Is the NHS about to be privatised?

Is the NHS about to be privatised? That’s the charge from some campaigners as the Health and Care Bill starts its journey through parliament. Certain doctors, mainly on social media, are calling on MPs to scrap the Bill because they claim it will open up the NHS to more privatisation and allow private companies to skim profits off our healthcare system.

It’s a big charge, albeit a familiar one, as it tends to pop up whenever there is legislation on the health service. But the strange thing is that it’s very hard to find the evidence for these social media claims in the actual legislation. In fact, these proposals are aimed at dampening much of the emphasis on competition introduced by Andrew Lansley’s controversial Health and Social Care Act in 2012. They are also largely changes that the NHS itself has asked for, rather than being imposed on it by a Tory party that is rubbing its hands at the prospect of squeezing solid gold out of our beloved health service.