Good for you Bonzo.

However, just bear in mind that as much as I see the place for private provision in a universal healthcare system, it is complimentary rather than replacement.

As our friends over the pond know, the cost of serious healthcare is not a cost such companies enjoy having, and the costs are too much to pass on. So the difficult cases? they pass them up and good old NHS has to save the day yet again.

A few years ago, I was asked to go to the USA and spend some time with Kaiser Permanante to look at their primary care models. All good stuff and we learned a lot, (KP also learned from us, especially in terms of clinical governance.) However, part of the treatment regime for them is to decide between the cost of intervention versus the cost of making somebody comfortable.

If I am proud of one thing about The NHS, it is that in 98% of cases, the clinical rather than the cost option is the one you receive. Yes, some drugs are not financially viable, but the organisation looking at such things (NICE) will say that 3months extended poor quality life is not worth, say £200K of tax payers money, but spending over three million to save a life can be, (one example being a bilateral leg amputation for a haemophiliac, costly to say the least...)

Yes Jack, the NHS is not about making money, although to be fair, it isn't about wasting it either. My concern is that there is a difference between coming in on budget and coming in on budget plus profit. That is the main difference between private and state provision. If the private sector is more efficient, then the state run organisations need to improve, not accept that you need to be private to be efficient. I have never, either as CEO of a large private concern or as a "leader" in The NHS, said that only the private sector can run a business.

Of course, history would prove me wrong, but that doesn't mean that future has to....