The Dirty War On The NHS

Last Updated On: 24 April 2026

The great John Pilger’s The Dirty War On The NHS flagged up on my YT last night, I rewatched, having seen it when it first aired on ITV at the end of 2019.

It left a grave impression, where only last week I was talking about it to someone.

It was pretty horrifying then, now it’s truly got it’s feet under the table, which the pandemic conveniently moved along.

It gives the bare bones of how a pure-form ethos got eroded one government at a time; Thatcher, Blair, Cameron. 

Ali Parsa, was referred to as a doctor in the film, his doctorate wasn’t in medicine.

On walking away from the NHS contract he failed to deliver, he pocketed a fat half mill, for his trouble, leaving a blaze of chaos, hurt and mistrust in his wake.

But he didn’t stop there. Because the likes of Cummings and Hancock, besotted, gave him another chance when he set up his Babylon apps.

The Secret Doctor had come out of anonymity to appear on Newsnight, to challenge Babylon’s diagnostic system, with their representative. Like water off a ducks back, it didn’t touch the sides.

But Wes Streeting gave me hope with his election promise to implement more Preventative Health processes, yes at last I thought.

They’re obviously cheaper than waiting until chronic health issues take hold, which would:

* educate people to look after themselves better

* save money all round

* build people’s emotional resilience

* keep people in work longer

* support parents into raising their kids more healthily

* dispel the myths that eating healthily is expensive

Duped again.

Successive governments don’t want to give us that, because as the film shows that model doesn’t serve the purpose, which isn’t about health at all, it’s about enriching investors and lobbyists.

In the UK medicine fails to address the impact that stress, has on the mind-body connection, where we still in 2025 – can you believe – treat physical and mental health issues, as two separate entities, despite masses of evidence to the contrary.

Just think of the Lifestyle Prescription model that was a TED Talk some 15-yrs ago. 

We barely give it lip service, because it’s not lucrative. 

So we are where we are, increasingly falling under the spell of the American privatisation model,.

Which I’m convinced goes some way towards explaining why so many NHS Whistle-blowers are denigrated, in order to protect what’s become a protectionist gangster set up that:

* protects hospital boards

* protects the money that sloshes about

* isn’t earmarked for patients at all

I remember hearing that back in the dim and distant, in China doctors were incentivised by keeping people well.

Now we’ve turned the tables, we love keeping people sick, but we don’t want to pick up the tab for that either.

No-one’s going to save us from it, are they?

Timely because of Palantir’s quite recent breach of staff data.

Are we even bothering with GDPR these days, or has leaving the EU meant an erosion of that too?

Rant over 🙂

Tell me how do you feel about the way the NHS is itself being treated?