It is all over now. The Health and Social Care Bill has been passed. The politicians have moved on, content to leave professionals and managers to pick up the pieces. Whichever side of this exhausting, divisive, and passionate argument you favoured, we are in a different place now. It is no longer a question of […]
Tag: NHS reforms
Peter Bailey: The King’s Shilling
David Cameron and Andrew Lansley assert that a large majority of GPs support their bill. Is it true? Where is the evidence? Is the profession lined up in willing support, eager to take on responsibility for managing the NHS through its greatest crisis? Perhaps we all took the King’s Shilling while in our cups in […]
Kailash Chand: The e-petition for the NHS passes 153 000 votes
The e-petition calling on the government to drop its Health and Social Care Bill has now reached 153 000 signatures to become the second most popular campaign on Number 10’s official petition site. It already qualified for a debate in the House of Commons, when it passed the 100 000 signatures milestone. Some 90% of […]
Chris Ham: Inertia rather than privatisation is the biggest threat facing the NHS
The Prime Minister’s summit on implementing the NHS reforms has provided a new focus for debate about what the reforms will mean in practice. The government’s critics maintain that competition will undermine the core values of the NHS to the detriment of patient care. Some of these critics go further to claim that competition will […]
Clive Peedell: Campaigning against the NHS reforms: Bevan’s Run
Despite the widespread concern and opposition to the coalition government’s NHS reforms, the Health and Social Care Bill continues on its way towards royal assent, which is likely to happen in the spring of 2012. Opponents of the reforms, including the BMA, are concerned that the legislation will lead to increasing commercialisation, fragmentation, and privatisation […]
Martin McShane: Adapting
Every two months I get to sit down with the GP Chair and Chief Operating Officer from each of the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in Lincolnshire. Ever since the reforms were announced we have retained a focus on delivery. We have thought of the development of the CCGs as revolving around delivery. There is no […]
Edward Davies: The health bill: no trust and no U-turns
Last week marked a “humiliating climbdown” for the Health Secretary. Apparently. “Andrew Lansley is now in open retreat and is being forced to cave in on issues he previously fought to the hilt,” said his Labour nemesis Andy Burnham. And so why does his acquiescence to an amendment demanding he take ultimate responsibility for the […]
Martin McShane: Why?
A frequent refrain is “we mustn’t recreate PCTs.” Increasingly, when I hear or see it said I want to ask five why’s. Let me give you an example. “We don’t want to recreate PCTs.” Why? “Because they were bureaucratic.” Why? “Because they made people jump through loads of hoops to get anything done.” Why? “Because […]
Martin McShane: Mirror on the wall
Someone I know, who is not a health care professional but has dedicated most of their working life to supporting improvements in health and health care, recently shared with me their observations about general practice. Rather than focussing on poor performance they studied the good to find out what it was that made them different. […]
Jo Maybin: Do actions speak louder than words on competition?
“What we are doing, through amendments to the legislation, is to make it absolutely clear that integration around the needs of the patient trumps other issues, including the application of competition rules.” […]