Jeremy Hunt and the NHS

Thought I'd expand upon a tweet I made upon learning Jeremy Hunt was to be the new Health Secretary.

So let's have a look at some of Hunt's comments and thoughts on the NHS and medicine.

Back in 2005 he co-authored a publication called 'Direct Democracy: An Agenda for a New Model Party'. In it Hunt came out with this telling quote:

1. “Our ambition should be to break down the barriers between private and public provision, in effect denationalising the provision of health care in Britain.” (Direct Democracy: An Agenda for a New Model Party, 2005, pg 78)

Then in 2007 he gave us his views on homoeopathy and the NHS with a Parliamentary Early Day Motion:

That this House welcomes the positive contribution made to the health of the nation by the NHS homeopathic hospitals; notes that some six million people use complementary treatments each year; believes that complementary medicine has the potential to offer clinically-effective and cost-effective solutions to common health problems faced by NHS patients, including chronic difficult to treat conditions such as musculoskeletal and other chronic pain, eczema, depression, anxiety and insomnia, allergy, chronic fatigue and irritable bowel syndrome; expresses concern that NHS cuts are threatening the future of these hospitals; and calls on the Government actively to support these valuable national assets.

So cobling the two together I give you the following which I think is a portent of the future of the NHS.


How to make a homoeopathic solution

• Take the original solution and dilute 1 part solution with 9 parts distilled water
• Take this new solution and dilute 1 part solution with 9 parts distilled water
• Repeat until the desired potency is achieved

How to sell off the NHS

• Take a fully public funded national health service and hand over key services to private capital
• Take this 'low fat' NHS and hand over critical assets to private capital
• Take this NHS Lite and dilute with yet more private capital
• Repeat until the vultures are fed and there's no meat left on the carcass.

When you look at the thoughts of the men and women who created the NHS you can perhaps understand why it's so vehemently hated by the Tories, their lickspittle LibDem co-conspirators and the capitalists.

Aneurin Bevan (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here's Aneurin Bevan on the NHS:

The National Health service and the Welfare State have come to be used as interchangeable terms, and in the mouths of some people as terms of reproach. Why this is so it is not difficult to understand, if you view everything from the angle of a strictly individualistic competitive society. A free health service is pure Socialism and as such it is opposed to the hedonism of capitalist society. —Aneurin Bevan, In Place of Fear, p106

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