THE TORIES HAVE NEVER LIKED THE CONCEPT OF THE NHS

This Tory-led coalition government has launched an ideological assault on the NHS.

The Bill introducing its reforms is more than three times longer than the Act which actually created the NHS in the first place! The King’s Fund has described it as “the biggest upheaval in the health service, probably since its inception”.

The bill provides for full scale and exclusive clinical commissioning by GPs, with an £80 billion budget each year. Meanwhile, national level commissioning, and many of the Department of Health’s current functions are to be placed with a new arms-length body to be known as the NHS Commissioning Board. The principal purpose of the new economic regulator at the heart of the NHS will be to promote and guarantee competition including general competition laws.

All hospitals will be required to become independent foundation trusts, strategic management in the NHS at the regional level will be removed, and Primary Care Trusts are to be abolished.

All organisations, whether commissioning or providing NHS services will be taken out of the public sector, without the established standards of public information, scrutiny and accountability. And there will be a requirement on commissioners to accept and use “any willing provider”.

It is clear than that the intention of this Tory-led initiative will create opportunities for profit-making in every part of the NHS including, for the first time, in the commissioning of services.

If this bill gets onto the statute book, it could lead to hospitals closing down and being lost to local people as a direct consequence of losing money due to the new competition regime. Similarly, GP consortia will also be allowed to financially collapse before being wound up and taken over, which could also lead to a diminution in service to local people.

And finally, surprise, surprise, the bill also removes any limits on the use of NHS hospital beds and staff to treat privately paying patients.

The Conservatives have never liked the NHS. Their recent damascene conversion is a sham and their rhetoric is a con. David Cameron’s professed support for the NHS is as worthless as his promise on VAT. As for the Liberal Democrats’ role in this, well they are beneath contempt.