Friday 17 September 2010

Pipe down Lansley, you're a nuisance.

You'll be glad to know I'm not a raving nutbag. I thought maybe my fears about the privatisation of the NHS by Lansley's reorganisation might just be paranoia, but it looks like the very people he's trying to snuggle up to agree with me on this one.


This is about his plans to put the job of arranging budgets into the hands of GPs (I wrote about why it could mean the privatisation of the NHS here). Now, the Royal College of GPs have released the findings from their consultation with members, and they aren't too promising for Lansley.

Here's a few of their concerns, I'll simplify them to save space, but I'm not twisting anything they said, it's here for all to see if you fancy checking up on me:

- Rather than being efficiency savings, money and manpower will move away from clinical care and be wasted in resource management.

- Health inequality will increase as different areas have different services.

- GPs will be blamed for cuts in services as they're seen as the ones in charge of the purse-strings, which will damage the crucial doctor-patient bond.

- GPs don't have enough time to take on this additional role.

And most importantly of all so I'll quote it word for word -

"The reforms open a door to increased involvement of the for-profit private sector in the NHS, and tax-payer's money will be diverted into private companies and their shareholders. This could be seen as the break up of the NHS with some private companies ready to take over the provision of services."

Yeah, like I said, not just me.

So after his reforms have been met by a less than rapturous welcome and been seen as privatising the NHS,  he's been completely shot down over his plans to shut down NHS Direct, and insulted Jamie Oliver's healthy eating campaign based on completely inaccurate data, I'm forced to ask, what the hell can this man actually do right?


I'll say it once more. We like our NHS being public. We like the fact that everyone is treated equal based on need rather than wealth. We like the fact that we have one of the best healthcare systems in the world. Leave it alone you joke of a government!

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