You may remember back in January i published a blog about the then leader of the opposition and now Prime Minister David Cameron who had held a meeting in his private office in the House of Commons with a group which seeks to privatise the National Health Service. At the end of December 2009, Cameron had invited Dr Helen Evans from NFR (Nurses for reform), to present her ideas about privatising one of the most important institutions in Britain – The NHS. You Can view my blog from January by clicking here.
On Monday 12th July 2010, the Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley published The Coalition Government’s White Paper ‘Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS’. The aims of the white paper are to free the NHS from the bureaucracy, give GPs the power to control their budget and hand power to the patients. Now cutting bureaucracy and giving patients more say may sound like a good idea, but is it really? Is asking your local doctor to become a manager by giving him/her responsibility for spending a good idea? I think not. I don’t know about you but when i visit my local doctor, i would rather hope his main concerns are seeing me and making sure i have good health, rather than him worrying about a health budget. It really is asking GPs too much. They are doctors not accountants and managers!
Andrew Lansley wants to remove two tiers of NHS management which includes 60,000 managers and PCT’s (Primary Care Trusts). Prime Minister Cameron says this will save us 45% over the next 4 years. However Professor Kieran Walshe from Manchester Business School has said these radical changes would not guarantee an improved performance.
However it appears not all GPs are up to the challenge that awaits them, Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham responded to Andrew Lansley’s announcement by saying that according to Michael Dickson from the NHS Alliance, only 5% of GPs are ready to manage an £80 billion budget. Dr Kambiz Boomla, told the BBC’s Today programme on Radio 4 “GPs are busy people. We don’t have time to do this in between seeing patients, so we’re going to have to buy in commissioning support from private companies. My fear is that the government has a hidden agenda – to allow private companies to buy out GP practices.”
So giving GPs the power of where to spend an £80 billion NHS budget may or may not sound like a good idea. However what is worrying is that due to GPs not knowing how to manage a budget or indeed if they are too busy to manage a buget there is fear they may hire a third party or organisation to manage the huge budget that government is asking them to manage. This is the worry of some GPs who see ‘Liberating the NHS’ as a stepping stone to privatisation of our health service.
The Health Secretary wants to give private firms the chance to run GP consortiums and effectively make profits. It also turns out that Andrew Lansley received a £21,000 ‘donation’ a few months ago from the Chairman of Care UK which will rake in million of pounds from the Tories NHS shake up plans. Care UK is a private health care provider, the leading shareholder in the group is a private equity group called Bridgepoint.
The Lib Dem/Conservative governments proposals are great news for Dr Helen Evans from NFR (From my January Blog) who says “we can be sure that the government’s proposals represent a shift towards health privatisation on the provision side.”
Just think, a few months ago when the political parties were campaigning in the general election, David Cameron said his party could be trusted more than Labour on the NHS. And now three months into the Coalition Government, NHS spending is ring fenced, but we are moving to a more privatised style of health care in Britain. It is almost certain that those Tory MEP’s such as Dan Hannan who said the NHS was a “60 year mistake” will be extremely happy at the proposed plans. One thing is clear though, that is business and profits will be put before patients. Whether you liked the Labour party or not, we did improve the NHS during our time in office, now it seems all of our hard work is to be wiped away. Remember this is the Conservative party, the party that privatised our gas, electricity, trains and aircraft. Now they want to do the same to the NHS. A leopard never changes its spots.
I just want to end with a reminder, Labour introduced the NHS in 1948, we continued to invest, and as Nye Bevan said in1948; “The Conservatives voted against the National Health Act, not only on the second but on the Third Reading. I do not see why we should forget this.”
