If you have something to say...
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If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
Andrew Lansley emerged last week to declare that he wanted tobacco companies to have "no business" in the UK. In recent years we've seen similar Government-led interventions in the corporate world. From the Kremlin-led incursions into Yukos to the US Government's halt on CNOOC's takeover of Unocal.
On April 12 1912, the Titanic sank. The "unsinkable sinking" and God's wrath on men getting above their station are held as reasons for the lingering...
The Health Bill was one of the most hated and ridiculed Bill in living memory and will do great damage to the NHS. Longer waiting times, restrictions to services and a postcode lottery where we will see real differential standards applied.
Amidst the general dismay among real experts and ordinary people alike that has followed the parliamentary passage of Andrew Lansley's vicious legislation to traduce the NHS, there is one vested interest that will no doubt give a quiet cheer.
The bitter public battle now being fought over the future of the NHS looks set to continue. Its future shape uncertain, and the mounting resistance that is so visceral is based upon fear, uncertainty and crucially a genuine lack of trust in those that claim to be guiding us to the best possible future the NHS.
"Doesn't it also demonstrate that however well you may be on top of your brief, you are a hopeless communicator?" This was question posed to the health secretary by Jeremy Paxman during an interview and one senses this is indicative of the thoughts of many politicians.
Don't worry about 'competition' in the NHS. Just invite commercial operations to tender for the business and, in return, demand a piece of the action.
The party of the NHS? We shouldn't be afraid to expose this as the greatest joke in politics. At a time when the NHS needs reform to ensure its survival in the face of unprecedented demographic change, Labour cannot be trusted with the NHS. All they do, all they will ever do, is waste your money, and defend the interests of producers over patients.
In amongst all this exciting, depressing and uninteresting stuff the UK has still been under the thrall of the possible destruction of our national health service. Yes, I'm going to go on about it again.
The politics of health reform are becoming ever more tangled. And the more tangled they become, the worse it will be for the Government. Last week I argued that, if David Cameron genuinely believes that the Health and Social Care Bill really will drive standards up and costs down, he should ignore the doubters and keep going. However, fresh YouGov research underlines the risks that he is running.
Health reform is perhaps the most divisive issue in Britain's government... and there is another health issue that the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary do not agree on: the new Alcohol Strategy, which is expected to be announced any day now. David Cameron wants a minimum price to be imposed on cheap supermarket alcohol, while Andrew Lansley prefers self regulation.
If the NHS was a patient, it would be as if it went, feeling a bit queasy, to see its GP more than 20 years ago. Without warning, it was sent straight to hospital, kept in, operated on, helped to recover, operated on again, and again, and then again.
Here's my advice to the prime minister: if you are privately, honestly confident that the Bill will unquestionably be good for the NHS, stick to your guns. But if, away from the public gaze, you harbour doubts and fear that the massed ranks of doctors and nurses might just possibly be right, then pull the Bill.
But the NHS is large, operationally and technically complex, close to the public's heart and contains ranks of organised stakeholders with diverse views. With public satisfaction levels at an all-time high, creating a mandate for change on the huge scale envisaged by the White paper was always going to be hard. Add in the bomb of explicitly promoting more competition and the backdrop of a very challenging budget settlement for the NHS, a coalition government, and the difficulty multiplies.
While I'm no expert in psychological behaviour, I'm left wondering just which one of these Cameron and Lansley are suffering from. Ever since announcing the healthcare reform bill some months ago it has been opposed by over 250,000 medical health professionals, nearly every opposition party, every official medical association, the general public and even, this past week, members of the Conservative Party who would usually jump at such proposals.
Let us examine the political thesis put forward by Lucy from Lymington who, commenting at Mail Online upon the latest anti-Cameron eruption from Mount...
