RolloTreadway on Nostr: You're right to call BS. I'm not going to defend any corporate donations, because I ...
You're right to call BS.
I'm not going to defend any corporate donations, because I believe they should be illegal across the board. And giving donations in exchange for public sector contracts is corruption, whoever does it.
But - as I've said here many times - private contracts in NHS provision is *not* privatisation. I'm sitting here right now in front of my HP laptop, using Microsoft Excel, looking at care records made using a system designed by Cleric, which were recorded by paramedics on devices made by a number of specialist hardware companies, where the paramedics record their use of medicines and equipment purchased from all sorts of businesses. All done in the back of a Mercedes ambulance.
Every single company involved in that process is a private business. The only fully public sector exceptions are me and the paramedics, employed directly by the NHS and paid from public funds (and various other Trust employees who make it possible, the mechanics and IT staff and medicines managers etc).
Which is how it should be; the NHS is not and should not be a manufacturer, and it would be intensely damaging - lethal - to stop using privately-produced drugs, equipment and software on a matter of principle.
As I despairingly cry every day: the NHS is not just a doctor and a nurse in front of a bed. Criticise the corruption of corporate donations all you like, but use of specialist private providers in the NHS is *not* privatisation, it's the only way the NHS can possibly function.
I'm not going to defend any corporate donations, because I believe they should be illegal across the board. And giving donations in exchange for public sector contracts is corruption, whoever does it.
But - as I've said here many times - private contracts in NHS provision is *not* privatisation. I'm sitting here right now in front of my HP laptop, using Microsoft Excel, looking at care records made using a system designed by Cleric, which were recorded by paramedics on devices made by a number of specialist hardware companies, where the paramedics record their use of medicines and equipment purchased from all sorts of businesses. All done in the back of a Mercedes ambulance.
Every single company involved in that process is a private business. The only fully public sector exceptions are me and the paramedics, employed directly by the NHS and paid from public funds (and various other Trust employees who make it possible, the mechanics and IT staff and medicines managers etc).
Which is how it should be; the NHS is not and should not be a manufacturer, and it would be intensely damaging - lethal - to stop using privately-produced drugs, equipment and software on a matter of principle.
As I despairingly cry every day: the NHS is not just a doctor and a nurse in front of a bed. Criticise the corruption of corporate donations all you like, but use of specialist private providers in the NHS is *not* privatisation, it's the only way the NHS can possibly function.