Yes. The documents do at least prove that parts of the NHS are on the table. While we are not really talking about Hospitals and service provision, at least not yet, these documents show that how the NHS selects and purchases drugs will be covered by a US-UK trade deal under a Conservative Government.
This guardian article and linked PhRMA statement show as much.
The Guardian overview tells us;
Our source told us to forget about suggestions that US corporations were going to buy up hospitals, medical services and fleece the NHS – this was just political scaremongering. But they said that the key issue worrying some inside Whitehall was negotiations relating to the complex world of intellectual property (IP) and patent law, which could pave the way for US drug firms demanding higher prices for their medicines and over a longer period of time.
Key points in the linked PhRMA document such as this one stand out.
As such, innovative medicines should be priced and reimbursed at levels that
appropriately recognize their value to patients and society. Unfortunately, UK patients
experience materially longer delays in accessing new medicines than patients elsewhere because of rigid national HTA processes, sub-national duplicative assessment or commissioning processes, and prescribing policies and incentives aimed at containing costs to meet unreasonable budgets.
As the article discusses, this paragraph is aimed squarely at the removal of NICE, the NHS commissioning service that sets evidence, cost and value for money limits on what drugs the NHS will buy. Removing NICE opens the door to fragmentation of purchasing services, reducing the strength of the UK Health services' negotiating position inevitably leading to higher drug prices as seen under the US model.
The first section of the BBC article covers much of the same ground.
