NHS Reform: Lessons from Coca Cola & Persil

Some politicians have an instinct to survive and dare we say even achieve greatness; others struggle and barely manage to stay afloat. 

Would he be doing a Coca Cola or Persil turn?

 We want NHS Classic!!! NHS Original!!!

No, I do not know if he drinks it. 

If our Prime Minister is extremely clever, he could do  a Coca Cola U-turn now. He would be so popular as the one who saved the NHS from a number of plotters.

Coca Cola did an U-turn and has rescued what most perceived as a sure disaster. Or did they? As conspiracy theorists believe that it was part of a big publicity exercise. Only Coca Cola knew the truth.

Coca-Cola’s now famous attempt to change the taste to New Coca-Cola was met with such a consumer backlash that the management swiftly return to the Classic formula and eventually New Coca-Cola was dropped. Or did they!!! In fact the Diet Coke’s flavour is that of the New Coca-Cola that never was. In the States, the Classic Coca-Cola is not all that classic either as it uses HFCS instead of cane sugar. In Mexico & Europe and the Far East, they still use sugar. There you have it!!!

Persil Original 
Persil also dabbled with Enzyme/Biological addition and later Manganese (that destroyed fabrics) only to again re-introduce what we love best: Persil Original. It may not leave your clothes as white as others but eczema sufferers won’t itch nor would non-sufferers.

The PLOT to kill off the NHS Original started with Fundholding and since then every single government tried! Often in the name of improving health care.

The NHS has its faults but the fixing of it is not by bringing in privateers as they will be gaming for public money; nor would competition and choice work. We only need to look at the number of times the average household change utility providers.

But the government is pretending that Southern Cross would go away very quickly. The same with Four Seasons. We have no idea if there were any secret behind the scene deals so that the likes of Southern Cross will not hit the headlines as the HCSB tried to wriggle through parliament.

No we want the old NHS!!! NHS Classic!!! NHS Original!!! No mercury or manganese please.

Perhaps politicians can learn from this: you can say all the bad things about the NHS and you can quote how badly we are doing but we still love our NHS for all its short comings and perhaps if politicians have not been so interfering and allow us doctors, nurses and patients to make things work together we may indeed have a better NHS. All the analysis on the reform is clear about one thing: someone is going to make money and that means less money for actual health care.

Because, reading between the lines, that is what it is. If Andrew Lansley can have his way the ordinary citizens who cannot afford health care insurance will get inferior care in a society hat needs to ration its skilled medical professionals. It is no good trying to pretend it is any other way.

Allyson Pollock

Our generation had the best of the NHS.  We had the best of the welfare state including free education, free health care and above all freedom from fear of health care bills.  Now it is up to your generation to fight for what we are in danger of destroying. The BMA are considering taking a legal challenge against the government, you should add your voices. Ultimately the battle for the NHS is a political battle and unless you make your voices heard then the NHS will be lost. Not one citizen in England can afford to lose their NHS; the scale of the public health casualties will be too great if the Bill is passed.  The abolition of the NHS should not be our legacy to your generation for how can you care properly in the knowledge that so many will go uncared for.  Its your NHS but only for so long as you care enough to fight for it.

The Plot Against the NHS

20 years

.....But just in case you are not convinced of the design behind this, and don’t think it is fair to call it a plot, let me add just one more item. In January there was a discussion on Radio 4 between Matthew Taylor, who was once Blair’s chief of staff, and Eamonn Butler, the Director of the Adam Smith Institute, where Tim Evans also works – same Tim Evans who negotiated the concordat with Milburn and looked forward to the NHS becoming just a kitemark. They were asked if they thought the NHS was really going to become ‘a mere franchise’. Butler replied, quite casually, ‘It’s been 20 years in the planning. I think they’ll do it.’

Lancet: It’s time to kill the bill.

It ushers in a degree of marketisation and commercialisation that will fragment patient care; aggravate risks to individual patient safety; erode medical ethics and trust within the health system; widen health inequalities; waste much money on attempts to regulate and manage competition; and undermine the ability of the health system to respond effectively to communicable disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies.

While we welcome the emphasis placed on establishing a closer working relationship between public health and local government, the proposed reforms will disrupt, fragment, and weaken the country's public health capabilities.

The Government claims that the reforms have the backing of the health professions. They do not. Neither do they have the public's support. The Health and Social Care Bill will erode the NHS's ethical and cooperative foundations and will not deliver efficiency, quality, fairness, or choice. We ask the House of Lords to reject passage of the Health and Social Care Bill.” It is, indeed, time to kill this Bill.

One thing is for sure, if the HSCB is not killed, the ones that are likely to be killed are going to be hospitals & patients!!!