Fight against NHS changes steps up

1 Apr 11
The government’s health reforms have come under further attack with co-ordinated protests across England today and warnings of a ‘reality gap’ in the plans from NHS leaders.
By Vivienne Russell


1 April 2011

The government’s health reforms have come under further attack with co-ordinated protests across England today and warnings of a ‘reality gap’ in the plans from NHS leaders.

The protests, co-ordinated by the Trades Union Congress under the banner All together for the NHS, is seeking to persuade ministers to retract some of the measures in the Health and Social Care Bill.

TUC deputy general secretary Frances O’Grady said: ‘The challenge is to maintain public concern about the impact of spending cuts but also to make clear these “reforms” will alter the NHS that we know and love out of all recognition.

‘So-called efficiency savings are already costing jobs and damaging services, and these proposals will open up every bit of the NHS to any private company willing to have a go at running a service. We are seeing the beginnings of a contract culture where only lawyers and management consultants are the winners.’

Yesterday, the NHS Confederation raised concerns about the reforms, particularly around GP commissioning, the extension of competition in the health service, and accountability arrangements. 

The body issued a discussion paper, Where next for NHS reform?, which identifies a ‘reality gap’ between the ideas behind the reforms and the practical things that need to happen in order to implement them.

Nigel Edwards, the confederation's acting chief executive, said: ‘The government has got to ask itself some hard questions about how it manages the reforms from here on in. We are not saying we have all the answers but we do want to start a conversation about the solutions.

‘The debate on the reforms has become very polarised and entrenched, with little movement on the practical ways of managing what are very significant risks. This is destabilising for an NHS that is already making structural changes to meet the government’s agenda.’

The paper makes a series of recommendations about what can be done to manage the risks involved in the government’s change programme. These include the introduction of open-book accounting, which would give the public more access to financial information.

‘[This] might be a simple way of ensuring effective scrutiny of GPs’ profits,’ the confederation said.

 Read David Walker’s blog on the NHS Confederation’s paper here

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