long-term care for older people. Her painstaking research and detail informs and shocks even those of us who knew what was going on, and for those who liked to pretend it wasn't so bad, reading this book is an eye-opener. Even The Lancet says it "confirms suspicions that something is rotten in the state of the UK's health system".
However, the author assures us that "this book is above all an expression of hope for the future". Noting that it took more than 50 years to build the consensus for the NHS, her hope is that her book will inspire a new generation towards reclaiming the vision of health care for all. Begging the question of wheels and reinvention, maybe, but let's be part of that new generation.
This book is a must for anyone concerned about the destruction of the NHS. While it is well documented, you do not need to be a health economist or academic to read it.

This book can be ordered from News from Nowhere bookshop.