Peter Kenyon

Private health insurance: reflections on junk mail from Aviva

Private health insurance junk mail, it could have been from any of the providers. But this one from Aviva happened to catch my eye this weekend. Just as the fate of the National Health Service (NHS) hangs in the balance, a siren call goes out - as I suppose it does regularly - from those in the business of exploiting our understandable preoccupations with our health and wellbeing.

It prompted me to ask on Twitter, 

Time for #Labour campaigning responses to Private Health Insurance 'junk mail'?

I don't want or expect any retweets (RT). But I hope that our policymakers and NHS providers will wake up to the extent to which the electorate is bombarded with messages such as those in this corrosive item of junk mail. Just look at the headings:

You deserve private medical treatment.

Did you know it's available at the BMI The Harbour Hospital?

No, ifs. You deserve it, and it's available locally.

That's good news, isn't it?

In just a few words, we'd like to show you how you can benefit from fast treatment, excellent care and comfortable surroundings.

Well I have no wish to find myself questioning the good name of either the insurer or the provider. But the words used to reinforce that last message above could IMHO have been used to describe the local NHS hospital service if the reforms under the last Labour government had been continued.

The invitation goes on:

Even greater cover, that fits you - and your pocket

What was it that recent international study said about the National Health Service?

Then the coup de grace:

We've enhanced our extensive cancer cover

I don't know about you. But I had a health scare in my nether regions just before Christmas. I was seen by my GP the same day, refered for a scan, given an appointment at Barts' the next day and, I'm happy to say, given the all clear on the spot after a thorough examination.

But the message to the electorate from the private health insurers is completely different. It questions the speed, competences and 'hotel' provisions of NHS hospitals and their staff. In government, Labour, to the best of my knowledge, was aware of the impact of this type of advertising on public perceptions, but failed to develop a comprehensive approach to reducing, if not eliminating the need for private sector provision. As part of our Save the NHS strategy, I'd like to see our campaigning including challenges to these insidious appeals to our fears about our wellbeing. Whenever I have a chance I talk up my experiences of the NHS, which are generally genuinely good. If they are not, I know who to complain to, and it is never the person sitting next to me on the bus or in the pub.

The private sector can never compete successfully with a genuinely National Health Service. That is why the current Tory government is trying to break it up.

As they say on Twitter :

#DroptheBill

 

 

Calling all Labour Party members: What's your local GP's stance on Lansley lunacy?

A lively exchange is taking place on Facebook about the Labour Party not being much of a campaigning organisation. It was provoked by Martin Rathfelder , director of the Socialist Health Association. As an outgoing member of the Health Commission, which I sat on as a member of the NEC, I drew attention at a policy seminar in Manchester to a campaign being mounted by my local branch about the ConDem NHS Reforms aka Lansley's lunacy.

It started with a report at our last branch meeting from a comrade who monitors health developments. She reported a consultation organised by a local GP practice about the reforms. We both attended and were surprised at the sheer bewilderment of our local doctors. We learned they themselves were looking for leadership from among their peers and that meeting were being arranged to reach a local consensus. A local patient consultative group was also calling a meeting.

So I posted this information under the heading 'NHS Reforms - patient options' on a bulletin board serving our neighbourhood. Views now total over 800 and members of the public are commenting. A local Labour Party response has been drafted, commented on and will be submitted to the official White Paper consultation site. it will also be copied to out local Conservative MP.

The point is that any voter could ring their local GP and ask what are their views of the NHS Reforms. But for Labour Party members here is a simple opportunity to show that our party is a campaigning organisation.

 

Prorogation Tuesday: time to see Sicko - it's a must

With a week's break in prospect before the Queen opens the next session of Parliament, Sarah Brown is planning to should sneak hubby off to the cinema to see Sicko - the latest Michael Moore film. What better way of reminding our nearest and dearest of why we have a National Health Service and NB why it's time to stop lining the pockets of US HMO executives?

Rotten Tomatoes Consensus: "A devastating, convincing, and very entertaining documentary."

Political education for a nation, I'd say. h/t Aneurin Bevan