More Tory privatisation

The Tories plan that the National Health Service will have to pay over 100 private firms to treat patients in a major expansion of privatisation. The healthcare firms will be given the status of 'any qualified provider' (AQP) and allowed to offer services like physiotherapy, hearing aids and MRI scanning - for profit.

Companies such as InHealth, Virgin Care and Specsavers will be among the first to take advantage of this. NHS workers, including many doctors, fear that the NHS is being atomised, split into thousands of different providers.

Meanwhile patients have to find their way through many different organisations instead of one NHS.

Capitalism's future for the NHS is one where big firms, wary of investment elsewhere, make money from our public services and our health. We say kick big business, which cares only for profit, out of the NHS.

Sam Rivers

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Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.

Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.

We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to click here to donate to our Fighting Fund.