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pm | | NHS Changes (18th Nov 11 at 12:16pm UTC) | | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13702147
Re launch of plans for NHS changes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13757380
Hospital waiting time breaches are rising,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13801051
Labour attacks NHS bill amendments
Three quarters of changes concern altering name of family doctor groups and may obscure more serious issues
Randeep Ramesh, social affairs editor
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 31 August 2011 00.57 BST
Article history
Government Pledges Increase In NHS Funding
75% of the amendments to the NHS bill concern changing the name of GP bodies from ‘consortia’ to ‘clinical commissioning groups’
More than three quarters of the 1,000 ministerial amendments to the government's flagship NHS bill involve changing the name of the new GP bodies to purchase treatment on behalf of the patients, it emerged on Tuesday.
Until this summer, the government had been pushing the idea that family doctors would form "consortia" to buy care. However, David Cameron's team of experts, the Future Forum, advocated a name change since "consortia" gave the impression that GPs would be too powerful in the coalition's new look NHS.
Instead GP consortia are to be called "clinical commissioning groups" and will have governing bodies with at least one nurse and one specialist doctor.
The result, say critics, is a bureaucratic nightmare with a slew of meaningless amendments which could obscure some potentially disastrous changes to the NHS bill, already the longest and most complex in the NHS's history. MPs are to vote on the final report stage in the Commons next week.
Since the government only allowed two weeks to vote on the new bill earlier this summer, many say detailed scrutiny will be needed in the Lords to unearth the full implications for patients. Labour believe only one in 10 changes will be "new" amendments.
John Healey, Labour's shadow health spokesman, said that "having allowed so little time for the health bill committee to scrutinise the repackaged NHS plans, this again shows David Cameron and his ministers looking to railroad their legislation through the Commons. MPs will get only two days to debate these amendments next week, as the prime minister and his deputy hope to square everything off before their party conferences."
The department of health confirmed that the name changes would be "more than 75%" of the changes to the NHS bill. | |
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pm | | Re: NHS Changes (18th Nov 11 at 12:17pm UTC) | | Leading Lib Dem urges rebels to back the Health Bill
By Jane Dreaper Health correspondent, BBC News
Ministers believe their reforms will lead to better care
A leading Liberal Democrat who previously voiced misgivings about the Health Bill is urging party colleagues to back the reforms.
Norman Lamb had threatened to quit his post as Nick Clegg's chief adviser in April over the NHS restructuring in England.
The MP feared the plans posed a major "financial risk" to the NHS.
But now he is urging potential rebels to back the legislation, to give the health service "certainty".
The government's Health and Social Care Bill returns to parliament next week - and is likely to face a tough time in the House of Lords in October.
Mr Lamb, who was once the party's health spokesman, told the BBC: "Above all else, let's get the legislation through. Let's give some certainty to the NHS, so it can achieve the efficiency savings that are so important.
"Of course we've got to get it right and ensure that the amended clauses meet the objectives set by the listening exercise.
"The mass of opinion now recognises it's not in the interests of the NHS to obsess on a continuing basis about the minutiae of this bill."
The bill has been amended as a result of efforts to listen to criticism. But some critics complain the new version has introduced too many layers of bureaucracy, while others insist there's still too much emphasis on competition.
Despite the delay to the legislation, change is already happening on the ground.
"It's not in the interests of the NHS to obsess on a continuing basis about the minutiae of this Bill.”
Norman Lamb Liberal Democrat
GPs are forming new commissioning groups as they prepare to take control of a big chunk of the NHS budget.
And an auditors' report shows more than 7,000 staff have left the health service in the past year. Many were managers in primary care trusts. The average pay-off was £40,000.
Mr Lamb is a government whip and he also chairs the Liberal Democrats' federal policy committee.
He revealed that efforts to get the Health Bill on to the agenda at the party's annual conference have not been successful - although emergency motions could still be submitted.
He said: "The bill is much improved. We've achieved a political settlement.
"There's a much more evolutionary approach to clinical commissioning. And there's much better accountability in the governance arrangements for those groups.
"Inevitably there's a range of views, and I'm sure there will be a robust debate in the House of Lords. But let's now work together.
"Integrating services is a good thing - and I think this bill can deliver that. I'd commend it to the party."
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| Ian
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pm | | Re: NHS Changes (18th Nov 11 at 12:21pm UTC) | | Q&A: The NHS shake-up http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12177084
Archbishop of York says NHS 'must not be market-led' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-15227076
Protesters block Westminster Bridge http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15234631
Competition has not made NHS better, say experts, By Jeremy Laurance and Richard Hall The Independent
Government claims that competition has improved quality in the NHS and has saved lives are based on flawed research, experts say.
As ministers prepared to defend Andrew Lansley's health reforms, which reach the House of Lords this week, academics at the University of London have attacked a key pillar of the Health and Social Care Bill.
It came as the Cabinet and the Department of Health were put on alert to prevent a "peers revolt" that could lead to parts of the Bill being referred to committee – fatally stalling the legislation.
Liberal Democrats, led by Dame Shirley Williams, were alarmed that the duty of the Secretary of State to provide a free, universal and comprehensive health service was being weakened. Ministers are expected to offer concessions to reassure them.
Fears that the Bill will be a Trojan horse for the private sector are also fuelling protest. Some 2,000 demonstrators blocked Westminster Bridge yesterday during a demonstration organised by UK Uncut against "the wholesale privatisation of the NHS".
Andy Burnham, the shadow Health Secretary, said the legislation would turn the NHS into a free market and called on Mr Lansley to withdraw the Bill.
The latest criticism of the Bill, by Professor Allyson Pollock of Queen Mary, University of London, and her colleagues, challenges the evidence on which the reforms are based. Writing in The Lancet, she said that a study used by David Cameron to back the case for more competition in the NHS was littered with errors.
That study, by researchers at the London School of Economics, suggested that mortality rates for heart attack patients were lower in cases where more hospitals were within travelling distance of the patient's GP surgery. It also looked at outcomes from routine surgery on hernias, hips, knees and cataracts and concluded that greater choice of hospital led to better results for heart attacks.
Professor Pollock said the study offered no explanation of why the availability of choice for the routine procedures should have had any effect on the mortality of heart attack patients. Heart attack is a medical emergency and most patients have no choice about where they are treated. She added: "Our examination of this research reveals it to be fundamentally flawed. The paper simply doesn't prove either cause or effect between patient choice and death rates." | |
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pm | | Re: NHS Changes (18th Nov 11 at 12:22pm UTC) | | Lords to vote on delaying the bill, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15269207
From the BMJ
BMJ 2011; 343:d6535 doi: 10.1136/bmj.d6535 (Published 11 October 2011)
Cite this as: BMJ 2011; 343:d6535
Health and Social Care Bill
In defence of the NHS: why writing to the House of Lords was necessary
Martin McKee, professor of European public health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine martin.mckee@lshtm.ac.uk ,
Allyson M Pollock, professor of public health research and policy, Queen Mary, University of London a.pollock@qmul.ac.uk ,
Aileen Clarke, professor of public health and health services research, University of Warwick aileen.clarke@warwick.ac.uk ,
David McCoy, associate director of public health, Inner North West London Primary Care Trust, and honorary senior clinical researcher, University College London d.mccoy@ucl.ac.uk ,
John Middleton, director of public health, NHS john.middleton11@btinternet.com ,
Rosalind Raine, professor of healthcare evaluation, University College London r.raine@ucl.ac.uk ,
Alex Scott-Samuel, senior lecturer (clinical) in public health, University of Liverpool A.Scott-Samuel@liverpool.ac.uk
Last week more than 400 public health doctors, specialists, and academics from across the country wrote an open letter to the House of Lords stating that the Health and Social Care Bill will do “irreparable harm to the NHS, to individual patients, and to society as a whole,” that it will “erode the NHS’s ethical and cooperative foundations,” and that it will “not deliver efficiency, quality, fairness, or choice.” 1
The prime minister claimed that the letter actually supported aspects of the bill, while the secretary of state for health was dismissive, maintaining that people signed it without reading it and that it was “politically motivated” and unsupported by “a shred of evidence.”
These claims were wrong. There was no qualified support for the bill. Nor did signatories write in a political capacity. | |
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pm | | Re: NHS Changes (26th Nov 11 at 1:44pm UTC) | | | But apparently essential and life saving stuff will not be affected. | |
| Ian
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pm | | Re: NHS Changes (1st Dec 11 at 10:07pm UTC) | | As long as we do not have to bail them out, they can do what they like!  | |
| Ian
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