Saw on the telly that government is to spend hundreds of millions of quid on things called Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs). These will provide diagnoses for many conditions and refer on where needed.
A government report says:
GPs will be able to refer patients to a centre so they can access life-saving checks closer to home and be diagnosed for a range of conditions, rather than travelling to hospital. This will be more convenient for patients, more efficient and more resilient to the risk of cancelled tests in hospitals due to COVID-19.
Well, do we not already have these capabilities? These functions are provided by GPs and NHS hospitals working together. Also they will be more convenient will they? My nearest hospital: two miles. Nearest CDC: 30 miles. And they are going to make the CDC’s completely immune to Covid, are they? That’ll be good; perhaps we could extend the miracle to the rest of society then?
Forgive my cynicism but I think this is just another step in the plan to completely privatise the UK’s healthcare and do away with the NHS. The CDCs already in place are set up and run by private healthcare specialists who sell the service to the NHS. So, when the government finally gets rid of troublesome GPs and surgeons who stubbornly put patient welfare before politics and budget, it will be much easier to swing everything over into private ownership and start charging sick people for their healthcare.