NHS plc

The privatisation of our healthcare

Allyson Pollock, Verso, 270 pages, hardback, £15.00

Allyson Pollock has been a prominent critic of the private finance initiative (PFI), the Tory policy to build schools and hospitals that was embraced by the Labour government.

PFI projects cost more and provide less than their publicly funded counterparts, and Pollock has been vilified by politicians and industrialists for telling this simple truth.

The book clearly details private sector involvement in the NHS, from the role of business in advising ministers on public policy to the profits extracted on cleaning and catering contracts by driving down pay and conditions.

The book poses a key question: how was it possible for a Labour government to dismantle so much of the welfare state without the public understanding what was happening and without serious opposition?

Unfortunately, however, it offers few answers and little hope that PFI can be arrested in the immediate future.