To stop NHS privatisation, we need a global healthcare movement

Ameen Kamlana, a British GP, talks about the need for solidarity between the U.K. and the U.S. to defend the National Health Service in the U.K. and learn about privatised healthcare in the U.S. “As a GP, I recently learned about NHS privatisation after questioning why those in authority never seem to listen to staff and patients, and why it is that I can no longer provide treatments to my patients on the NHS that I previously could. The answer is that our healthcare system is currently undergoing the greatest structural market reform in the history of its existence, and it’s happening along American healthcare lines. Last year, I met with Bonnie Castillo, executive director of National Nurses United (NNU)—the largest nurses’ union in the United States—at the World Transformed conference in Liverpool. She was shocked to hear me say the NHS was now adopting wholesale the US’s accountable care organisation (ACO) model. Bonnie had just spoken to a room full of NHS activists, and ended her address by saying: “We need you to win your fight for the NHS in order for us to be able to continue our fight in the US.””