BMA chairman calls for end to market in health care

doi:10.1136/bmj.b2659

Published 30 June 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2659
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2659

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BMA chairman calls for end to market in health care

Andrew Cole

¹ Liverpool

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The chairman of the BMA council, Hamish Meldrum, called on England’snew health secretary, Andy Burnham, to end once and for allthe "waste and inefficiency" of the private finance initiative(PFI) and the "experiment" of a market in health care.

A recent analysis by the University of East Anglia indicatedthat the government could save £2.4bn ( ${euro}$ 2.8bn; $4bn) ifit bought out all the private finance contracts in the NHS.

Dr Meldrum said, "Yet what do we see: the ludicrous spectacleof a government giving taxpayers’ money to private companiesso they can fund PFI contracts to build our public hospitals."

This was all because Gordon Brown wanted to keep public spendingoff one part of his balance sheet so that he could deliver his"golden rule" (that the government can borrow only to fund investment,not to fund everyday spending). Even the health minister AraDarzi had . . . [Full text of this article]

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