This blog from SpinWatch is so importsant it needs quoting at length:
GPs won't have to turn to the private sector' to help with commissioning health services, said Andrew Lansley today in the Commons, trying to fend off accusations that the Tories are privatising the NHS with their reforms.
“The House knows my commitment to the NHS," he continued. “I haven't spent seven and a half years as shadow secretary and secretary of state to see the NHS undermined, or fragmented or privatised... That was never my intention. It is not my intention.”
Privatisation was ‘never his intention'? Someone should tell that to Mark Britnell, a former high-flyer in the Department of Health, now global head of health at KPMG, and recent appointee to David Cameron's “kitchen cabinet” of health experts to advise on health service reform.
Just six months ago, Britnell told a conference of private healthcare executives: “In future, the NHS will be a state insurance provider not a state deliverer.”
In case there was any ambiguity in that, Britnell explained to conference delegates (in a session called 'Reform Revolution'):
“The NHS will be shown no mercy and the best time to take advantage of this will be in the next couple of years."
How could Britnell, who made it into the top ten of the ‘100 most influential people in health ' last year - as well as into No.10 - have got Lansley so wrong?
Of course he hasn't got Lansley wrong.
And I can be unambiguous: Cameron knew what he was doing in appointing this man.
It is glaringly obvious that GP consortia cannot and will not run the NHS.
It is glaringly obvious that Lansley has set out to destro the existing infrastructure of the NHS - and is succeeding in doing so.
And there is only one explanation - and that is that they want to privatise the NHS.
And in the process they will introduce health care rationing. That's the logic of their plan for individual health care budgets - some of which are already being introduced. These allocate an allotted sum to a person for care....but no one has yet said what happens when that budget runs out.
When people die because the NHS won't provide for them - then people might realise what the Tories are doing. And it will take a strong government, a government committed to nationalising in the public interest to take back into the public domain what should never be allowed to leave it - that will have to correct this damage.
And that will have to be a government far removed from the New Labour model.
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Yes, it would be nice to get governments that actually believe that some things are best done by the state, rather than the ‘private good, public bad mantra’ of the political right. One of new Labour’s many failings was that it went along with this in extending the PFI, rather than reversing Thatcher’s excesses.
Firstly, I’m changin my name as I’m bored of mad f.
“That’s the logic of their plan for individual health care budgets — some of which are already being introduced. These allocate an allotted sum to a person for care….but no one has yet said what happens when that budget runs out.”
Isn’t this what already happens in Singapore for “minor” healthcare? The state agrees to provide whatever significant care you need, but for other things the patient has an allocated budget that they can spend as they wish. This enables people who want to use traditional or alternative remedies to do so if they wish. It doesn’t need to be a negative thing as long as the state still provides support for the “non-negotiable” services.
The outcome would be increased health care costs
Not sure that’s what’s desired either…
Richard, I completely agree with your assertion – backed by facts in a recent post comparing the health costs of various national health systems – that health care costs would increase. What the gung-ho Tories fail to grasp is that our NHS system provides something very much closer to a level playing field not only for users/clients but also for business. In the US health insurance is part of some – and only some – company offers, so people shop around for a job that comes with good health provision. Needless to say, small, and often entrepeneurial, businesses cannot afford such start-up costs, so they do not get a fair selection of the labour market. Equally, workers shop around for jobs that provide good health benefits, and so do not necessarily work where their skills would be best deployed. Frankly, compared to our NHS, the US system is actually very anti-business, and certainly does not represent economic optimisation.Just for the record, I speak with knowledge on this – second-hand, admittedly – as I am a member of an interest group most of whose members are US citizens, and this topic of health care comes up all the time, exactly in the terms I have described – shopping around for jobs with adequate health care, and always being afraid that your hours will drop below the health-care eligibility.
Since the next election will feature some 40/50 less seats in parliament (probably all labour/libdem) and new legislation to deprive labour of union contributions is due in the next year or so, I very much doubt that the labour party have any chance of getting elected again: ever.
I very much doubt that davey-boi has packed the lords with over a hundred new peers just to give his mates a job.
Don’t forget, thatcher made a serious attempt to do the same with union money, and the members voted to carry-on contributing. The next attempt will just make unions paying any money to labour illegal.
Tories can only go so far to destroy democracy before rebellion will happen
Peaceful, I hope, sincerely
But rebellion none the less
They’ll just say “it’s from the EU” and everyone will walk away shaking their heads in despair.
Face it, the government [now] comprises the “free” press [conservative] and the EU.
Loads of lords means anything will get passed, even the death penalty for speeding is now possible.
The last 13 years have been spent planning this….and labour is so up its own backside it cannot put forward an argument to save its life.
They elected Ed, a guy who many say “who?” when asked about….Mr Bland.
Face it, Tony Blair was not an honest guy…..but he could sell petrol to people fighting a forest fire.
Ed couldn’t sell water to someone dying of thirst.
I foresee at least 30 labour seats going in the gerrymandering session soon…..and many more becoming marginal……
The removal of the union contributions will bankrupt the party in a few months,
and another several dozen lords will arrive in ermin, fresh from the boundaries commission.
Its part of the ‘personalisation’ agenda started under New Labour.
“Individual health care budgets” is a continuation of what already happens in social care in “Self Directed Support” with recipients receiving individual budgets supposedly to enable them to choose (if they’re lucky enough to get funding) what services they require. In reality, around 9% of their budget goes straight out the door in admistration costs that they have to pay due to massive increase in bureaucracy and form filling and by funding the user instead of the service, many services have failed to create a critical mass required and become financially unviable and have closed eg day centres which have closed completely or drastically reduced the hours they are open and who can attend.
The purpose of all these ‘reforms’ is not to produce a better service. It is corporate welfare, providing enormous and secure government contracts to firms like Capita, ATOS and KPMG, a channel via which taxpayers money can be directed into corporate coffers, with the hapless patient (remember those?) or service user as a mere enabler.
Keep up the good work, Richard.