Lockheed Martin targets the NHS in UK

[PumpkinAle]

American arms company, Lockheed Martin, is targeting huge chunks of our NHS! If successful, the world's biggest weapons manufacturer could be in your GP's office, handling your records and scheduling your appointments.
Lockheed Martin isn’t content with raking in billions from selling weapons to countries right around the world -- now it wants a slice of our National Health Service.
Right now, it’s sniffing around a huge £1 billion contract to supply services to our GPs and family doctors. But the NHS hasn’t decided yet who will make it through the bidding process, so we’ve still got a chance to stop this arms company from profiting from the healthcare our families receive. But we don’t have long to make our voices heard.
Tell the government & NHS England to stop Lockheed Martin from bidding on the NHS contract. Gun-runners don't belong in the NHS!
The NHS has been delivering these services to GPs for decades, but the NHS has been banned from meetings about its own future and isn't even allowed to bid. The contract is also rumoured to be worth way more than the current cost of running these NHS services.
If this were really about saving the government money, bidding would be open to organisations that have already proven they can do the job. What's really happening is another step in selling off the NHS to the highest bidder.
The SumOfUs community has already fought back against the corporate vultures trying to put their profits before the needs of patients. Together, over 250,000 of us demanded that NHS England stop the sale of our medical records.
We’ve proven that we can challenge the corporate takeover of our NHS and now we need to step up and do so again.
Sign the petition to stop the government & NHS England from giving £1 billion to Lockheed Martin and giving arms dealers control of the NHS.
Thanks for all that you do,
Martin and the team at SumOfUs

[KT2000]

1. defense contractors

are doing lots of privatization here in the US. Grummand handles personnel records and matters for federal workers now. They really are taking over.

[DavidDvorkin]

2. That's very misleading

In the early 1970s, I worked for Martin Marietta, now combined with Lockheed into Lockheed Martin. MM was a giant corporation with many separate subsidiaries and corporate divisions. Defense was only one of those. Aerospace, where I worked, did a lot of work for NASA. I worked on the Viking Mars Lander when I was there. Another subsidiary produced materials for the construction industry. Yet another was a software company whose clients were other corporations and government agencies.

It's not a defense contractor making the bid. It's a software company that's under the same giant corporate umbrella as a defense contractor.

[PumpkinAle]

3. Lockheed Martin is the world's biggest arms manufacturer

So we have one giant corporation who because they helped NASA (definitely not for altruistic reasons) you feel it is okay that they go after another country's health care? It doesn't matter how many different spokes on the wheel they have, it is all the same wheel and ultimately the profits and controlling interests go to the core which is the arms manufacturing.

Cameron is selling off the British health service/NHS to a foreign Military arms manufacturer - would you be so cavalier if this was a Chinese arms manufacturer?

Money will be taken from front line care to provide profits for arms manufacturers – is this something that the English public signed up for? And the government still dares to pretend there is no NHS privatisation?​ This is just further evidence that this government’s ​health ​policy is spiralling out of control.​”​ Comment from Dr Louise ? Irvine​ of the National Health Action Party​​?​

Corporations like LM are too big - and should not be given the opportunity to get any bigger.

[DavidDvorkin]

4. Different divisions, different subsidiaries

What counts is the record of the software company in handling such work. The defense work is irrelevant to the issue.

[PumpkinAle]

6. Bull - you have

your head in the sand.

Where do you think the profits go?

The defense work is very much relevant.

If they call themselves Lockheed Martin then that is all there is to know.

[tammywammy]

5. I would assume this work would be done by LM UK

They already do a lot of governmental work in the UK, including the census.

[PumpkinAle]

7. Yes they do

that doesn't make it right.

And now they want the NHS too - the government (Cameron) is lying to the people. Privatization is not what people want, but it is what corporations want. Ironic most people in the US want to get away from privatizing healthcare, but don't see it as a problem for the UK.

[tammywammy]

8. The issue is with Cameron.

The government put out a tender, LM UK along with others are going to put in bids.

[PumpkinAle]

9. Yep Cameron the corporatist - who

wouldn't let any NHS outfits bid - just the conglomerates like LM and G4S.

He is a shit.