Health Secretary Wes Streeting has appointed Alan Milburn, a key advocate of NHS privatisation, as the lead non-executive director of the DHSC. Milburn, who has close links with private healthcare companies, suggests that Labour’s strategy could turn this way, too.
Milburn’s own role in private healthcare is controversial because his finances are deeply invested in the sector. It is said that Milburn, along with his family, has benefited handsomely from the same, making more than £8 million from private healthcare consultancy. His career encompasses a considerable period, notably when he served as Health Secretary under the Tony Blair government from 1999 to 2003. After that, he usually contributed amply to Bridgepoint Capital, the private equity firm owning Care UK, an operator of over 150 care homes in the UK.
Care UK has a controversial history of bottom-line-style cutbacks; it was at the centre of controversy in 2014 when it took over NHS services that cared for disabled people in Doncaster. Existing NHS staff’s pay was cut by 35% as it made 100 new, lower-paid, recruits. There have also been questions raised about the quality of care delivered. In 2015, an ITV investigation found evidence that clinically untrained staff were providing clinical care at Ealing Hospital’s Urgent Care Centre, in addition to reports of low levels of medication stock and manipulation of targets by frontline workers.
A report from Oxford University provides further weight to the privatisation problems in health services. This is because, of the 816 adult care homes that have been shut down by the CQC between 2011 and 2023, almost all were for-profit businesses. This equates to 804 private providers. Care services provided on a for-profit basis were also found to be consistently rated lower in quality compared with public sector entities. While public services scored between 66% and 80%, private care providers achieved only 52% to 64% of ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ from 2016 to 2021.
Surprisingly, the findings suggest that even the poorly rated public services are often much better than many highly rated private providers. Care UK still received huge wads of money-including an amount equivalent to £10.9 million from its homecare division-despite some of its branches falling in the category of “requires improvement” during the period 2013-2015.
Clearly, the appointment of Milburn as a non-executive director in the DHSC because of the potential conflict of interest and closeness to private healthcare companies like Care UK has been very long. Indeed, this appointment might well lead to further privatization within the NHS-a point that has touched off an upsurge of argument regarding the way ahead for public health in Britain.