Free I blame the scapegoats by John O'Farrell Page B

calls are being made from Downing Street. 'You did what?' says Tony in
disbelief. 'Nationalize Railtrack?! I said "rationalize", you idiot.
God, I hope Gordon heard me last night. We were trying to get a cab and I said
this country needed more taxis.'
    Meanwhile
the work of the Institute of Animal Health was defended by Elliot Morley MP,
who apparently has the misfortune to be the 'Animal Health Minister' (although
this post was obviously invented last week to save any proper ministers the
embarrassment of defending it). He called their work 'world class'. Sounds like
someone's got their labels mixed up again. This was in fact a catastrophic
series of errors, which nearly caused the extermination of all British sheep
and has left us still ignorant as to whether BSE exists in our sheep. Heads
should roll, except they'd probably only fire the wrong person by mistake.
'Don't worry, minister - we've found the person responsible for this animal
mix-up and sacked him. It won't happen again, we promise: he's definitely not a
token scapecow.'
     

Hotel
health service
     
    8
December 2001
     
     
    The
decision was taken by a handful of ministers, late one night in Downing Street.
Thousands of NHS patients still waiting for operations . . . hundreds of private
hospital beds lying empty . . . there had to be a solution in there somewhere.
    'So what do you think, Tony? Shall we
nationalize BUPA and seize all private health companies in the name of the
workers?'
    'Hmm, no, it doesn't
feel right. . .'
    'Raise more cash for the NHS by putting a
super-tax on all those toffs who always go private?'
    'No . . . How about we work in partnership
with the private sector, and pay BUPA a load of money to treat NHS patients?'
    And
there was an excited gasp of breath around the room and they spontaneously
leapt to their feet and sang 'The Red Flag'.
    The
announcement that the government is signing a deal with BUPA to fill up one of
its hospitals with NHS patients was heavily criticized by union leaders this
week. No one on the left likes private health companies - what could be more
symbolic of uncaring capitalism than profiting from the sick and the dying?
'Why should our money go to line the pockets of BUPA shareholders?' we say
angrily, and then get even more irritated when we are informed that BUPA
doesn't actually have any shareholders - it is a provident association.
    'Yeah, well, er,
exactly!'
    Various
schemes were considered. One idea that went out of the window quite early was
for Alan Milburn personally to take out private health insurance and then see
if they could get 12,000 people who were on the waiting lists to go into a BUPA
hospital and pretend they were Alan Milburn. The long-term solution is, of
course, to increase the capacity of the NHS and, to the government's credit,
they are actually spending a fortune building new hospitals and doing up old
ones. But these refurbishments take ages; when the builders are trying to swing
the steel girder into position, they have to keep being extra careful not to
whack that bedridden pensioner on the head.
    Meanwhile
the waiting lists remain and the government has been gazing across longingly at
the plush private hospitals that were sitting there half empty. BUPA hospitals
are basically just very expensive hotels where you can get a bit of medical
treatment as an optional extra. Sometimes they even host two-day conferences of
sales executives and after the discussions the delegates try the Jacuzzi, have
a massage and then decide to get themselves a plastic hip joint before they
head home. Now one of these BUPA hospitals will be used to treat only NHS
patients. The government are not saying 'The lists are so long you should pay
to go private', they are saying 'The lists are too long, so we'll pay for you
to go private.' Health care remains free to all at the point of delivery. That
is the Rubicon that must never be crossed.
    There is a lot of confusion about how a
hospital can be part private and