Firstly, allow me to establish what the dark side is. It is not actually a part of the NHS so to speak, But rather the governing authority, the people who dictate what options the NHS have, the opportunities that will be given to the patients, the restraints that clobber us and restrict us in our everyday roles on the shop floor, whilst they sit in an ivory tower, the government. The conservative government and their very own Darth Vader, Theresa May.
These are the people that place the budgets that oversee the staffing levels ratios. These are the people, the political party, that have quite openly stated that they would like the NHS to be privatised, have written books and articles about why we should go private, why we should follow the American model.
It appears to me, that these people, are trying everything they can to have the NHS implode, to crumble, to fall apart from within and then, then they can stand over the carcass of the NHS and they can justify the privatisation. They can sell it off to the highest bidder and line their pockets with even more cash.
Changing the contracts of the junior doctors? The conservatives were probably quite surprised at the support being shown to the junior doctors when they played this card, but they played it very well, portraying the doctors as money hungry villains whilst Jeremy Hunt had the patient's best interests at heart. What will this cause? Well, many will leave the NHS for private companies, many will immigrate far and wide for better options and the ones that will stay will have all the extra work to pick up and an even harder job.
Taking away the student nurses bursary? Portraying the future nurses as greedy and only caring about having a free degree. What will this cause? Well, giving aspiring nurses the option of leaving university with around 50K of debt, having to work 37.5 hour weeks on a ward doing long days and nights whilst completing assignments at the same time, might not be as appealing without the bursary, which could potentially mean less nurses coming through the ranks.
Brexit. Now this, this is still a raw and touchy topic for some, so I will be gentle. This could potentially mean less overseas nurses plugging the gaps in hospitals and believe me there is a lot of gaps to be plugged.
Then what happens next? What happens when the level of care is being compromised as there are not enough qualified nurses to care for patients? When there are not enough doctors on the floor as they have started to leave and look for a better option. Well, this would be the prime opportunity for the government and the dark lord Theresa May to save the day, with justification she will say, by privatising the NHS. By tearing it limb from limb and selling it to the highest bidder.
Will this provide a better service? To be honest no one will ever know, until it has actually happened and we can measure its success or failure compared to the original model which has worked well for decades. Since its conception, through the watchful eyes of Aneurin Bevan the NHS has gone from strength to strength, with many other countries looking at it with admiration. Is it perfect? Of course not, but the idea of privatisation does not seem all that appealing.
Having worked in the prison service, having seen the way the government changed the working conditions, the salaries, the structure and having seen the detrimental effect it had on the prison service and working conditions. It would be very concerning if the same things happened to the NHS.
This is where the greatest concern comes from for me, what have the government done to try and resolve the negative changes that are occurring within the prison service? Well, privatisation of course, more and more prisons going private and yet again, I can tell you first hand that the private prisons are not run half as good as the government run establishments. Mainly due to the financial based objectives the private prisons have to adhere to.
I sincerely hope that I am being far fetched in my theory of the conservative government attempting to make the NHS fall apart from within; I hope that I am completely wrong. Yet it certainly appears that there is some sort of hidden agenda in all of this.