Hospital trust merger probed by watchdog
BRITAIN’S competition watchdog has been drafted in to rule on a merger between two publicly funded hospitals.
The Competition and Market Authority (CMA) — more commonly called upon to rule on corporate takeovers — gave the green light yesterday to plans for Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Foundation Trust to swallow up debt-laden neighbour West Middlesex.
Anti-privatisation campaigners said the regulator’s involvement showed just how far the Tories’ NHS market reforms have gone since 2012’s privatising Health and Social Care Act.
Similar stories
Born from my communist social worker mother’s efforts to bridge healthcare gaps, Labour’s push for home-based care now risks becoming another avenue for the US corporate takeover of the NHS, writes RICHARD CLARKE
Behind Starmer’s headline-grabbing abolition of NHS England lies a ruthless drive to centralise control so that cuts of £6.6 billion can be made — even if it means reducing cancer services and clinical staff, writes JOHN LISTER
Royal College of Emergency Medicine says advertisement is ‘normalising’ patients being treated in the corridors



