NHS Bill-It must be stopped before it is too late

In what must be seen as a major blow to the government and in particular the beleaguered health secretary Andrew Lansley,the influential Tory blog Conservative Home has come out against the NHS bill describing it as not just a distraction but potentially fatal to the Conservative Party's electoral prospects.

Editor Tim Montgomerie writes that:

The NHS was long the Conservative Party’s Achilles heel. David Cameron’s greatest political achievement as Leader of the Opposition was to neutralise health as an issue. The greatest mistake of his time as Prime Minister has been to put it back at the centre of political debate.

and continues

Following a week in which it has been reported that certain members of the cabinet reputedly wanted him taken out and shot and despite wholesale support during angry PMQ clashed,this must surely be another massive blow for Lansley,for it is certain that certain members of the Tory hierarchy are behind the article.

As Montgomerie adds

Andrew Lansley will have to move on. He will have to move on because he hasn’t been able to communicate these reforms in a streetwise way and he has been unnecessarily confrontational with NHS staff.

Mackay puts more NHS responsibilty on Lansley

There is an interesting snippet of information from Politics Home's Paul Waugh this afternoon.

As the NHS bill continues its merry passage through Parliament,it seems that the Lords in the guise of Lord Mackay (of Clashfern) wants the health secretary to assume greater responsibility for the health service.

According to Waugh,

The Mackay amendment to the NHS and Social Care Bill will now have an extra line that "the Secretary of State retains ultimate responsibility to Parliament for the provision of the health service in England".

Burnham's olive branch to Lansley

The new shadow health secretary Andy Burnham has held out an olive branch to his Tory counterpart Andrew Lansley over the battle ground for health reform that may well dominate the next few months in Parliament.

Burnham has said : "Drop your bill and we'll work with you to reform NHS commissioning"
whilst adding

"The NHS is now in the danger zone. You have failed to build a consensus around your plans. It's time to stop digging in. Listen and change course or you will damage patient care."

Burnham,who was appointed on Friday has written to the health secretary with what he calls a constructive offer to resolve the "dangerous stalemate" on NHS reform.

Burnham believes the financial challenge is the overriding priority for the NHS but that the Government's contested top-down re-organisation is proving to be a dangerous and damaging distraction.

This is a genuine offer and I hope he will accept it. But make no mistake - we will fight the Government every step of the way if it tries to force these dangerous reforms on the NHS. They will unpick the fabric of the NHS and it will never be the same again."

Sad epitaph of the tick box culture

Today's news that a Stafford Hospital was found to have 'routinely neglected' patients while the management was preoccupied with cost-cutting is nothing short of an absolute disgrace.

Whilst this may be a seen as an isolated incident,it will be held up by the Tories in particular as being systematic of the heavy handed approach to management and systems in not only the NHS but across the public sector.

The Tories are crying out for a public inquiry.Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley believes that one will help avoid mistakes in the future.

Andy Burnham considers Robert Francis' second stage inquiry to be adequate for the moment.

The report has found that at least 400 more people had died at the hospital between 2005 and 2008 than would be expected after hearing evidence from more than 900 patients and families.

And on the subject of Daniel Hannan

John Prescott has fisked his reply to the ex deputy minister's You Tube attack om his anti NHS sentiments on American television.

You can read the whole thing at Labour List but here is a taster

"Prescott is trying to fabricate a row out of my interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, in which I warned Americans against adopting a socialist healthcare system along British lines. You can watch the old bruiser here. (If you're an American who likes to imagine that the British are eloquent, please ignore that last hyperlink.)"

Fabricate a row? Describing the NHS as a "60 year mistake" and responsible for making people "iller" gave me a legitimate reason to question you. And your book The Plan gives me cause for even greater concern. You say you want to "allow patients to opt out of the NHS and instead pay their contributions into individual health accounts". Sounds like you want to follow the US model of personal health insurance just as they're trying to follow our system!

The rise and rise of Dan Hannan

Despite his views on the NHS not sitting comfortbaly with the Tory leadership,Paul Waugh has been given a tip off that the Conservative MEP will be speaking at the party's spring conference.

Dan will be on the platform making a speech about the Lisbon Treaty and the EU.
He will not be expected to go off piste to expand on the health service, an insider tells me.

Hannan takes to the air again

Tory MEP Daniel Hannan whose splendid reposte at Gordon Browm in Strasbourg features here in another You Tube video,this time displaying his right wing values as he tells the audience in America that they shouldn't make the same mistake as us and nationalise the health service.



Ht-Recess Monkey

Darzai report is out.The question is will it work?

The much previewed Darzai review is out and there are no surprises in its recommendations.
Its biggest being the draft consitution that will give patients choice over the GP that they choose to see and the types of treatment available.Patients views on the quality of treatment that they recieve will effect the funding of the hospitals and GP's that they have seen and there is a right to request treatment in other European countries if faced with an "undue delay".

Responding for the opposition,Andrew Lansley claimed that ths was simply just another attempt at the failed "command and control" approach to the service.

Quality in the NHS depends on responding to patients needs. This will not be helped by, it will be impeded by top down policies and the command and control approach,....

The complete lack of vision in these proposals means that, sadly, the Government has missed its "once-in-a-generation opportunity" to enact the real reform that our NHS needs.

Nigel Hawkes writing on Timesonline says

Lord Darzi’s review sets quality of care first, and everything else a distant second. Almost all the detailed changes he proposes are designed to raise standards.
Doctors and hospitals will be measured by the quality of care they deliver, and rewarded accordingly. Patients will be asked their opinion, and other more specific outcome measures - such as how many patients die - will be used to determine just how good their care has really been.

For him though

At issue is whether the levers are strong enough to bring about change. The document assumes that quality improvement will have no victims. But better quality can only come about by chasing out bad: that means eliminating poor GPs, closing failing hospital services, or even entire hospitals. Otherwise there won’t be the money to reward the good.

The last chance for the public NHS

Lord Darzai's review of the NHS is due out today and will be showcased by the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary.

The latter has just been talking on the Today programme where he described the report as groundbreaking and one of the most important developments in the NHS sine it was founded 60 years ago.

Heralding local healthcare and patient choice as being its buliding blocks,it was good to see that Johnson recognises that there should be no blurring of the lines of demarcation between the private and public sectors.

Whether that happens remains to be seen and writing in this morning's Telegraph on what she calls the

heavily trailed that its publication today will be almost an afterthought,

Janet Daley says that

The days of central government being, for all intents and purposes, a monopoly provider of medical services are coming to an end. Not only because it has become economically unsustainable - the fruits of medical progress are coming too thick and fast to be within the reach of a service that is entirely tax-funded - but because the consequences of ideological purity have become absurd and inhumane

The paper also provides an opinion poll which shows that

Labour is no longer the party trusted to bring in the health reforms that are needed to safeguard the NHS for future generations,

Its leading article meanwhile says that

This morning's poll exposes deep anxieties about an institution that may be treasured by the public but which is also seen as wasteful, grossly inefficient and in desperate need of reform - not of more cash. Not for the first time, the politicians appear to be lagging behind public opinion.

Time to move on

Unless any allegations about yesteday's vote surface during the day,I have said my last on the subject of 42 day detentions.

Now to health and today's Ft contains a fictional letter from the health secretary Alan Johnson to a patient explaining why the NHS won't treat people who buy drugs privately.

It's a massive put down for the health secretary and well worth a read.It begins

Dear Mrs Wilson,

I am sorry to hear about your cancer. But I would like to take up a few minutes of your fast-ebbing time to reassure you that, even though my decision to refuse you NHS care if you insist on paying privately for a drug may shorten your life, it really is for the best. I recognise that it may not seem that way to you, but then again you are rather ill and so not in the best state to judge.