NHS : Andrew Lansley, his Doctors and MPs.

If Andrew Lansley is genuine about changes then he must first of all end the internal market that has caused all the problems with the NHS.


Then there is a need to legislate and control the Health Insurers so that they can no longer refuse on grounds of pre-existing condition, dump patient back to the NHS after two years and refuse coverage or hype fees just because someone had a long term condition.

He must then legislate against any private involvement in the profitable areas of NHS work. Let private be private and keep NHS public. Please remember, they are the same doctors so introducing competition is not going to improve anything. But private ones needs to make a profit and that means less money for treating patients.

Stop privatisation by stealth!!!

It is perhaps reassuring for the Secretary of State for Health to have sharp eyed doctors in the NHS still.

Dr No:

For make no mistake: it is the intention of this government, as it is of all governments, to get the NHS, with its fearful risks, off the government books, and into private hands. Dumping the Secretary of State’s duty to provide would have made life easier, but its retention shall not dilute the government’s intention, nor hinder it in the execution of its plans. We must be wary of winning the duty to provide battle, and loosing the NHS war. There is plenty more to be tackled in this Bill if we are not to see the NHS set sail on the Southern Cross course.

Jobbing Doctor

In the meanwhile we have a dog's dinner of a bill. PCTs and SHAs (organisations that are necessary, but unloved) will disappear, with their functions moved to new organisations. The issues of training and education and the place of the Deaneries are still unresolved. Medical training continues to be taking place to train doctors to work in Australia, New Zealand and Canada (the trickle is becoming a flood). Rationing will increase, bureaucracy will burgeon, and waiting lists will grow.

There is still a feeling that there is chaos at the head of policy making.

Also:Alan is miffed

He left front-line politics to 'spend more time with his family' (this is code for either resigning with some dignity, or planning to do something else), and he ceased to be a Labour MP in 2010. He stopped being a socialist many years before that.

He quickly became an adviser to Bridgepoint Capital, a private equity firm heavily involved in Private Finance Initiative, and also joined PepsiCo.

……..He is unhappy because Mr Cameron has changed tack on NHS reform. That is encouraging for the Jobbing Doctor, as this means there is significance in the changes to the bill, especially if Alan is miffed.

This news is mildly encouraging.

Interesingly, Alan Milburn now has two sons with his unmarried partner, Ruth Briel, a hospital Consultant.

 Dr Julian Tudor Hart

The NHS was conceived and born in Wales – not only from Bevan and Lloyd George, but more fundamentally from the solidarity of coal-mining communities. That’s a powerful history. With our backs to the wall, to history we turn. This Government is pushing us back to the Britain of the 1920s and 1930s, and we know it. But all GPs have already lost gains made by Bevan’s NHS and the post-war welfare consensus, which made effective primary care possible.

Dr Sarah Wollaston:

To avoid NHS privatisation, Lansley must change course

Guardian 30 DEC.,2010

“I gave up teaching medical students about the structure of the NHS long before hanging up my stethoscope to become an MP because I realised anything I told them would be out of date before they graduated. The lesson from all those reorganisations was that they distract management from improving the service for patients, and cost far more than expected. Primary care trusts are already in trouble and many are losing staff just when they are needed to advise GP commissioners on their new roles. We must ensure that the best managers are retained and feel valued rather than derided. If they all disappeared and GP commissioners had to rely on private sector commissioning, it could start to look like privatisation.”                                   More>>>

Dr Tony Jewell, Chief Medical Officer for Wales:

“The end of the internal market in health is part of the wider Welsh Assembly Government determination to make co-operation, rather than competition, the bedrock of public service delivery in Wales."

House of Commons Health Committee Fourth Report of Session 2009–10:

“The most radical option would be to abolish the purchaser-provider split, as Wales and New Zealand have. The BMA argued that the split between purchaser and provider had been expensive, inhibited clinician involvement in planning services, and fostered a system which is dominated by cost containment by PCTs and income generation by providers.”

 "Let us go back to the old discipline of the NHS. Let the professionals manage medicine, empower the professionals, the doctors and nurses and shove the internal market in the bin and screw down the lid. .........please let us hear from all political parties that they will ditch this absurd love-affair with the internal market. Instead let them help the NHS do what it does best — treat patients, and do so efficiently and economically without the crucifying expense and ridiculous parody of competition."                                  Prof. Waxman in an earlier post

NHS2011: What about Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland?