The £15 came from a Tory, a friend but none the less a tory who knows more about the way they want the NHS to go than you and I want it to. Already the NHS has some privatised sectors, its paying private companies to do the work its been starved of the resources to do itself. The budgets the tory installed managers set are often breeched and the NHS pays a fine every time they miss their targets. Thats why in A&E people are left in Ambulances for busy periods because and they will be fined if they are not dealt within there are not enough beds. The only free point will be an initial assessment to see whats wrong with you and to check if you have the money or insurance to pay for the quality of treatment you will be given. So the next step is to firstly split a few things that will only be covered by medical insurance or private care, split out other areas that will be dealt with by private hospitals but funded by the NHS. That will only leave A&E and minor treatments as the free bit and then after a while announce that the NHS has collapsed so might as well be completely privatised.
What you have to realise is that the NHS is being run down slowly so it reaches the point where it has to fail and has to fall to privatisation .
Its what they did with council services and utilities why should it be any different.
Sorry, but your friend does not know what he's talking about. There are absolutely no plans to charge patients, though as I highlighted there should be (in my view) for people who don't attend and health tourists.
As for Tory installed managers - sorry but it really doesn't work like that. The financial envelope is set by the DoH, which is dependant on what the treasury provides. Simon Stevens as a public servant cannot involve himself in the politics and the £21billion figure that he stated in the earlier part of the year, applies to whoever is in power. In terms of fines for missing targets, CEOs are asked to explain themselves at a ministry level and I am unaware of any fine being applied. When they are missing treatment targets, a taskforce may be brought in to resolve. We have seen at Mid Staffs (whilst Labour was in power), the danger of having limited interventions at a higher level, and for what its worth, the power given to the CQC under Mike Richards was actually a positive step by the Tories.
In terms of privatisation, there is room for private providers (where they are subject to the same level of audit and scrutiny as the NHS), and Labour actually brought in the use of private services (and for the right reasons) as the NHS could not provide diagnostic tests quickly enough. IMO where the Tories have got it wrong is empowering CCGs in terms of service provision and where it is obtained from. However, there is no whole-scale privatisation of the NHS, though with the increasing costs of drugs, procedures and agency staff it is easy to see why the NHS is so cash-strapped.