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It appears that all is not well following the recomendations of the future forum and the acceptance of its recommendations by the ConDem coalition government. Many NHS news articles highlight the fact that despite the many changes to the Destroy the NHS bill the privatising elements remain intact. The bill is still on course as the first stage of transforming the NHS into a restricted, privatised, insurance-based model of care.

It is clear that the revised Abolition of the NHS Bill does not satisfy the demands of the Liberal-Democrat Spring Conference due to the reliance on private providers. It is recognised that the Liberal-Democrats are facilitating the destruction of the NHS.

Conservative election poster 2010

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.

Still a clear and present danger / Features / Home – Morning Star

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The NHS Future Forum, while having uncovered many faults throughout the legislation, was never asked to consider the ideological foundations behind the Bill.

This leaves Field between a rock and a hard place, having ensured new safeguards are applied while at the same time adding legitimacy to a significant departure from the founding principles of the NHS.

The Health and Social Bill remains a real threat to the NHS as a comprehensive service free at the point of use.
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All this means that the threat to NHS services and staff remains a clear and present danger. The Future Forum did little to assuage the fears of NHS staff who still face losing nationally determined pay, terms and conditions and will have little confidence in their job security which has been a hallmark of our National Health Service, established over 60 years ago by a Labour government.

The Health and Social Care Bill will now return to a public Bill committee of MPs of which I will be one.

How the coalition implements the NHS Future Forum recommendations in legislation and to what extent these recommendations change the direction of travel charted by the Bill will be known shortly.

One thing is certain – the Bill does far more than the coalition’s stated aims. Otherwise we would not need a Bill at all.

As I said in the Commons earlier this week, the changes set out by government this week are largely cosmetic. “You could put lipstick on a pig, but at the end of the day it was still a pig.”

Grahame Morris is Labour MP for Easington.

NHS: still on the road to privatisation | openDemocracy

On Monday, the Future Forum unveiled its long-awaited report on the Coalition’s NHS bill. Having now agreed to implement the majority of its recommendations, the Conservatives are keen to portray the episode as an example of a government willing to “listen” and improve “where it hasn’t got things right”. The reality is that their initial bill was a transparent attempt to privatise the NHS. Only the prospect of the Lib Dems voting it down forced any change. This was not a “listening exercise”, it was a last ditch attempt  to push the bill through with the minimum concessions necessary. The primary function of the bill remains in place: to introduce private sector provision throughout our health service.

The argument for Andrew Lansley’s NHS bill has been tenuous from the outset, encountering continual and vocal opposition. Recognising that the bill’s defeat would be catastrophic for his premiership, Cameron has desperately tried to repackage it whilst keeping the fundamentals in place. It has been a master class in the rhetoric and evasions of privatisation. But with minor tweaks there lies a danger that the bill will be accepted, both in the legislature and by the public, on the basis that it is less destructive than Lansley’s original proposals. This mentality of concessions and minor victories must be avoided. Instead, what must be continually asked is whether the bill is acceptable and legitimate in its current form – does it leave the NHS as a nationalised, coherent health service, and did the public vote for it?

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Lansley will tell his backbenchers that the fundamentals of the bill remain in place: GP Consortia commissioning services, and the private sector brought in through competition requirements. The involvement of private health firms has always been at the centre of these proposals and nothing in today’s report will worry them overly. In years to come, any niggling public safeguards can be slowly eroded.

The bill still represents a fundamental change to our NHS; it is a programme for widespread privatisation. Private services will expand, the truly national part of our health service will shrink, and incidents like Southern Cross could become more and more common. John Redwood’s claim on Question Time that providers must put “patients first” was typically disingenuous; corporations have a legal obligation to maximise shareholder value. They will be obliged to seek the maximum revenues and prices possible, and incur the minimal costs possible. They are profit maximisers, not charities, and a patient’s worth is measured in pound sterling.

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GMB On NHS Changes

GMB today set out its position on the recently published NHS Future Forum Recommendations.

Rehana Azam, GMB National Officer Public Services Section said “ The report and recommendations on the face of it appears that significant progress has been made. In reality there is much to be concerned about and until the details emerge as to what the amended Bill will look like the GMB remains of the view that Bill should be scrapped. The Bill in its current format will lead to the break up of the NHS and this break up continues to be the most significant threat to the NHS.
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HR Magazine – NHS reform will increase usage of PMI schemes, says Mercer

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Earlier this week, the Government announced it would be changing many of the initiatives that were to be implemented, following recommendations from the NHS Future Forum. According to Mercer, despite the proposed changes, companies should continue to prepare for further increases in corporate healthcare costs. GP consortia will work with healthcare professionals to ensure the most effective multi-professional involvement in the design and commissioning of services.

Consortia will also not take on the full range of responsibilities by April 2013, but when they have the right skills, capacity and capability to do so. Despite these changes, Mercer believes that giving these consortia control over budgets may still affect the quality of care and the length of waiting lists.

According to Naomi Saragoussi, principal in Mercer’s health and benefits business: “The devil is in the detail. While the Government has accepted the criticism of its policies and the plans to make the NHS more competitive appear to have been watered down, some areas lack clarity. It may be difficult for the consortia not to take a more commercial approach and prioritise more cost-effective treatments, despite their good intentions. We will have to wait and see.”
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Half-steam ahead on NHS reform but still on course » Hospital Dr

According to all accounts Captain Cameron and second mate Lansley have listened to the weather warnings of the Future Forum, have duly altered course and are now steering the SS Health Service into a bright new future.

Or are they? Closer examination of the small print suggests that we are in reality still heading into stormy waters and are the victims of a massive PR trick by the government who have managed to stay on course while persuading us that they have significantly altered the Health and Social Care Bill.

Lansley has reassured backbenchers that no red lines have been crossed and that the core principles of the Bill are untouched. On the same day that the papers were reporting Cameron’s “explicit rejection of further private sector involvement in the NHS” Lansley himself was addressing a conference of private companies eager to get involved in commissioning and providing NHS care.

One of the core principles of the Bill is to facilitate private involvement in commissioning and delivering NHS care (and anyone who still doesn’t believe that this is advised to read Colin Leys and Stewart Player’s compelling book The Plot against the NHS). All the policy levers for this – in particular GP commissioning and any willing provider, – remain in place. The emphasis of the role of Monitor has been altered but can easily be redirected once the well orchestrated political dust has settled.
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Selected excerpts from ‘The Plot Against the NHS’ by Colin Leys and Stewart Player. Chapter One is available here. I highly recommend this book available from Merlin Press for £10.

The Plot Against the NHS #1

The Plot Against the NHS #2

 

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NHS news is concerned with various responses to changes signalled by the government’s acceptance of Future Forum recommendations.

 

Conservative election poster 2010

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 GP hits out over NHS changes (From York Press)

THE York GP leading a campaign against sweeping Government health reforms says the recent listening exercise on the controversial changes was “a shambles”.

Earlier this week, David Cameron announced a Government U-turn on several of its key NHS reforms, following recommendations by a panel of experts.

Dr James Chan, who works at York Hospital, and heads the Save Our NHS York campaign and website, said: “Although we welcome many of the outcomes, it stops short of looking at the hard scientific evidence out there which says that competition doesn’t drive up quality.

“The largest costs to the NHS are not looked at. Medicines and equipment which are run by the private sector are costing us more and more for little benefit for patients.

“This drains away our tax money to big companies who make sickening profits, at the detriment to the rest of the health service.

“This is what private involvement means – greater cost, less benefit, more profits for shareholders while patient services get cut.”
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Unison vows to kill Tory Franken-Bill / Britain / Home – Morning Star

Health union Unison urged total destruction of the government’s “Frankenstein Bill” for privatisation of the NHS today.

Tricky Prime Minister David Cameron relaunched his pet project with some new parts, but unions and health campaigners issued grave warnings of the havoc which he still intends to unleash.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said: “The government is creating a monster and the NHS is the victim.

“The Bill will pave the way for private companies to grab any part of the NHS where they think they can turn a profit.

“Once the NHS is opened up to competition, it becomes subject to European Competition laws and there is no turning back.”

Mr Prentis warned: “The government is creating a Frankenstein Bill that should be thrown out now.”

Health union Unite predicted that private healthcare companies would now use EU law to transform their toehold in the NHS into a headlock.
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The verdict on the NHS bill shakeup: Experts react to the changes | Society | The Guardian

GPs

Dr Clare Gerada, chair of the Royal College of GPs, is pleased ministers have performed what she calls “a monumental U-turn” and says “the prime minister is heading in the right direction”. But she wants to see the exact wording of the amendments to the health and social care bill to ensure it does follow through on Cameron’s pledges to honour all 16 recommendations of Steve Field’s NHS Future Forum report.

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NHS managers

The 40,000 managers in the NHS are pleased that Professor Steve Field forcibly urged ministers to stop denigrating them as pen-pushers and bureaucrats, which he said had prompted some managers to quit the service just when their expertise is needed to help it through the coming upheaval.

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Hospital doctors

The abandonment of Andrew Lansley’s original plan for the regulator to promote competition between hospitals pleased the Royal College of Physicians, which represents hospital doctors.

It now wants to help the NHS Commissioning Board and Monitor to develop guidance on how choice and competition can be applied on the ground in hospitals, GPs surgeries and elsewhere.

But Sir Richard Thompson, the college’s president also warned that “without fundamental review the government’s current proposals for reforming medical education and training will put the next generation of doctors’ training at risk and could jeopardise patient safety.”

The mandatory inclusion of a specialist hospital doctor on the board of each clinical commissioning group is a significant success for the college. It is suggesting that, as a reciprocal gesture, a local GPs’ representative could sit on the board of every local hospital.

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Nurses

The Royal College of Nursing, which represents the UK’s 400,000 nurses, scored a victory by ensuring that “at least one registered nurse” will be on the board of each new clinical commissioning group, rather than just local GPs.

“Nurses have an unparalleled range of skills and experience to enable them to improve healthcare at every level [and can] help build a service which can manage long-term conditions, keep people out of hospital and improve the health of the public”, said RCN chief executive Dr Peter Carter.

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Private and not-for-profit healthcare firms

David Cameron’s explicit rejection of further private sector involvement in the NHS has appeased the Bill’s many critics and helped neutralise its most sensitive issue. But it has left both private and not-for-profit providers of healthcare frustrated and warning that the NHS will be poorer if they are squeezed out.

“The independent sector continues to believe that the NHS needs more innovation, diversity and robust, fair competition if it is to meet the challenges it faces, including achieving better integration, which we support and which can be strengthened by a competitive market”, said David Worskett, director of the NHS Partners Network, which represents both sectors.

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Health policy experts

Professor Chris Ham, chief executive of the King’s Fund health think-tank and a member of the Downing Street health ‘kitchen cabinet’, sees the updated reforms as “a more promising approach to meeting the health challenges of the future than the proposals originally set out in the Health and Social Care Bill.”

But he warned that: “The confirmation of the Prime Minister’s pledge to keep waiting times low, and the emphasis placed on the 18-week maximum wait for hospital treatment enshrined in the NHS Constitution, leaves the NHS with a very significant challenge. With the spending squeeze beginning to bite, the number of hospital inpatients waiting more than 18 weeks for treatment is already at its highest level for more than three years and waiting times for A&E and diagnostic services have also risen. As the government has said that it is opposed to targets, it now needs to be clear about how this pledge will be measured and enforced.”

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Mixed reception for NHS climbdown – Health News, Health & Families – The Independent

Conservative and Liberal Democrats presented a united front yesterday as the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, detailed the Government’s reformed NHS reforms amid jeers and heckles from Labour benches.

The proposals could still face opposition from doctors, represented by the British Medical Association, who warned that the Government had not addressed their concerns about GPs being given financial incentives to save the NHS money. Others expressed concern that safeguards put in place could result in additional layers of the bureaucracy the reforms were designed to address.

Labour accused Mr Lansley of wasting £800m in redundancy payments for health staff, many of whom will be re-employed in their old roles. “This is a political fix, not a proper plan for improving care for patients, or for a better or more efficient NHS which is able to meet the big challenges it must face for the future,” said John Healey, the shadow Health Secretary.
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The National Wealth Service – Health News, Health & Families – The Independent

As Coalition retreats on NHS reform, investigation reveals conflicts of interest that could give GPs a licence to print money

By Oliver Wright, Whitehall Editor and Emma Slater

One in seven doctors appointed to the new clinical commissioning boards, which will have responsibility for spending £60bn of NHS money every year, could have a significant financial conflict of interest, an investigation has found.

Research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism revealed that, of the first 52 consortiums established under the Coalition’s NHS reforms, 19 could present concerns about the independence of their boards. The study raises the prospect that GPs could benefit directly from private companies working in the NHS.
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27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

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The ‘Future Forum’ chaired by Steve Field reported on the ‘listening exercise’ on NHS reform yesterday. As expected, many changes were recommended to the Destroy the NHS bill. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is expected to respond to the NHS Future Forum in a statement to Parliament at 3.30 this afternoon.

Unions Unison and Unite continue to oppose the bill and call for it to be abandoned in its entirety.

Conservative election poster 2010

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 reform plan needs ‘substantial change’ – Channel 4 News

The NHS Future Forum, set up to make recommendations on changes the health service reforms, said today there had been serious concerns voiced by staff, patients and the public.

For two months, the forum has spoken to thousands of interested parties and tens of thousands have emailed or posted their views in a “listening exercise” set up by the Government in the face of widespread criticism of its plans for NHS reform.

Their key recommendations include:

• Slowing the pace of change so reforms come in only when and where the NHS is ready.

• Keeping the Health Secretary ultimately accountable for the NHS. The plan had been to devolve power and responsibility to an independent NHS Board.

• Nurses, specialists and other clinicians should be involved in deciding which health care to buy, not just GPs as was originally proposed.

• Competition should be used to improve quality of care not to just drive down prices.

• The role of the regulator Monitor should not be to “promote” competition but to “support choice, collaboration and integration” – that is making sure all parts of the NHS work together to improve care for the patient.

• All parts of the NHS should be subject to more accountability and public openness.
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NHS bill: concession or sleight of hand? | Society | The Guardian

Are Steve Field’s recommendations for the government enough to assuage the doubters that have blocked Andrew Lansley’s flagship bill? If the government were to accept everything then probably yes.

The point of the good doctor’s eight-week listening exercise was about “pimping a policy” – that is taking a clapped out vehicle and slapping on enough paint and chrome to make it not just acceptable to the general public but desirable.

This may not be a good thing. In repackaging the reforms Field may have conceded too much ground to opponents – and blunted the bill so much that it is a pointless mess.

Just look at the attempts to sell GP commissioning. Field says GPs should be joined by hospital doctors and nurses to commission care, and they shouldn’t be forced to band together by 2013 into consortiums.

But this means a mucky bureaucracy springing up around at least five different bodies able to buy care for patients. Lansley had hoped to only have GP commissioners in two years’ time, because otherwise you’d have a two-tier health service emerging just when budgets were being slashed. So to buy off doctors and nurses today, the government lays the ground for tomorrow’s political crisis.
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Craig Murray » Blog Archive » Cheap Medicine and Nasty

There is a coalition lovefest going on over the new reformed NHS reforms, which have suddenly gone from being the worst think since the plague to the greatest thing since sliced bread, all with a few tweaks.

The problem is, it is the entire principle on which the reforms are based, not the mechanisms operating on that principle, which is fundamentally wrong. The underlying principle is that the NHS will work better if it operates on competition between healthcare providers, both existing NHS hospitals and clinics, and private and charitable hospitals and clinics which will have new access to NHS patients and cash.

Both Sky and the BBC have been telling us all day that competition drives up efficiency and quality.

But this is not true. If financial profit is the motive, then competition does indeed increase efficiency, in terms of maximising profit by minimising costs. But the natural tendency is for this to be at the expense of quality, except in certain specific areas of luxury good provision. Competition and profit drives the producer to give just as much quality as required to provide something the consumer will still take, while undercutting rival sellers. Where there are a limited number of providers, (and in most parts of the country there are obvious limits to the number of possible clinics and hospitals), this increasingly becomes a race to the bottom in quality, with the added temptaitons of cartelisation on price.

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Review still leaves NHS open to dangers of competition | The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy

The NHS Future Forum has acknowledged that the real fears of patients and health professionals about the proposed NHS reforms were in many instances totally justified, says the CSP.

Reacting to the publication today by the forum of its consultation, chief executive Phil Gray said: ‘While we welcome some of the recommendations in Professor Field’s report, the CSP remains deeply concerned at the continued emphasis on increasing competition and a diversity of providers in the NHS, which physiotherapists believe will fragment patient care and lead to rationing. Increasing evidence is emerging of rationing on the basis of cost as opposed to clinical need.

The CSP was ‘very disappointed’ that – apart from the recommended changes to Monitor’s role – the forum’s proposals increase the potential for Any Qualified Provider policy.

Mr Gray said: ‘We believe this can only have a negative impact on patient care. We are receiving worrying reports from physiotherapists working under an AQP model who are concerned about severe rationing of their services leading to poorer patient outcomes.’

The CSP urges the government to halt the roll out of the AQP until the further work recommended by the NHS Future Forum on choice and competition and the risks of “cherry-picking” is complete.

Newswire Article: BMA response to the NHS Future Forum recommendations on NHS health reforms 13/06/2011

Responding to the NHS Future Forum’s recommendations to the government on NHS reform in England, Dr Hamish Meldrum, Chairman of BMA Council, said:

“The way the government and the Future Forum have engaged with the profession during this listening exercise has been a refreshing experience. It is vital that this constructive approach is maintained in the following months as the detail is worked on.

“The Future Forum’s recommendations address many of the BMA’s key concerns, to a greater or lesser extent. We are hopeful that our ‘missing’ concerns, such as the excessive power of the NHS Commissioning Board over consortia and the so called ‘quality premium’ will be addressed as more detail emerges. While we welcome the acknowledgement that the education and training reforms need much more thinking through, there needs to be immediate action to prevent the imminent implosion of deaneries.

“Obviously, the critical factor is now how the government responds, as well as ensuring that the detail of the changes matches up to expectations. But if the government does accept the recommendations we have heard today we will be seeing, at the least, a dramatically different Health and Social Care Bill and one that would get us onto a much better track. There will then still be plenty more to do to ensure that the amended reforms do support the NHS and its staff in continuing to improve care for patients and tackle the major financial challenges ahead.”

NHS privatisation ‘still on track’ – Health News, Health & Families – The Independent

Health experts welcomed today’s report but unions said the “NHS privatisation programme is still on track”.

Chris Ham, chief executive of the King’s Fund, said the recommendations would “significantly improve” the Health and Social Care Bill.

“The emphasis on integration is particularly significant and addresses a key weakness in the Government’s original proposals.

“The ‘pause’ has served the NHS, its staff and patients well by allowing time to reflect on how to deliver the reforms the health system needs. But it is now time to move on.

“The Government must now move quickly to endorse today’s report, put an end to the disagreements that have dominated recent months and provide the direction and stability the NHS desperately needs to navigate the challenging times ahead.

“Despite the headlines generated by the reforms, the key priority facing the NHS remains the need to find up to £20 billion in productivity improvements to maintain quality and avoid significant cuts in services.

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Unite national officer for health, Rachael Maskell said the Bill should be scrapped.

She added: “The problem with Monitor is that it will now promote choice, competition and collaboration – all of which are contradictory aims.

“The hybrid mess that Monitor will become will do to the NHS what other botched regulatory bodies have done to other public services – from rail to social care.

“Unless patient care comes first, then Monitor will fail patients – and our politicians will have failed them too.”

She added: “”The way that David Cameron and Health Secretary Andrew Lansley will interpret the Future Forum’s recommendations is that the pace of the privatisation of the NHS will be slowed down, but not abandoned – that’s the crux.”

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said: “Really big questions over critical issues such as privatisation remain unanswered: just how will the Government prevent “cherry-picking”?

“And why are there no limits on the amount and range of services that can be privatised?

“The Forum is recommending sweeping changes to the Bill because it is riddled with flaws.

“It exposes the real agenda behind the Government’s Bill – the wholesale marketisation of the NHS.

“It wants to turn our health service into nothing more than a logo on the side of a van run by a multinational company.”
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‘NHS privatisation train has not been derailed by Future Forum report’, says Unite

The NHS privatisation programme is still on track despite protests by health professionals to the Future Forum ‘listening’ exercise, Unite, the largest union in the country, said today (Monday 13 June).

Unite, which has 100,000 members in the health service, said that the NHS had been through an unprecedented year of uncertainty – but the report of the Future Forum, unveiled today, will do nothing to quell the concern of health professionals and patients.

It has been a wasted year that has caused havoc with the NHS which had just received its best patient satisfaction survey for a generation.

Unite said that the Future Forum had done some good work in exposing the flaws in the controversial Health and Social Care bill, but the pace of privatisation had only been slowed, not discarded – which will not meet the concerns expressed by the Liberal Democrats at their spring conference.
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27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

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The Future Forum is due to report on the “listening exercise” on NHS ‘reforms’ today. It is expected to recommend many far-reaching changes to the proposed Abolition of the NHS bill. For example, it is likely to recommend that the Secretary of State for Health remains responsible for providing a health service and changes to the role of Monitor.

The Liberal Democrats are claiming that they have achieved victory in protecting the NHS. Unions Unite and Unison are far more reasonably cautious in their assessment and repeat their call that the bill should be abandoned in its entirety. It is a mistake to assume that the battle has been won.

It is absolutely ridiculous that Clegg and the Liberal-Democrats should claim that they have protected the NHS when Clegg & Co were fully supportive of the bill initially. While the Liberal-Democrat Spring Conference played a role, that is far removed from Clegg & Co. Many groups and individuals – and most notably many professional medical groups of GPs, nurses and surgeons – are united in their opposition to the destruction of the NHS. Clegg & Co were forced to respond to the pressure of opposition.

Conservative election poster 2010

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 Bill “not fit for purpose” / Britain / Home – Morning Star

Unions demanded today that the government’s Health Bill be scrapped on the eve of new recommendations from the hastily assembled body overseeing the coalition’s official “listening exercise.”

The NHS Future Forum, made up of handpicked staff, community and patient representatives, will set out today why and how it believes the government should amend its stalled Health and Social Care Bill.

The forum, established by Mr Cameron, has been tasked with gathering the views of doctors, nurses and patients.

Mr Cameron claimed that the government had listened to concerns about the Bill raised during the initiative, which saw more than 200 events held across the country.

But Unite the union national officer for health Rachael Maskell dismissed the ploy, calling for the Bill to go altogether.

She said: “It is time to scrap the Bill and conduct a proper review of what is needed for the long-term needs of the NHS and our nation’s health, rather than rush through a biased, lop-sided listening exercise.”

A Unison spokeswoman also reiterated the union’s view that the Bill should be scrapped, adding that “fiddling around on the edges is not going to make this Bill any more sensible for patients and is no more than a smokescreen for £20 billion of cuts being driven through the NHS.”
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Letters: Marketisation and the healthcare bill | Society | The Guardian

It is not voters who “will not tolerate any further delays” (David Cameron and Nick Clegg to ‘show unity’ over NHS reforms report, 7 June) but the coalition government – which is trying to push through its proposals to turn the NHS into a market before the summer recess. Many campaigners feel the bill should be scrapped and that the stated aims could be achieved more cheaply without legislation. This position was also endorsed at the Lib Dem conference in March in a resolution: “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.”

Unless part 3 of the bill which relates to Monitor is withdrawn, marketisation will continue; if Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can manage without such a body, why do we need one in England? I note that the budget for GPs, which was originally said to be £80bn until March when Mr Lansley told the health select committee that it would be £60bn, has now increased to £65bn.

The government needs to stop implementing the bill before it has finished its passage through parliament, have a hard look at the figures emanating from the Department of Health, and stop trying to win this battle via spinning stories to the media. Ideally it should withdraw the bill.

Wendy Savage

Co-chair, Keep Our NHS Public

John Healey: NHS needs evolution, not Tory revolution – Commentators, Opinion – The Independent

David Cameron’s first year as Prime Minister has been a year of chaos, confusion and waste for the NHS. He promised at the election to “protect the NHS” and “stop the top-down reorganisations that have got in the way of patient care”.

Since then, we’ve had weak leadership, poor communication, bad policy and rushed legislation as part of the biggest top-down reorganisation in NHS history. Even Professor Steve Field, whose advice as chair of the Prime Minister’s Future Forum will be published tomorrow, has said the Government’s NHS changes are “unworkable” and could “destroy key services”.

All efforts now should be dedicated to reforms that the NHS needs to rise to the three biggest challenges – improving the quality, safety and consistency of care for patients; integrating services better, especially for elderly people and those living with long-term health problems; and increasing efficiency, as public finances are squeezed. But as doctors, nurses, patients groups, NHS experts and even the Tory-led Health Select Committee have all cautioned, the NHS reorganisation makes meeting these challenges harder, not easier.

The Government’s declared aims – a stronger role for clinicians in commissioning care, greater involvement of patients, less bureaucracy and more stress on improving results for patients – could all be achieved by the evolution of gains that Labour made, without legislation.

But the legislation is needed to pursue the revolution of turning the NHS into a full-scale market, modelled on the privatised utilities and driven by the force of competition law. This Tory revolution removes proper public accountability, and breaks up the NHS so patients will see greater inequality in services.
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Opening the door to NHS privatisation / Features / Home – Morning Star

David Cameron is a shrewd tactician.

His five promises on the NHS, made in early June, are a classic drawing-out manoeuvre.

By provoking responses from friends and enemies, he is able to gauge the level of support for the NHS reforms and the strength of the opposition.

The Tories are in disarray over the health service – polls suggest that the majority of the population believe they have a hidden privatisation agenda.

The Liberal Democrats play to this, if only because they are desperate to regain some public support.

The durability of the coalition government depends on the continued engagement of the Lib Dems, so their pressure against Andrew Lansley’s Bill matters.

Shire Tories are taking a “if it’s not bust, don’t fix it” attitude towards the NHS.

The Conservative Party’s middle ground believes that a dose of competition would do the NHS a power of good, but do not want wholesale privatisation.

Only the metropolitan chattering classes are interested in root and branch commercialisation.

Just a few weeks ago there was a real prospect that the whole of Lansley’s Bill would be discarded.

Cameron will try to avoid that – he dare not risk a U-turn because his party’s right would not forgive him for appeasing the Lib Dems and backing away from a confrontation with the public sector.

The response of the NHS professional bodies to Cameron’s promises will matter a lot.

What the British Medical Association, the Royal Colleges and the senior managers’ body the NHS Confederation now say will influence what their members do.

Without commitment to change in the people who do the work, the reforms will stall. After some guardedly positive comments like “a significant step in the right direction,” the professions are awaiting the details of the revised reform Bill.
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NHS Bill “not fit for purpose” / Britain / Home – Morning Star

Unions demanded today that the government’s Health Bill be scrapped on the eve of new recommendations from the hastily assembled body overseeing the coalition’s official “listening exercise.”

The NHS Future Forum, made up of handpicked staff, community and patient representatives, will set out today why and how it believes the government should amend its stalled Health and Social Care Bill.

The forum, established by Mr Cameron, has been tasked with gathering the views of doctors, nurses and patients.

Mr Cameron claimed that the government had listened to concerns about the Bill raised during the initiative, which saw more than 200 events held across the country.

But Unite the union national officer for health Rachael Maskell dismissed the ploy, calling for the Bill to go altogether.

She said: “It is time to scrap the Bill and conduct a proper review of what is needed for the long-term needs of the NHS and our nation’s health, rather than rush through a biased, lop-sided listening exercise.”

A Unison spokeswoman also reiterated the union’s view that the Bill should be scrapped, adding that “fiddling around on the edges is not going to make this Bill any more sensible for patients and is no more than a smokescreen for £20 billion of cuts being driven through the NHS.”
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Shirley Williams: Lib Dems should take credit for thwarting Lansley – Commentators, Opinion – The Independent

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NHS Forum ‘listening’ report unlikely to assuage health service fears | Ekklesia

The NHS Future Forum is due to submit its report on proposed health reforms today (Monday 13 June). It will recommend some changes to government plans, but is expected largely to fall in with Prime Minister David Cameron’s wishes for more competition and private involvement.

Concerns about NHS privatisation are likely to remain strong, however, after a joint investigation by Pulse and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has revealed that at least half the board members of some GP consortia have links with a single, large private healthcare company.

The official NHS Future Forum review of the health service in England has been led by former Royal College of GPs chief Professor Steve Field, has carried out more than 200 consultation events with doctors, nurses and patients.

The exercise, billed by government as ‘independent’, has been running for two months, after Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s proposals ran into a political firestorm.

But critics are suspicious that the Forum is reporting only a week after the end of the government commissioned “listening” exercise, and that its findings were already heavily shaped by the agenda set out by the Coalition.

Dr Laurence Buckman, chair of the General Practitioner Committee, told GP magazine on 10 June: “We are not so much fascinated by what the NHS Future Forum says, it’s what the government’s response will be [that interests us]… Why do governments always run to enthusiasts and advisers with a vested interest first? We [doctors] have been telling this government what we think – and we will know [soon] whether they have been listening to us.”
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NHS news review

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There are two main NHS news items today – Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams criticises the ConDem coalition policies and actions generally (which of course includes the NHS) and the security group Lulz Security warns of lax NHS computer security.

Welsh man of God Rowan Williams is currently guest editor of the New Statesman magazine. He writes an editorial highly critical of the Con-Dem coalition government

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jun/09/david-cameron-rowan-williams-criticism


“With remarkable speed, we are being committed to radical, long-term policies for which no one voted.

“At the very least, there is an understandable anxiety about what democracy means in such a context.”

He criticised the government for continuing to blame the country’s difficulties entirely on the deficit it inherited from Labour and said there was “bafflement and indignation” over coalition plans to reform the health service and education.

Cameron responds by rejecting the criticisms.

I’m with the whiskered Welshman on this one. Clearly nobody voted for huge top-down reorganisation of the NHS and huge NHS cuts – instead they voted for exactly the opposite. Likewise nobody voted for abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance and 300% increases in tuition fees.

Lutz Security have merely warned the NHS that it stumbled across some admin passwords. I have some suspicions on what is meant by “we hope that little girls feasts on the bones of many giving souls”. Think about it. (I don’t think that the little girls bit is intended literally.)

Conservative election poster 2010

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.


New Statesman – Leader: The government needs to know how afraid people are

…With remarkable speed, we are being committed to radical, long-term policies for which no one voted. At the very least, there is an understandable anxiety about what democracy means in such a context. Not many people want government by plebiscite, certainly. But, for example, the comprehensive reworking of the Education Act 1944 that is now going forward might well be regarded as a proper matter for open probing in the context of election debates. The anxiety and anger have to do with the feeling that not enough has been exposed to proper public argument.

I don’t think that the government’s commitment to localism and devolved power is simply a cynical walking-away from the problem. But I do think that there is confusion about the means that have to be willed in order to achieve the end. If civil society organisations are going to have to pick up
responsibilities shed by government, the crucial questions are these. First, what services must have cast-iron guarantees of nationwide standards, parity and continuity? (Look at what is happening to youth services, surely a strategic priority.) Second, how, therefore, does national government underwrite these strategic “absolutes” so as to make sure that, even in a straitened financial climate, there is a continuing investment in the long term, a continuing response to what most would see as root issues: child poverty, poor literacy, the deficit in access to educational excellence, sustainable infrastructure in poorer communities (rural as well as urban), and so on? What is too important to be left to even the most resourceful localism?

Government badly needs to hear just how much plain fear there is around such questions at present. It isn’t enough to respond with what sounds like a mixture of, “This is the last government’s legacy,” and, “We’d like to do more, but just wait until the economy recovers a bit.” To acknowledge the reality of fear is not necessarily to collude with it. But not to recognise how pervasive it is risks making it worse. Equally, the task of opposition is not to collude in it, either, but to define some achievable alternatives. And, for that to happen, we need sharp-edged statements of where the disagreements lie.
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David Cameron hits back at Rowan Williams over coalition criticism | Politics | The Guardian

David Cameron has rejected the archbishop of Canterbury’s claim that the coalition government is forcing through “radical policies for which no one voted”. The prime minister said Rowan Williams was free to express his concerns, but he “profoundly disagreed” with many of his comments.

Conservative and Liberal Democrat cabinet ministers joined backbenchers in registering surprise at the sweep and the specifics of the archbishop’s criticisms.

Speaking at a press conference on a visit to Northern Ireland, Cameron said: “I think the archbishop of Canterbury is entirely free to express political views. I have never been one to say that the Church should fight shy of making political interventions.

“But what I would say is that I profoundly disagree with many of the views that he has expressed, particularly on issues like debt and welfare and education.”

BBC News – Hackers warn NHS over security

A notorious hacker group has warned the NHS that its computer networks are vulnerable to cyber attack.

Lulz Security, which claims to have been behind a recent hack on Sony, sent an email to NHS administrators revealing it had found a way to breach the service’s network.

But the Department of Health was quick to deny that any patient information was at risk.

The hackers said they did not intend to steal any data.

Styling themselves as “pirate ninjas”, LulzSec posted on Twitter the e-mail it sent to the NHS.
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Lulz warns NHS of sick security • The Register

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Lulz published an email sent to the NHS with the relevant passwords blacked out.

It said:

We’re a somewhat known band of pirate-ninjas that go by LulzSec.

Some time ago, we were traversing the Internets for signs of enemy fleets.

While you aren’t considered an enemy – your work is of course brilliant – we did stumble upon several of your admin passwords, which are as follows….

We mean you no harm and only want to help you fix your tech issues. Also, we hope that little girls feasts on the bones of many giving souls. All the best.

Lulz Security
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Shameless deception in support of wealthy friends / Features / Home – Morning Star

Cameron’s five “pledges” on the NHS include a pledge for more privatisation. He promised not to “sell off the NHS.” But he never planned to sell the NHS. Instead he will force the NHS to buy health services from the people who fund his party.

And when Cameron says “we will ensure competition benefits patients” he actually means he will ensure that fixed markets benefit his business chums. There won’t be a “sell-off,” there will be a money transfusion with cash pumped out of NHS hospitals and into the bank balances of Tory supporters. They get healthy profits. NHS hospitals are left undernourished and weak.

The privatisers are Cameron’s backers. Circle Health, which is about to run the first fully privatised NHS hospital, is owned by investors who have given the Tories a staggering £862,000.

The firm was cleared to take over Hinchingbrooke NHS Hospital near Cambridge this October. It is often described as a “social enterprise” – a John Lewis-style partnership. The impression this gives is that it is some kind of workers’ co-operative committed to the greater good. But it turns out that the “social enterprise” is just a front for big money.

Circle Health is 49 per cent owned by employees and 51 per cent owned by greedy millionaires. One firm, Odey Asset Management, owns 21 per cent of Circle Health. A company called Lansdowne Holdings owns a further 18 per cent.

These are hedge firms which like making multimillion-pound bets on the stock market. But Cameron has stacked the odds in their favour by promising that the NHS must use more private companies.
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