I find the second featured article interesting. The article recognises the importance that Lansley was formerly Cameron’s boss and suggests that Cameron was not interested or aware of the extent of Lansley’s ‘reforms’.

In a related exercise, I have been trying to nail down the origin of this movement to destroy the NHS. I suspect that it may be criticism of the National Health Service by American politicians in 2008 / 2009. These criticisms were made in response to Hillary Clinton’s manouvers concerning health care reform for the poor. Clinton’s proposals were only ever posturings – there was never any serious intentions.

It is disappointing that UK Neo-Cons suck up so much to their insane US masters. USUK.

A few recent news articles concerning the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

NHS rebel MP Pugh to receive 150,000 petition against reform Bill – Southport Visiter

CAMPAIGNERS will today hand over a petition signed by more than 150,000 people to MP John Pugh opposing plans to radically reform the NHS.

Members of campaign group 38 Degrees will tell the Lib Dem health spokesman of the dangers of the proposed Health and Social Bill.

The proposed Coalition legislation will hand 80% of the NHS budget to consortia of GPs, who will buy services from providers in the public, private and charity sectors.

But there are fears that NHS hospitals will go bust if private firms grab large chunks of their revenue by cherry-picking the easiest treatments.

Is Lansley’s NHS shock therapy a bolt from the blue? | Tom Clark | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

The great NHS storm that has beset politics was one that few saw coming. There were voices, and I hope a touch of self-congratulation on the part of the Guardian might be forgiven here, who warned before the election that Andrew Lansley was quietly drawing up plans that might explode the moment they met daylight. And so it has come to pass.

In part, of course, the calm before the storm arose because of what the Conservatives did not say. Lansley’s shock therapy was referred to in only the most oblique terms in the Tory manifesto, while the coalition agreement described an entirely different package, which involved democratising primary care trusts instead of abolishing them. In part, however, it has to do with the measured personal style of Lansley himself.

A former civil servant, who in the distant past worked for Norman Tebbit, he retains something of the mandarin’s technocratic manner. That is only reinforced by his extraordinary tenure over the health portfolio, which has been in his grasp since Iain Duncan Smith’s day, some seven years ago. Sure of his terrain, he avoided all the obvious elephant traps on the cusp of the 2010 election, and he made the shrewd choice to hug the doctors close, even querying Gordon Brown’s plans to extend GP opening hours, to ensure that the trusted voice of the profession would not rail against him in opposition.

…

The reaction against the health bill is rapidly moving from silent to violent, as the world wakes up to what it will mean. After those air-brushed election posters about “cutting the deficit, not the NHS” David Cameron’s personal reputation is very much at risk. Only when the memoirs are written will we discover whether he ever intended to allow the mild-mannered Lansley to gamble with a service that he once described as “a wonderful fact of British life”.

Oldham News | News Headlines | Wipe-out risk to NHS principles – Chronicle Online

The founding principles of the NHS are in danger of being wiped out by Government plans to overhaul the health service, an MP has warned.

Oldham East and Saddleworth MP Debbie Abrahams said the health reforms had no mandate from the British people and no support from health professionals nor the Lib-Dems who are in coalition with the Tories.

Mrs Abrahams said: “Not only are the founding principles of the NHS in danger of being wiped out, but its culture — the reason that most of its employees work for the NHS — will go as well.

“The whole ethos of the NHS will change. It will now be driven by competition and consumer interests.”

Experts warn cuts will savage NHS cashflow / Britain / Home – Morning Star

Health union Unison warned today against the government’s vicious local authority spending cuts following evidence that the NHS will be forced to pick up the pieces of a £1 billion gap in social care funding.

Health think tank the King’s Fund revealed that the NHS will come under increasing pressure from people whose needs are not met by local authority services.

The fund warned that local authority social care services face a funding gap in excess of at least £1.2bn by 2014-15.

Paul Blomfield MP attacks two-tier NHS privatisation plans

Paul Blomfield MP yesterday attacked the Tory/Lib Dem government’s plans to drastically restructure the NHS which he warned will create a two-tier health system, and encourage the privatisation of the NHS. Mr Blomfield urged the Government to abandon their NHS plans and listen to the British Medical Association who at an emergency conference on Tuesday urged the Government to think again.

Paul Blomfield MP said in his speech that: “The proposals reveal the ideological heart of the Government and their vision for public services: a two-tier health system, with the best available for those who can afford it, and the NHS becoming a safety net for those who cannot.”

Speaking after the debate Paul said: “I’m very disappointed that Lib Dem MPs failed to support Labour in defending the NHS from the Tory attack on it. The Lib Dem MPs have ignored the vote at their conference in Sheffield last weekend which rejected the NHS reforms and they’ve let down their voters.

Denham hits out as “NHS Frontline” campaign is launched

Earlier this week Labour launched a petition calling on David Cameron to protect frontline services in the NHS and keep his pre-General Election promise to put an end to big top down reorganisations. Labour secured an opposition day debate on Tory plans to reorganise the NHS after the plans were rejected by the Liberal Democrats at their Spring Conference and condemned by the British Medical Association at their extraordinary general meeting last week.

John Denham, Labour MP for Southampton Itchen, said: “GPs don’t want the Tories’ NHS reforms, Lib Dems don’t want the Tories and the public don’t want the Tories’ NHS reforms. We beat the Government on the forests and I know we can beat them on the NHS reforms if we all work together.”

John Healey, Shadow Health Secretary, added: “David Cameron has scrapped Labour’s waiting time guarantees for hospital treatments and GP appointments, and he’s cutting frontline staff while wasting £2billion on a reckless reorganisation.

‘Quality and safety’ at risk in NHS shake-up, officials warn – Telegraph

The guide to the “unprecedented” restructuring of the health service in England points out that previous reforms had a “negative effect” on services, staff morale and productivity.

It claims that “quality of care provided to patients” and “continuity of services” is in danger as tiers of management are removed and experience staff leave.

And the paper, signed by senior civil servants including the Chief Executive of the NHS, reminds staff that the Government’s reforms are taking place at the same time as £20billion in efficiency savings must be made.

Safe in their hands? Margaret Drabble on the threat facing the NHS | Society | The Guardian

The threatened NHS has been much in all our minds this week, and, pestered by online petitions and appeals for support, I’ve been going over my long relationship with it. Our experiences of the NHS are woven deeply into the fabric of our lives, and most of mine have been good. All my children were born and cared for on the NHS, and have been well served by it. And for those nearing the end of life, my GP used to bake and ice a cake for each of his patients who reached the age of 100.

It has been a recurrent theme in my fiction, as it has been an integral part of my life. The narrator of The Millstone (1966), a young unmarried mother, in a central confrontational scene, actually delivers herself of the line “I love the National Health Service”, while insisting on access to her sick baby in Great Ormond Street hospital. How things have changed since then, and sometimes for the better. When I went to visit my granddaughter a few years ago, as she recovered from minor surgery, the atmosphere was festive. Our generation of mothers had complained, we had made ourselves heard, and life on the wards had improved. That’s how it worked, and should work. It is for us, it is ours, and the professionals do listen.

And now we seem to be on the brink of losing all of this. It isn’t wholly unexpected. I predicted creeping privatisation in my 1996 satirical condition-of-England novel, The Witch of Exmoor, written at the somewhat ridiculous and squalid end of the failing Major government. We had already become wary about the selling off of public assets and services into private hands – gas, water, prisons, railways. One of the novel’s more sympathetic characters, an advertising man, works for a firm which is given the task of updating “the corporate image of the National Health Service”.

A few recent news articles concerning the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

Doctors fear private sector will damage NHS | Healthcare Network | Guardian Professional

Research involving 1,645 BMA members polled about the government’s health and social care bill has found that 89% think increased competition will lead to fragmentation of services, while 66% believe that the move for all NHS acute providers to reside within foundation trusts will damage NHS values.

The poll, conducted online in January by Ipsos Mori, also shows that nearly 60% of those surveyed think health secretary Andrew Lansley’s plans will have a negative impact on their personal role within the NHS, with 31% saying it will be a major one and 27% saying it will be minor. A specific concern, feared by a majority of those polled, is that the reforms will mean they spend less time with patients – something opposed by almost all those questioned.

Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of council at the BMA, said that the results show that the government “can no longer claim widespread support among doctors”.

38 Degrees | Blog | Over 175,000 of us say: save the NHS

In just six days, the petition to tell the government to Save The NHS has been signed by an incredible 175,000 members. We’ve only just finished voting on which campaigns to work on together over the next few weeks, and now we’ve already managed to build 38 Degrees’ fastest-ever growing petition!

While the petition is growing fast, 52,000 of us have shared it on Facebook, thousands more spread the petition on Twitter, hundreds of members organised local meetings and have spoken to their local MP, and the petition has only just been launched!

The media have noticed too. On Monday the Independent said, ”The campaign group 38 Degrees – which was instrumental in forcing the Government to drop its plans to sell off parts of Britain’s forests – collected more than 80,000 signatures against the plans over the weekend.”

If you haven’t already, please sign the petition and share with your friends and family.

‘Creeping privatisation’ of NHS will mean loss of expertise, say top doctors | Society | The Guardian

The “creeping privatisation” of the NHS will affect patient care, top doctors have warned, saying the government’s planned shakeup risks hospitals losing key services, critical research being jeopardised and public goodwill for blood donations disappearing as private firms are seen to profit from public funds.

Medical leaders fear the controversial switch to allow “any willing provider” – voluntary, public or private – to supply care services in the NHS will fragment the system. Driven by the need to save £20bn from NHS budgets, the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, plans to increase commercialisation and competition across the health service – with no part off limits.

Already, large elements of the health service are falling into private hands. Last September, Serco, the multinational services company with an empire stretching from railways to maintaining ballistic missiles, became the UK’s largest provider of pathology services, a market worth £2.5bn, with the takeover of King’s hospital laboratories in London.

The private sector is drooling over health privatisation plans | Ian Kirkpatrick | Politics | The Guardian

The government’s plans to outsource more NHS services have left many in the public sector with a bitter taste in their mouth and the private sector positively drooling. In the coming years, an array of health services is likely to be outsourced despite little evidence that it would improve efficiency and make savings. This will see a push to further privatise clinical services such as radiology and pathology – the latter worth £2.5bn per year. The government has recently been in talks about privatising part of the NHS blood service to make it more “commercially effective”.

Even NHS Direct is in the firing line with Capita – a company reported to the Office of Fair Trading two years ago for allegedly overcharging schools by £75m for IT contracts – lined up to manage the contract, according to reports. Major off-shoring is also on the agenda. John Neilson, head of NHS Shared Business Services, said recently that the NHS should outsource the administration of procurement to call centres in India to save £20bn over the next four years. For private companies eyeing a slice of the NHS pie, it gets better: NHS Trusts may ultimately come under private ownership with many of the services they manage also outsourced.

Areas such as estates management, worth about £7bn per year, and back-office functions such as HR and IT are also prime targets to be transferred to private owners.

Social care £1bn funding gap could undermine NHS | GP online

Unison says local authorities face budget cuts of up to 27% and cannot protect their adult care spending.

The King’s Fund has predicted that local authority care services will face a funding gap of at least £1bn by 2015.

Helga Pile, Unison’s national officer for social care, said demand for NHS services would escalate as social care users are left without care.

‘With stricter criteria to qualify for care and hiked-up charges, people are being priced out of the help they need,’ she said.

MP calls for cross party action against NHS proposals (From Falmouth Packet)

West Cornwall MP Andrew George is calling for cross-party support in an effort to block the Government’s Health and Social Care Bill.

Speaking during an initial debate on the bill in Parliament, Mr George said that the future of the NHS is more important than party political point scoring. He called for MPs to come together and to see if the Health Secretary and his fellow Ministers were really “listening” to concerns as they had claimed they were.

After the debate, Mr George said that he would be seeking a meeting of MPs and other stakeholders (including the BMA, Kings Fund, Royal Colleges, etc) before the Bill comes back to the main chamber of the House of Commons for its report stage after the Easter recess.

NHS reforms leave health ministers under attack from all sides | Politics | The Guardian

Simon Burns, the ebullient health minister and understudy to Andrew Lansley, has been sporting a new haircut this week in preparation for being made a privy counsellor. But his promotion as a confidant of the Queen hardly compensates for the terrible pounding he and Lansley, not to mention the Liberal Democrat health minister Paul Burstow, have been taking over the NHS proposals. One suspects the Queen might be quietly asking him what he thinks he is doing meddling with the health service.

Ministers certainly feel they are being hit from every side after they formally lost the support of the Lib Dems on Saturday, the British Medical Association on Tuesday and the former Blairite health secretary Alan Milburn on Wednesday.

For David Cameron it is now double or quits. He has a limited amount of political capital. Should he expend it on defending the plans as they stand or signal some big rethink? Half-measures are pointless. He has shown himself willing to compromise on school sport, forests and some welfare changes. But to delay the health shakeup, or change it at its core, would be a retreat of an entirely different order.

NHS red tape will increase by 600% under Andrew Lansley’s reforms – mirror.co.uk

Monitor, the taxpayer-funded body that regulates the health service, will have to spend millions more to keep the Health Secretary’s free-for-all in check.

The Government quango could see its budget jump from £20million a year to £130million to cope with the changes, it has emerged.

It makes a mockery of David Cameron’s claim that the Coalition plans, which hand 80% of the NHS budget for doctors to spend how they want, will “abolish” bureaucracy in the health service.

The notable NHS news in the past hour os so is that the Bristish Medical Association (BMA) has called on the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley to withdraw the bill that destroys the NHS.

The Press Association: Doctors vote against NHS reforms

Doctors have voted in favour of calling on the Government to scrap its plans for overhauling the NHS.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is coming under increasing pressure over his reforms, which would see more than 150 organisations abolished and 80% of the NHS budget pass into the hands of GPs.

Some doctors support the content of the Health and Social Care Bill, currently going through Parliament, but many have been voicing opposition to parts of it, including increasing the role of private companies in delivering healthcare.

The British Medical Association (BMA) held an emergency meeting on Tuesday attended by almost 400 doctors to debate the plans.

Doctors voted in favour of calling on Mr Lansley to withdraw the Bill entirely and for a “halt to the proposed top-down reorganisation of the NHS”. They said the Government should accept there was “no electoral mandate” for the plans which were not part of the election manifesto of either the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats.

A few recent news articles concerning the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

York doctor warns that lives will be lost if children’s heart unit closes (From York Press)

YORK lives will be put at risk if children’s heart surgery services are moved from Leeds, a top paediatric doctor has warned.

Dr Robin Ball, of York Hospital, said NHS proposals to move the heart surgery to Newcastle would be a “major problem” for the children of York and said it would put stress on hospital transport services.

He said York currently sends about ten extreme emergency cases a year to Leeds General Infirmary (LGI) for surgery as well as referring a “significant number” of the estimated 250 child heart cases which are seen in York each year.

Bucks doctors: ‘Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is ‘unfit’ to run NHS’ (From Bucks Free Press)

DOCTORS in Buckinghamshire are set to deliver a stinging attack on the health secretary Andrew Lansley – saying he has reneged on a pre-election promise and is ‘unfit’ to run the NHS.

The Bucks division of the British Medical Association, the doctors’ trade union, is expected to join other regions in calling for Lansley to resign at a meeting today.

A motion from Bucks doctors set to be debated says Lansley has “reneged on his pre-election promise not to reorganise the NHS management structures”, while “demonstrating his desire to destroy the public’s trust in their GPs”.

NHS Trust to axe 60 jobs with frontline services hit – Health – The Star

MORE than 60 jobs are to be axed by Rotherham health chiefs – with frontline clinical and support services to bear the brunt.

New staff cuts at Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust will come on top of a £1.7 million efficiency drive affecting administrative and back office staff.

Chief executive Brian James said the NHS was facing significant financial challenges with up to £20 billion of cuts being made nationally.

MORE than 60 jobs are to be axed by Rotherham health chiefs – with frontline clinical and support services to bear the brunt.

New staff cuts at Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust will come on top of a £1.7 million efficiency drive affecting administrative and back office staff.

Chief executive Brian James said the NHS was facing significant financial challenges with up to £20 billion of cuts being made nationally.

MORE than 60 jobs are to be axed by Rotherham health chiefs – with frontline clinical and support services to bear the brunt.

New staff cuts at Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust will come on top of a £1.7 million efficiency drive affecting administrative and back office staff.

Chief executive Brian James said the NHS was facing significant financial challenges with up to £20 billion of cuts being made nationally.

News: Government has no plans to perform U turn on health bill proposals – UK Net Guide

The government will not back down on its plans to introduce large-scale reforms to the NHS, Downing Street has maintained.

Members of the Liberal Democrats used the opportunity of their party’s spring conference to express their concerns with the plans laid out by David Cameron, voting against what they believe to be a potentially damaging programme of reforms.

However, despite this emergent split within the ruling coalition, Number 10 has insisted that, while proposals such as axing primary care trusts may ultimately be amended when they are placed before parliament, the government will not be performing a u-turn anytime soon.

A short statement released by Mr Cameron’s official spokesman on the back of the weekend conference said: “There are not about to be significant changes to the policy.”

Andrew Lansley facing no-confidence vote from doctors – Channel 4 News

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is facing the biggest revolt yet from doctors over his plans to shake up the NHS.

The British Medical Association (BMA) will vote on three separate motions of no confidence in Mr Lansley later.

Doctors are meeting in central London at the BMA’s first special representative meeting in 19 years.

The hastily-arranged summit is a sign of how much anger the Government’s plans to give more power to GPs and introduce more private competition into the NHS have provoked.

BMA chairman hits out at NHS Health Bill | GP online

Opening the BMA special representative meeting in London today, Dr Hamish Meldrum said representatives must use the ‘opportunity wisely’.

He warned that most commentators say it is ‘unlikely’ the government will ‘buckle and withdraw the Bill’.

He said: ‘What we have to decide today is how to move on from here, how we are most likely to achieve change, how we support our colleagues – and yes, how we best defend our NHS.

‘Whatever we do today we must remember that, above all, we are medical professionals. We must search for the best outcomes for our patients as well as the profession, even in the most difficult situations.’

Health Bill: BMA Calls On Andrew Lansley To Withdraw NHS Reform Plans | Politics | Sky News

Mr Lansley was facing a potentially embarrassing day as the British Medical Association (BMA) debates a series of motions that are highly critical of the Government’s health reforms.

It is the first special representative meeting in 19 years – a measure of how angry many doctors are over plans to give more power to GPs and introduce more private competition into the NHS.

The Health and Social Care Bill, currently going through Parliament, would also see more than 150 organisations scrapped.

The BMA delegates voted in favour of calling on Mr Lansley to put a “halt to the proposed top-down reorganisation of the NHS”.

Pulse – BMA calls for health bill to be withdrawn

The BMA is to call on health secretary Andrew Lansley to withdraw the Health and Social Care Bill, after representatives ignored warnings by their leader that it would be impractical.

In the first significant policy move at today’s Special Representative Meeting, a motion was passed calling on the Government to ‘call a halt to the proposed top down reoganisation of the NHS’.

Representives voted overhwelmingly for the legislation to be withdrawn and called on the Government to ‘consider and act on the criticisms and advice from the medical profession.’

The vote, which causede a split between council members and grassroots representatives, showed how divided the BMA is over how it should respond to the health bill, with BMA chair Dr Hamish Meldrum having earlier warned representatives not to ‘tie the hands’ of negotiators.

BMA special representative meeting – chairman’s speech | GP online

Good morning.

Welcome to this SRM – your opportunity, together, to help shape the difficult decisions that the BMA needs to make in the face of potentially the biggest reorganisation the NHS in England has faced in its 63 years.

The decisions you make today will have a profound effect on your profession, your patients and the future shape of our NHS.

The Government’s proposed reforms have far-reaching and potentially irreversible consequences for how the NHS is run and the way we deliver care to our patients.

This is your opportunity to scrutinise the proposals, to consider their impact, and ultimately to decide how best to influence the direction of health policy in England.

A few recent news articles concerning the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

NHS reforms face overhaul after Liberal Democrats’ rebellion | Politics | The Guardian

The government’s plans for a health service shakeup face a radical overhaul after the Liberal Democrat leadership was forced to bow to the strength of a grassroots rebellion fuelled by fear of privatisation and an undue emphasis on competition.

The Lib Dems voted almost unanimously at the party’s spring conference in Sheffield to give councillors a central role in GP commissioning and in scrutinising foundation trusts. They called for a ban on all cherry-picking by private companies offering treatment services.

David Cameron will hold talks this week with his deputy, Nick Clegg, to decide whether the rebellion provides an opportunity to make changes to a health and social care bill that has become increasingly unpopular. Cameron acknowledges the government has not got his message across on health.

Patient voice may be lost in NHS reforms | GP online

Reform backs DoH plans to reorganise the NHS. But it says the proposals neither provide accountability to patients nor dismantle central regulation.

Reorganising the commissioning structure would leave responsibility divided between consortia, local authorities and the NHS Commissioning Board, according to Reform’s report.

‘The Health Bill gives the NHS Commissioning Board significant powers over consortia,’ the report says. ‘But it also gives the secretary of state power to direct the Board not only in what it does but in how it does it. Consequently accountability runs to the centre.’

Anti-cuts campaigners plan ‘carnival of civil disobedience’ | Society | The Guardian

Anti-cuts campaigners are planning a wave of sit-ins, occupations and “people’s assemblies” to coincide with this month’s TUC demonstration, in a “carnival of civil disobedience” designed to highlight opposition to the government’s programme of cuts.

Student activists, tax avoidance campaigners and anti-capitalist groups say they plan to occupy some of the capital’s “great buildings”, close down scores of high street stores and stage a 24-hour occupation of Hyde Park.

“This is going to be a really important day,” said Anna Walker of the campaign group UK Uncut. “We had the student protests and we have seen the growth of UK Uncut, but this is the first time we are going to have people from all over the UK together whose lives are being turned upside down by these cuts. It is going to be the start of something powerful.”

Nick Clegg: We will not privatise NHS – mirror.co.uk

Just hours after Party activists voted against the reforms, the Deputy Prime Minister insisted the Coalition was not trying to privatise the health service.

The plans will let market forces run riot in the NHS and senior Lib Dems fear it will inflict more damage on them than the broken tuition fees promise.

But, speaking at the spring conference yesterday, Mr Clegg said: “What I need you to know is all of us in Government are listening and that we take those concerns seriously.”

David Cameron and Nick Clegg two stupid – mirror.co.uk

DAVID Cameron and Nick Clegg ­backslap and grin for the cameras but their silly little act fools nobody.

This incompetent coalition is split down the middle over NHS reforms which will leave the sick at the mercy of profit-hungry firms.

The Prime Minister and his deputy deserve to pay a high political price if they dismantle our most cherished institution, the NHS.

Increasingly Mr Clegg’s divorced from his party, and Mr Cameron from the country.

BBC News – NHS plans will not change significantly: Downing Street

Downing Street has ruled out “significant changes” to government NHS reforms following their rejection by Liberal Democrat members.

Delegates at the party’s spring conference voted at the weekend not to support a “damaging and unjustified” shake-up of health services in England.

Plans include axing primary care trusts and strategic health authorities.

No 10 said it would not make large changes to the proposals, but added they could be amended by Parliament.

Motion carried with amendments: Updating the NHS: Personal and Local | The Liberal Democrats: News Detail

Spring Conference 2011: Lines 6-15 deleted, Amendments 1 and 2 carried, Main motion carried as amended.

Twelve conference representatives
Mover: Paul Burstow
Summation: Cllr Richard Kemp

Conference believes that the NHS is an integral part of a liberal society, reflecting the social solidarity of shared access to collective healthcare, and a shared responsibility to use resources effectively to deliver better health.

Conference welcomes our Coalition Government’s commitment to the founding principles of the NHS: available to all, free at the point of use, and based on need, not the ability to pay.

Conference welcomes much of the vision for the NHS set out in the Government’s White Paper, Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS which commits the Government to an NHS that:

i) Is genuinely centred on patients and carers.

ii) Achieves quality and outcomes that are among the best in the world.

iii) Refuses to tolerate unsafe and substandard care.

iv) Puts clinicians in the driving seat and sets hospitals and providers free to innovate, with stronger incentives to adopt best practice.

v) Is more transparent, with clearer accountabilities for quality and results.

vi) Is more efficient and dynamic, with a radically smaller national, regional and local bureaucracy.

vii) Gives citizens a greater say in how the NHS is run.

Conference particularly welcomes the proposals to introduce real democratic legitimacy and local accountability into the NHS for the first time in almost forty years by:

a) Extending the powers of local authorities to enable effective scrutiny of any provider of any taxpayer funded health services.

b) Giving local authorities the role of leading on improving the strategic coordination of commissioning across the NHS, social care, and related childrens’ and public health services through councillor led Health and Wellbeing Boards.

c) Creating Health Watch to act as a local consumer champion for patients and to ensure that local patients are heard on a national level.

d) Returning public health duty to local government by ensuring that the majority of public health services will now be commissioned by Local Authorities from their ring-fenced public health budget.

Conference recognises however that all of the above policies and aspirations can be achieved without adopting the damaging and unjustified market-based approach that is proposed.

Conference regrets that some of the proposed reforms have never been Liberal Democrat policy, did not feature in our manifesto or in the agreed Coalition Programme, which instead called for an end to large-scale top-down reorganisations.

Conference therefore calls on Liberal Democrats in Parliament to amend the Health Bill to provide for:

I) More democratically accountable commissioning.

II) A much greater degree of co-terminously between local authorities and commissioning areas.

III) No decision about the spending of NHS funds to be made in private and without proper consultation, as can take place by the proposed GP consortia.

IV) The complete ruling out of any competition based on price to prevent loss-leading corporate providers under-cutting NHS tariffs, and to ensure that healthcare providers ‘compete’ on quality of care.

V) New private providers to be allowed only where there is no risk of ‘cherry picking’ which would destabilise or undermine the existing NHS service relied upon for emergencies and complex cases, and where the needs of equity, research and training are met.

VI) NHS commissioning being retained as a public function in full compliance with the Human Rights Act and Freedom of Information laws, using the skills and experience of existing NHS staff rather than the sub-contracting of commissioning to private companies.

VII) The continued separation of the commissioning and provision of services to prevent conflicts of interests.

VIII) An NHS, responsive to patients’ needs, based on co-operation rather than competition, and which promotes quality and equity not the market.

Conferences calls:

1. On the Government to uphold the NHS Constitution and publish an audit of how well organisations are living by its letter and spirit.

2. On Liberal Democrats in local government to establish local Health and Wellbeing Boards and make progress developing the new collaborative ways of working necessary to provide joined up services that are personalised and local.

3. The government to seize fully the opportunity to reverse the scandalous lack of accountability of publicly-funded local health services which has grown up under decades of Conservative and Labour governments, by:

a) Ensuring full scrutiny, including the power to require attendance, by elected local authorities of all organisations in the local health economy funded by public money, including Foundation Trusts and any external support for commissioning consortia; ensuring that all such organisations are subject to Freedom of Information requirements.

b) Ensuring Health and Wellbeing Boards (HWBs) are a strong voice for accountable local people in setting the strategic direction for and co-ordinating provision of health and social care services locally by containing substantial representation from elected local councillors; and by requiring GP Commissioning Boards to construct their Annual Plans in conjunction with the HWBs; to monitor their implementation at meetings with the HWBs not less than once each quarter; and to review the implementation of the Annual Plan with the HWBs at the end of the year prior to the construction of the Annual Plan for the forthcoming year.

c) Ensuring commissioning of health services has some degree of accountability by requiring about half of the members of the board of commissioning consortia, alongside GPs, to be local councillors appointed as non-executive directors.

d) Offering additional freedoms only to Foundation Trusts that successfully engage substantial proportions of their local populations as active members.

Applicability: England.

Stinging rebuke over NHS plans (From Your Local Guardian)

Nick Clegg has suffered a stinging rebuke from his own party over radical coalition plans to shake up the NHS.

Liberal Democrat activists overwhelmingly passed a motion criticising proposals to put GPs in control of commissioning services.

Speaker after speaker called for a rethink during a debate at the party’s spring conference in Sheffield.

New Statesman – The coalition is now split over national health policy

Controversial proposals to reform the National Health Service in England has become the first public split on policy between the two coalition parties, after the Liberal Democrat spring conference voted overwhelmingly in favour of an extensive rewrite of the bill.

While there have been numerous backbench revolts on certain issues, such as tuition fees, and areas in which the parties have codified their disagreement, such as voting reform, this is the first public division on policy.

Nick Clegg, who said yesterday he was “very relaxed and very positive” about the NHS debate, narrowly averted defeat by accepting two “rebel” amendments when it became obvious that they were going to pass.

Liberal Democrats put pressure on Nick Clegg over NHS | Metro.co.uk

The issue of the health service was expected to expose divisions within the coalition when it was debated in Sheffield on Saturday – and that proved to be the case.

Well respected party figures, including Baroness Williams and Andrew George MP, spoke out against the government’s plan for a radical reform of GP services in the NHS.

Ex-MP Evan Harris put forward a motion that called for a change to the ‘damaging and unjustified market-based approach’ to reform of the NHS that has ‘never been Liberal Democrat policy, did not feature in our manifesto or in the agreed Coalition Programme, which instead called for an end to large-scale top-down reorganisations’.

Shirley Williams urges Lib Dems to fight Andrew Lansley’s NHS plan | Politics | The Observer

There are not many 80-year-old politicians who can make their parties stop, think and change direction. But Shirley Williams is one of them. The former education secretary and co-founder of the SDP walks with a bit of a stoop these days. But intellectually she remains a towering figure at the height of her powers. In terms of influence within the Liberal Democrat party, few can match her. Among older friends and colleagues, she is known simply as “Shirl the Pearl” – a term that carries with it affection and also huge respect.

When we meet in a Sheffield hotel, during the Lib Dem spring conference, she is carrying a large bundle of papers, including letters from doctors and nurses who share her concerns about the coalition’s plans to reform the NHS.

She picks out one. “It is from a doctor. He says: ‘I didn’t think I was voting Liberal Democrat to see the Liberal Democrats supporting Conservative policies. At least you must maintain your identity.’ I think that is a perfectly fair point.”

Clegg tries to soothe Lib Dems / Britain / Home – Morning Star

Liberal Democrats have overwhelmingly voted to oppose NHS reforms in Sheffield after 5,000 activists rallied on the city’s streets in protest against the privitisation of the health service.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was facing the music today after Lib Dems voted to opppose controversial NHS reforms at their party conference at Sheffield City Hall on Saturday.

Thousands of angry protesters stormed the streets to hit back against the cuts that are being meted out in the coalition’s name, including increased tuition fees and the controversial Health and Social Reform Bill that demonstrators argue will privatise the NHS.

No market for Britain’s NHS | Kailash Chand | Comment is free | The Guardian

It is 19 years since the British Medical Association last thought it necessary to call a crisis meeting of its members in response to upheaval in the NHS. On that occasion, 26 March 1992, representatives of doctors across Britain debated John Major’s attempt to reform the NHS by separating the purchasers of healthcare from the providers. On Tuesday a special representative meeting will take place again – this time to consider its position in relation to Andrew Lansley’s plan to take the internal market of that era several stages further and prepare the NHS for privatisation.

Lansley has a problem; few of the BMA’s 140,000 members believe his plans are sensible or will deliver what he claims. The British Medical Journal has dubbed the reforms “Dr Lansley’s Monster”, the National Audit Office has warned that the quality of service offered by GPs could drop, and the King’s Fund has pointed out the government runs the risk of replacing the bureaucracy of performance management with the red tape of economic regulation.

This mother of all reforms plans to further extend the healthcare market within the health service in England, fronted by GPs, herded en masse into commissioning consortiums. They will be given £80bn of public funds to buy healthcare from a system of competing providers under an “any willing provider” policy that will see private hospitals able to provide NHS care.

Whitechapel protest against London health cuts

More than 500 people demonstrated in East London last week against proposed cuts to the National Health Service (NHS). Protesters, including many medical staff, marched from the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, to St Bartholomew’s Hospital. The march met with warm support from local residents and traders in the residential areas of Whitechapel.

As well as the London Chest Hospital, the two hospitals are part of the Barts and the London NHS Trust. Along with the chest specialism, the Trust is also a London-wide specialist centre for head trauma treatment. The Trust last month announced plans to cut its workforce by 10 percent. It said it was making the cuts in order to meet efficiency savings of £20 billion demanded by the government by 2014-15.

The Trust has claimed that these cuts will mainly be to corporate and back-office posts, but they will directly affect patient care. Of the 630 proposed job losses, 250 are nursing posts. Consultants’ hours will be cut, and 100 in-patient beds lost. Unions point out that cutting administrative staff also results in an increased workload for nurses.

The protests were against cuts across the NHS as a whole. As the march passed through the financial districts of the City of London, largely empty at that time of night, anger was directed at the premises of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Deutsche Bank, and Vodafone. Under a deal with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, Vodafone was able to avoid some £6 billion in taxes. RBS is 84 percent publicly-owned, following a £45 billion government bailout. On the same day that the protest took place it was revealed that ten senior executives at RBS are to share a bonus of up to £28 million.

Patient voice may be lost in NHS reforms | GP online

Reform backs DoH plans to reorganise the NHS. But it says the proposals neither provide accountability to patients nor dismantle central regulation.

Reorganising the commissioning structure would leave responsibility divided between consortia, local authorities and the NHS Commissioning Board, according to Reform’s report.

‘The Health Bill gives the NHS Commissioning Board significant powers over consortia,’ the report says. ‘But it also gives the secretary of state power to direct the Board not only in what it does but in how it does it. Consequently accountability runs to the centre.’

Reform is also concerned about how well NHS workers understand the changes.