I don't often quote Conservative Home here, but this morning they've put out the following blog and according to many sources have done so at the request of members of the Cabinet. When the heartland of the Tories is now blogging against NHS reform I think its days are numbered:
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.
Many Conservatives think that the NHS needs fundamental reform but for far-reaching reform to succeed certain pre-conditions must be met. The public needs to have been persuaded that substantial change is necessary. The Government cannot be distracted by other consuming projects but its best brains must be focused and single-minded in ensuring the policy's success. The Whitehall machine needs to be prepared and co-operative. The Health Secretary needs to enjoy significant goodwill amongst NHS staff and possess exceptional communication skills. Few - perhaps none - of those preconditions exist.
ConservativeHome supports the Government's radicalism on schools, welfare and the deficit. We'd like to see much more ambition on competitiveness and changing Britain's relationship with Europe. The NHS Bill is not just a distraction from all of this but potentially fatal to the Conservative Party's electoral prospects. It must be stopped before it's too late.
Of course I disagree with that agenda: it's just not what we need. But I do agree, NHS reform has to stop now before it's too late.
But if the government does stop them the clear evidence that these people are unfit to govern will be there for all to see as it was when they crashed on economic policy in 1992 and from then on their days are numbered. But it looks like even the Tories think that would be better than carry on on with NHS reform now. What an indictment of their own incompetence.
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If the conservatives don’t deliver the lucrative health market to their backers, as promised, then why would those backers fund them in another election attempt? It won’t be just the public who no longer trust them!
A planted distraction.
That’s what the conservative sites comment is.
The real conservative animal has no concern for the manual grades.
They did after all start that well-known siphon of public funds called The Private Finance Initiative. Still going well at some 150 billion.
Nothing they say or do can be trusted.
Stop listening to the front men and start looking at whose hand is up the puppets bum.
I may be being naive, but there are encouraging signs that this horrific bill may well eventually be kicked into the long grass where it belongs!
Here’s hoping!
It’s no wonder Denis Healey called the British labour movement the most conservative in the world. It doesn’t matter that the NHS is outperformed on lots of health metrics: emotionalise the issue, make the subject sacrosanct and use it to close down all debate.
V – I have to agree with you on the essentially conservative frame of mind of the British labour movement, but on this one I think you are just wrong. I suggest you look at the NHS section of Richard’s site – see categories section – from which you will see AMPLE evidence that the NHS performs well, and outperforms many other health services, particularly the American model, the introduction of which is the Tory objective. The Tory ‘propaganda’ about cardiac outcomes, for example, which they used to peddle their poisonous “reforms” (de-forms, actually), has been shown to be poorly founded.
Dennis Healey also said “If you’re in a hole, stop digging”, to which I would add “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” Most of the so-called reforms since Thatcher’s first assault on the NHS (and almost all the neo-liberal “de-forms since”) are caught by that little slogan, since the NHS was actually performing quite well before it was so excessively bureacratised and managerialised by Thatcher, by the introduction of a business model of management away from a clinical excellence model.
Thatcher’s “de-forms” were always right-wing Maoist, essentially being a “Cultural Revolution” style attack on the power of consultants, who, backed up by their clinical staff, stood in the path of her business model, which would bring in its wake the enrichment of those who were “one of us”. The private health adviser, Lilley was his name, as I recall (note Peter Lilley – another Lilley) had it as his aim to break the power of the consultants. Well – biter, bit – as it’s ALL the professionals who have stood together to oppose these wrecking reforms.
The mystery is that the NHS continues to perfomr so well, even under the endless churning of Whitehall-imposed changes, dreamed up by wonks in back-rooms who would hardly know a suture from a swab, unless they were differently priced.
“It doesn’t matter that the NHS is outperformed on lots of health metrics:”
Where exactly? Some evidence would be nice! Unsurprisingly, you haven’t provided any such evidence!
The NHS is often touted as one of the most efficient public health services in the world! It would probably be a damn sight more efficient if it didn’t have PFI’s leeching off it!
We have one of the best performing health services in the world despite paying less of a proportion of our GDP than countries like France and Germany on health care.
Unfortunately Tim Montgomerie’s blog was followed by a response from Baroness Warsi claiming that it was the duty of Conservatives to support the NHS Bill. It would appear the camp is divided.
For the masochistic among you, Warsi’s response is here:
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2012/02/sayeed-warsi-torychairman-as-conservatives-it-is-our-duty-to-support-the-nhs-bill.html
It’s the same worn-out arguments all over again. She really is a prat.
For once I agree with you entirely
intersting article in Mail on sunday (of all papers 🙂 )
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2099940/NHS-health-reforms-Extent-McKinsey–Companys-role-Andrew-Lansleys-proposals.html