If a new Labour government comes into power after the next election, insurance companies must not seek to replace the NHS, but rather only compliment it, according to Andy Harrop, general secretary of the Fabian Society, a left-leaning think tank associated with the Labour Party.
“You must absolutely not imply that you are there to compete or replace public healthcare provided by the NHS,” Harrop warned.
Harrop, previously a backbench MP, was speaking earlier today to an audience of insurance professionals at an Association of British Insurers (ABI) event on health and protection.
Insurance companies should instead show that they can supplement, compliment and augment NHS care “particularly I suggest on mental health, where we know that there is just so much demand and the NHS so hard pressed,” Harrop said.
“It’s just so important to emphasise that Labour shadow ministers, fear middle class flight from the NHS.
“They fear a service for the poor that is a poor service,” he said.
“So any suggestion that private healthcare is trying to substitute for an NHS healthcare will go down very badly,” he warned.
“Anyone who loudly and publicly promotes queue jumping of NHS waiting lists could make private healthcare as unpopular with Labour politicians as private schools are at the moment.
“On the other hand, healthcare providers and insurers offering private health capacity to help clear public backlogs will make themselves a very welcome partner,” he said.
Indeed, it would be very difficult for insurance companies to portray the NHS as anything other than good, given the high esteem in which it is held nationally.
Rachel Wolf, founding partner at Public First, a policy, research, opinion and strategy consultancy, noted, “The NHS remains the closest thing we have to a national religion in this country – and I don’t think that is going to dramatically change.”
But she noted “There is openness to the NHS doing things somewhat differently.”
Wolf, a former adviser to the prime minister on education, innovation and science, and women and equalities from 2015 to 2016, said: “I think there is a recognition that this is a complex question, but there are benefits to people being able to use services around the NHS.
“I think there is plenty of openness for the use of the private sector in the NHS, which is separate from the use of insurance – and I think a lot of openness as well as some trade-offs on the use of insurance to supplement the NHS.
“I think there is real enthusiasm for employers playing a larger role,” she said.
Meanwhile, Harrop noted that “There are 400,000 more people who are long-term sick today than before the pandemic.
“But equally important is that we have a serious rise in sickness from people taking shorter times off work,” he said.
The UK safety net for people who lose their job or stop working is among the worst in the developed economies, he said, adding, “A quarter of adults have less than a hundred pounds in savings.
And the situation now is worse than its been in decades.
“If you stop working now, you will get less in terms of government public protection than at any time in our post war history,” he said.
“We have a basically, a system that is totally dysfunctional in terms of the protection available on the, the state side of things,” Harrop said.