This is a long read (approx 2.7K words). It outlines:
- How corporate interests are now enmeshed in the NHS, through new business alliances aimed at ‘capturing value from the human body as data platform’. That’s right, our bodies are now sources of data that global companies can’t wait to get their hands on.
- How the new 10 year NHS Long Term Plan is crucial to these business alliances. And it has given a big shove to the revolving door between NHS quangos and big digital technology companies.
- How this will radically alter the kind of healthcare the NHS provides: the computer will see you now.
Corporate interests are now enmeshed in the NHS, through institutionalised new business alliances that aim to transform medicine and healthcare by opening up opportunities for digital and Life Sciences industries
This transformation of medicine and healthcare is based on what Ernst and Young (one of…
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Politics and Insights 
Hi Kitty it’s good to see you back on the keyboard. I thought you may be interested in my own NHS experience?
It must have been just after midday on Wednesday (around the time I got a letter from the surgery August the 8th) that I received a quite aggressive call from a doctor whose name I didn’t hear. I’d had a second blood test two or three days before and he was now insisting I take a drug he had already prescribed for me (Metformin). He said he wanted me on the drug this week. He then went-on to inform me that he had made an appointment for me to attend the diabetic clinic. He told me that according to my records this had been a problem since 2014. I want to know why no one told me about it? I also have to wonder why it had become so urgent in the space of two or three days? This was all a bit intriguing.
A day or so later a British heart surgeon pops-up on my TV screen complaining that drug companies are marketing ineffective drugs and that the law needs to be changed – the one he mentioned that sticks in my mind was about statins being ineffective, (the very thing that is pushed at me every time I attend the surgery). This apart the NHS has admitted that the flu vaccine is ineffective whilst also recommending it.
I decided to do some research and found that the drug prescribed ‘Metformin’ had been found to cause brain damage by an Australian team of researchers. In fact I found that a drug I’m taking causes the problems that I’m taking yet another drug to control.
I decided to get a blood test kit and tested my own and my wife’s blood. (I know she has no problems with blood sugar.) What do you know, both read the same within one point and both read OK. I’ve had a couple of telephone conversations with the surgery since then and they should by now know my feelings regarding the NHS.
The sad thing is that I no longer trust the people who administer my health care.
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That’s an awful experience, sorry you were treated so badly and potentially, it could have harmed you, too.
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Everyone’s experience is different however. The one year I didn’t get my flu jab, and my lupus meds were suspended, the combination of autoimmune problems caused by a lupus flare and having catching flu almost killed me, as I developed pneumonia and sepsis. The vaccine for flu varies in how effective it is from year to year, it’s generally about 40% effective, but can be more or less. I have it because my immune system is shot away due to illness, and flu can kill me. That said, so can a cold. The flu jab has worked ok for me over the years I have taken it. I only missed it once, and was very seriously ill.
My illness is one that will kill me, it’s just a matter of trying to manage the symptoms sufficiently to slow down the process. Most drugs for autoimmune illness are experimental. A chemotherapy called methotrexate works to help around 15 – 25% of people who try it, by dampening down the inflammation process. I tried it,it worked for a while but following the pneumonia, sepsis and subsequent lung problems, I can’t take it any more.
For me, it’s a matter of weighing up the risk of the illness, and balancing them with the risk of serious side effects that may also kill me. My experience of the NHS has been mixed. There are some excellent doctors, but I’ve met two that caused me harm.
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