This is a totally independent post and does not represent the views of the Socialist Health Association.

Despite being a rather corporate slogan, ‘diversity’ is much valued, and maybe Labour should welcome a new ‘kid on the block’? If the next big thing of 2012 was ‘muscular liberalism’, perhaps Labour should not adopt a stance of ‘divisive socialism’ against newbies, the National Health Action Party (@NHAParty). Why are Labour and the National Health Action Party playing so hard-to-get with each other? This issue has been all-the-more crucial to address with the imminent by-election in the safe Tory/LibDem seat of Eastleigh.

No doubt Labour will have a full frontal range of attitudes and emotions towards the National Health Action Party: in my circle of followers on Twitters, opinions have ranged from, “they’re definitely worth listening to” to “they’ll be lucky if they get 10 votes”. Labour cannot escape from discussing the NHS, even if it feels it can still play a ‘strong hard’, but much like all else they do they run the risk of taking Labour voters for granted on the NHS.

Dr Clive Peedell (@cpeedell) doesn’t want the creeping marketisation of the NHS to go any further. Andy Burnham MP (@andyburnhammp) was the person who ventured out into ‘NHS global’, so that Foundation Trusts could sell their products abroad under the NHS logo, and who continued the march of the NHS Foundation Trust machine.

However, Andy feels now ‘enough-is-enough’. Despite being from the Labour (and some would say “New Labour”) stable, Andy has signalled that he wishes to repeal the Health and Social Care Act (2012). Of course, reversing the changes in it presents a more formidable challenge, but Andy says that he wishes to reverse Part 3 of the Act. This is code for getting rid of the fact that private companies, to which the NHS has been increasingly outsourced, will not be ‘competing’ to do what the NHS is supposed to do, using the NHS logo to maximise their own shareholder dividend. The unfortunate effect of engaging domestic and international competition law has become the ludicrous situation where the NHS cannot be given any preferential treatment for fear of offending European law, ‘distorting’ the market and so on.

There are strong economic arguments for not running the NHS in a fragmented piecemeal outsourced fashion; not least the NHS can benefit economically from ‘economies-of-scale’ and there is hope that with the proper leadership it can further national policy. Unfortunately, Sir David Nicholson and his army have stayed in situ when cultural change, when – in fact – a new charismatic change leader, is need to drive a move away from his failed ‘efficiency savings’. Efficiency was managerial speak for a Frederick Taylor-approach to management, looking at productivity and activity, meaning that one Foundation Doctor would be running around all the geriatric wards for the whole-of-the-night while his or her colleague was doing all the geriatric admissions in Casualty, to save money. The fact that you cannot have ‘something for nothing’, a popular philosophy of Thatcher, is borne out by the 400-1200 deaths in Stafford, where the inaction by the health regulatory bodies has been striking, and the political reaction somewhat confused.

In innovation, it’s possible for a new entrant to dislodge an incumbent by a slight subtlety. That is the basis of the splendid body of work by Prof Clay Christensen at Harvard Business School. However, nobody is expecting the NHA Party, co-founded by Dr Clive Peedell, a NHS oncologist, to dislodge Labour. However, Labour have openly admitted that Eastleigh is 285th on their “hit list”, so many question indeed Ed Miliband’s wisdom in spectacularly losing a safe Hampshire seat.

We have seen coalitions can work for one of the parties within it. We have also seen single-issue parties getting MPs somehow, such as Caroline Lucas in Brighton. If you park aside the perceived differences of NHA Party and Labour, given that Labour is “the party of the NHS” with its own brand loyalty, it might be conceded that Labour not winning does not further the NHS debate. It is possible that, as a protest vote against the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, the NHA Party do indeed have a fighting chance of getting one MP.

And what is the point of one MP? Well what is the point of a handful of Liberal Democrats? In practice management techniques, such as PRINCE2, it is customary for there to be a ‘senior user’ as well as a ‘senior customer’ on your project board. While many will balk at the idea of ‘customers’ of NHS, unlike Prof Karol Sikora at the weekend on BBC’s “Sunday Politics”, there is a lot to be said, arguably, for input from frontline doctors and other healthcare staff in the NHS debate.

To delve into business management speak, which has possibly crippled the NHS thus far, the NHA Party and Labour have important synergies in values and competences in their outlook on the NHS. Ironically, there is an active debate about how collaboration, as well as (or rather than) competition, should be encouraged. It might be time to ‘think the unthinkable’, and consider the vague possibility that Labour, while desperately trying to fight for an electoral majority in 2015 despite the statistical odds, might benefit from a strategic alliance, or partnership, with the NHA Party. This does not need to be a formal joint venture, but, to expand the business analogy, could be a clever way for Labour to reaffirm its commitment to the NHS and for the NHA Party to gain ‘market entry’. Given that the traditional media appear not to allow the NHA Party to discuss the agenda fully, this may not be a bad thing, I feel.

Please feel free to contact me on @legalaware if you wish to have a constructive debate about any of the issues therein. Many thanks.