Privatisation of health by stealth
By Stan Crooke New Labour’s sustained attacks on the NHS are the most graphic illustration of their promotion of a big business agenda and their abandonment of basic labour movement values. When the NHS was created in 1948 it was based on the simple idea that health was a right, not something to be bought or sold. Its basic principles were comprehensiveness (meeting all medical needs), universality (covering all parts of the country), and equal access (irrespective of income). Some compromises were made at the time of its creation — hospital consultants were allowed to continue with their...