[Margaret Pilkington]

What do you mean by privatisation?
The Hinchingbrooke hospital is run by a private company, but the care is still part of the NHS......and free at the point of service. So does that make it private or NHS?

This hospital has an excellent reputation for care and for making good use of resources, but the CQC were bamboozled into giving it a poor score...purely because it was run by a private company.

There is going to be private enterprise in some aspects of the health service......supplying consumables....the NHS uses companies that are in the business to make a profit.
Where money could be saved is in getting the best deal from companies by getting them to supply.....say, dressings.(just as an example, but there are many such supply issues)
Whichever company wins the contract is going to have huge volume sales to the NHS and if exclusivity can mean a better deal ( that means good quality at a reduced cost) then that is what should be aimed for.

The main problem is that the administration is expensive......agency care staff are expensive, locum doctors are expensive and companies know that when an agency nurse, or a locum doctor is required they have the service by the short and curlies.
The NHS is often slated by people who know nothing of the internal workings of this organisation.
Box ticking and target reaching should be abandoned.....they are not indicators of how the service runs, they are meaningless figures concocted to make Joe public feel like something is being done.....smoke and mirrors.
The NHS cannot be run like a supermarket....it is far too complex.