NHS reforms

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

Fine, but to what end?

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To what end?

So the government can be questioned over the need to waste £20 billion on the Connecting for Health IT project before it got commissioned let alone cancelled. Bank bailouts were questioned, why shouldn't burning £20 billion on a project the government were told by contractors was impossible?

How about questioning the government over privatisation of parts of the NHS when it happened 8 years ago instead of now when its far too late?

Lack of interest from the public in any area means the government will try and get away with murder if it thinks it can get away with it.

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Originally Posted by Dylan H

To what end?

So the government can be questioned over the need to waste £20 billion on the Connecting for Health IT project before it got commissioned let alone cancelled. Bank bailouts were questioned, why shouldn't burning £20 billion on a project the government were told by contractors was impossible?

How about questioning the government over privatisation of parts of the NHS when it happened 8 years ago instead of now when its far too late?

Lack of interest from the public in any area means the government will try and get away with murder if it thinks it can get away with it.

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I think you misunderstand slightly, if I may say so. How is any much-vaunted 'national debate' on a subject such as the NHS supposed to come to a conclusion? Even were a conclusion to be reached, it would still upset many. People debate subjects of concern to them all the time. Agreement is never reached. Without staging a referendum, there is no way of putting any such debate to rest; of rendering the concept anything other than meaningless.

It could be argued that we have had a referendum. The election determined which policies would be implemented in this Parliament; included among those policies was reform of the National Health Service.

Two problems with that. 1) We all voted, then a deal was done between two parties who then formed the government. The coalition agreement shaped policy, but we didn't have a say in that agreement. 2) I'm not at all persuaded that the NHS policy now under discussion was laid out before the electorate during the election. In fact David Cameron said there would be no top-down reorganisation and that his aim was to cut the deficit not the NHS.

So, there may be an argument to have a referendum for us to decide the future of the NHS, but on the evidence of the AV "debate" what's the point?

We have this government for the next four years. What they say goes and there is little or nothing the electorate or the opposition can do about it if they wanted to.

Democracy is a wonderful thing :p :

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Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1

I'm not at all persuaded that the NHS policy now under discussion was laid out before the electorate during the election. In fact David Cameron said there would be no top-down reorganisation and that his aim was to cut the deficit not the NHS.

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There is a distinct difference between what a politician says and what they do.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-sto...5875-21926813/
David Cameron's vow to back the NHS was exposed as a sham yesterday after a secret meeting with a group bent on privatising the health service.
The Tory leader invited Nurses For Reform to his Commons office for an hour's talk even though they have branded the NHS a "Soviet-style calamity" and want to see it sold off.

Among issues discussed were ending nurses' national pay rates and letting hospitals close if they run out of cash. Mr Cameron - drenched during a charity run yesterday - did not publicise the meeting, prompting claims he would "abandon" the NHS at the first opportunity.
Health Secretary Andy Burnham said: "No matter what cast-iron guarantees David Cameron gives in public, it is now clear, in private, he is discussing abandoning the NHS as we know it."

This was back in December of 2009, well before the General Election. The truth is that meetings were held, talks have been in place and the intent is still there.
Privitising the NHS sits squarely within Tory ideology because it goes against the ide of free-market economics and more importantly redistributes services to poorer people.

[Ian Hislop tone]Cameron is a genuinely nice person, alledgedly[/Ian Hislop tone]

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Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1

It could be argued that we have had a referendum.

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In that case, how on earth could it be worded?

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Originally Posted by Rollo

Privitising the NHS sits squarely within Tory ideology because it goes against the ide of free-market economics and more importantly redistributes services to poorer people.

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You really need to put to bed this bizarre idea that the Tory party is the NHS privatisation party.

As I described earlier the Labour party under Tony Blair initiated privatisation of NHS services using fair means or foul, including having senior representatives from companies like Capio and Alliance medical on teams drawing up reports as to whether the private healthcare sector could 'assist' the NHS. This is akin to consulting arms makers as to whether attacking Iraq was a good idea.

No mainstream party has proposed repealing Labour reforms to the NHS and turning the clock back to 2000. Hence every mainstream party stands for privatisation of NHS services.

There is hardly any difference between Labour and Tory NHS policy except that the latter are especially vulnerable to accusations of privatisation because of their history during the 80's. What is amazing is that so many people persist in believing stereotypes.

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Originally Posted by Dylan H

You really need to put to bed this bizarre idea that the Tory party is the NHS privatisation party.

As I described earlier the Labour party under Tony Blair initiated privatisation of NHS services using fair means or foul, including having senior representatives from companies like Capio and Alliance medical on teams drawing up reports as to whether the private healthcare sector could 'assist' the NHS. This is akin to consulting arms makers as to whether attacking Iraq was a good idea.

No mainstream party has proposed repealing Labour reforms to the NHS and turning the clock back to 2000. Hence every mainstream party stands for privatisation of NHS services.

There is hardly any difference between Labour and Tory NHS policy except that the latter are especially vulnerable to accusations of privatisation because of their history during the 80's. What is amazing is that so many people persist in believing stereotypes.

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I agree.

Do you believe we have a better or worse NHS now as a result of the reforms of the past decade? I struggle to think of any public service that has, overall, been improved as a result of the influence of the private sector.

I suggest you have a look at these two book reviews which summarise recent changes to the NHS and the role of both the Labour and Tory parties in increasing private sector involvement. Blaming one party and not the other for privatisation really does not provide an accurate reflection of real events.

http://www.nhscampaign.org/uploads/d...l%20review.pdf
http://www.islingtontribune.com/revi...stewart-player

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

Do you believe we have a better or worse NHS now as a result of the reforms of the past decade? I struggle to think of any public service that has, overall, been improved as a result of the influence of the private sector.

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I could write a whole book about the NHS reforms over the past decade. There are many positive and many negative results.

On the positive front, real spending has increased massively and this will not be undone by current spending freezes. Targets such as the four hour rule in A/E have improved access to healthcare although initially at the expense of quality. The introduction of quality control means by both the Labour and Tory party has and will continue to improve quality although the Tory party have thankfully relaxed time targets to allow the NHS to focus specifically on quality. There are more frontline staff who in turn are better supported by improved diagnostic and logistic chains. Having worked through the reform process I would not want to see a return to the old system. The Labour party need to be congratulated on this although I believe the Tories would have continued this process had they come to power in an economic boom rather than the current recession.

On the negative front huge amounts of money has been wasted on projects such as connecting for health and the degree of propaganda surrounding Labour reforms to the NHS was incredible although this applies across the board to many fields of Labour activity. Training quality has been massively reduced both at medical and nursing school level and through clinical training. Services have been privatised at great expense to frontline NHS services that have had to pay over market rates for services that they could have handled themselves but were forced to outsource from Whitehall. Poorly run NHS organisations have been hit hard financially (which arguably they should be) which has put them in a vicious cycle whereby they lose income and therefore find it difficult to invest in and improve services. The Labour party also mismanaged contract negotiations with both GPs and consultants mainly by underestimating how much work both groups performed, then blamed GPs and consultants when payments under those contracts were higher than they had estimated. The Labour party had no problem whatsoever using its quite impressive media spin machine against both nurses and doctors when it felt the need to divert blame away from its reforms.

For patients I think the NHS has improved under Labour but the improvement hasn't been proportional to the amount of money invested for reasons I've already described. Also staff morale has dropped under the Labour party to the extent whereby at the worst times admitting you supported Labour was a bit like admitting you're a paedophile.

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Originally Posted by Dylan H

Blaming one party and not the other for privatisation really does not provide an accurate reflection of real events.

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Nor does it help in any way when looking at the NHS as it is now.

All public services suffer from see-saw politics. Each successive government has their own ideas on how things should be run but it is the services themselves which bear the brunt of constant and repetitive change. Is it any wonder that there are problems to be solved?!

As someone who works in education I'm well aware of policy changes in emphasis, funding being switched from one area to another or removed altogether, the promotion of particular training/courses over others, all of which helps no-one and improves little, and the frustration of those left to implement those changes and the learners trying to get a decent education.

In those circumstances it's very easy for politicians to come along with some "new" policy that proports to have all the answers and promises to solve all the problems. We get to see those kind of claims every few years.