Mosquitoes are hard to love. A flying syringe of an animal profiting from something as fundamental as our blood is revolting. If reports are correct, joining them down this end of the food chain will soon be Capita who are currently having “commercially confidential” discussions with the National Blood and Organ Transfusion Service regarding privatisation of their work. Anne Milton MP is (unsurprisingly) playing her cards close to her chest on this one, though revealingly “competitive tendering” isn’t ruled out according to her correspondence. That’s right folks, the coalition is seriously considering Capita et al making a buck out of blood. With their impressive track record of numerous IT contract blunders, the collapse of Individual Learning Accounts and chaos at the Criminal Records Bureau, I personally give Round 1 to mosquitoes in the more competent bloodsucker stakes.
This important health debate is off-radar for most people what with Andrew Lansley’s attempts to dismantle the NHS and feed it to ravenous packs of competition lawyers. Expect it to gain some traction once the NHSBT report to the under secretary and the coalition have to finally front up to parliament on what they’re up to. Expect also the resident socialists like the general counsel of McDonalds restaurants (transplant policy) and the former head of marketing at British petroleum (chair) on the NHSBT board to recommend privatisation in the name of efficiency and choice. Privatisation of everything but blood collecting is the most likely outcome with IT, Estates, processing and testing sold off cheap to (surprise surprise) an effective private monopoly.
The free market puritans are at it again, completely unaware that their devotion to the creed of profit and competition is something we all find a bit creepy when it comes to flogging off pancreases. Most voters would rather see money intended for blood transfusion services used for that and not shareholder dividends. Unemployed councillors seem to have a positive effect on Lib Dem health policy so here’s hoping that same breathtaking cynicism reaches this end of the health debate eh.
This is characteristically maverick stuff from a coalition who thought they could get away with privatising forests. The dangers are difficult to overstate, the UK generally has 50,000 units of blood in stock at any time (about a week’s worth), not enough people donate in general (96% of us rely on the other 4% to donate and maintaining sufficient supplies of rare blood groups is nigh on impossible (U negative, for example, only found amongst people of African and Caribbean descent). Thousands of unsung heroes donate now out of pure altruism, profiteering on human blood and organs will inevitably introduce distrust and disapproval from most. Stocks will fall (and that’s before you factor in the mandatory Capita cock up likely to dent public confidence even further). It’s something about being human, your blood is special, it’s you and you don’t want one drop of your 5 litres enriching your average shareholder or mosquito.
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