PowerSwitch

It seems our government's latest little wheeze is to sell off the National Blood Service. http://action.unitetheunion.com/page/s/BloodMoney

Okay, that's a new low.

Thanks for the link/info Biff.

If the National Blood Service is privatised I won't give blood anymore.

+1

energy-village wrote:If the National Blood Service is privatised I won't give blood anymore.

-1 - there is a severe shortage of blood. That view will condemn people to their death and is avoidable. I'm not saying that I agree with the government policy btw.

No, it's the view that blood should be a for profit business that is the problem. It takes the 'donation' out of 'blood donation'.

Lord Beria3 wrote:

energy-village wrote:If the National Blood Service is privatised I won't give blood anymore.

-1 - there is a severe shortage of blood. That view will condemn people to their death and is avoidable. I'm not saying that I agree with the government policy btw.

We know from experience elsewhere in the world if you pay money for blood there is no shortage of druggies, alcoholics and the desperate who'll supply it. Apparently that is the Tory plan. Nice. The late Christopher Shale described the Tory Party as appearing "graceless, voracious, crass, always on the take". Sounds about right.

The UK buys vast quantities of blood from overseas donors.....

If this service was privatised i believe it would work a lot better, even branch out the transport sector to private companys eg couriers on bikes as we all know bikes can be a lot quicker in rush hour times and more lives could be saved,i also believe more donors would donate if they were to be paid for the donation,(Private companys would have more funding available to screen the blood) because at the moment nhsbt collect blood for free from the public then they sell it on to the hospitals (so who is making the profit now)its the blood service making the profit to pay the salary's of the many management they have, so if cuts were made to management and transport departments millions could be saved.There is no reason why GP Surgerys all over uk could have a donor day or walk in centre to donate .also there are thousands of man hours paid for drivers to sit all afternoon in there vehicles whilst they wait for the donation clinics to finish so they could then take the blood back to the centres for processing. Surely it would be cheaper to have refrigerated vehicles to bring all donations back together at end of a donor session,by the team who collect the donations.Why waste millions of pounds to have drivers sitting round half the day or sleeping all night on there blow up beds and being paid.No the wonder the polls dont want privatisation life to easy for them as it dosent say in the polls how many actually work for the nhsbt that have voted not to privatise,who knows,we will never know.

steve2705 wrote:If this service was privatised i believe it would work a lot better, even branch out the transport sector to private companys eg couriers on bikes as we all know bikes can be a lot quicker in rush hour times and more lives could be saved......also there are thousands of man hours paid for drivers to sit all afternoon in there vehicles whilst they wait for the donation clinics to finish so they could then take the blood back to the centres for processing. Surely it would be cheaper to have refrigerated vehicles to bring all donations back together at end of a donor session,by the team who collect the donations.Why waste millions of pounds to have drivers sitting round half the day or sleeping all night on there blow up beds and being paid.

Using motorbikes may be quicker but some of the saved lives will be cancelled out by the couriers who are killed at work.

I've done some driving for the blood service and the driver definately didn't sit around all day when I did it. I'd park the trailer and set it up then either the minibus that brought the staff would take me back to pick up another vehicle or I'd go back in the unit and collect another trailer for more work. If the driver had worked the night shift then he would sleep in the cab but that earns him about £22.30 for a 'night out' not the same as full pay. Believe me, that option, in a busy area, is very unpopular

Can't comment on anything else professionally but I don't see much real benefit in privatisation except to the b@st@rds who've wrecked my future already. Railways, gas, electric, water etc have all just meant increasing bills and large corporate profits mostly declared overseas so we don't even see the tax from said profits

There is hysteria and then there is reality.

Seems they are only looking at contracting out the few ancillary services that are not already done privately.

Stuff like storage & delivery apparently. The supply of donated blood freely to hospitals would remain.

£125 per unit...that makes me worth....