There’s no doubt Andy Burnham MP drives the Conservatives potty.
Despite the Conservatives’ best attempts to annihilate Burnham MP, Burnham keeps on scoring goals.
Meanwhile Jeremy Hunt continues to score blanks, apart from where profits from ‘Hot Courses’ are concerned.
But Burnham is more concerned about the day job, and that is running the NHS to a level of some degree of competence.
Hunt meanwhile continues to run his NHS into the ground, paying for costly advice on the managerial implementation of compassion, when he could be paying nurses to do the professional job they’re trained to do.
So Burnham can certainly hold his head up high as chief striker or scorer for Labour United.
As the Conservatives spit out the oranges from their half-time pep talk, as the oranges were in fact horsemeat due to the abolished Food Safety Agency, it’s time to recapitulate.
Clive Peedell kindly tweeted the other day points on which he would like Labour to play ball.
@legalaware @andyburnhammp 1. Fill £30bn funding gap by abolishing PFI & cracking down on tax avoidance 2. Get NHS exempted from TTIP
— Clive Peedell (@cpeedell) April 22, 2014
Before the 2010 election, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg indeed condemned PFI as “a bit of dodgy accounting – a way in which the government can pretend they’re not borrowing when they are, and we’ll all be picking up the tab in 30 years”. It’s well known that PFI is a relic of the John Major government from 1995 (predating New Labour in fact). In opposition, Osborne pledged that the Conservatives would stop using PFI and denounced Labour for relying so much on a source of finance that he said was “totally discredited”. “We need to find new ways to leverage private-sector investment. Labour’s PFI model is flawed and must be replaced,” Osborne muttered in November 2009. Indeed Margaret Hodge, chair of the powerful Commons public accounts committee, said the coalition had failed to come up with the promised alternative since coming to power. The facts speak for themselves.
And Burnham is handicapped by not being the actual Secretary of State for Health at this crucial time for the NHS.
He nonetheless did go to Strasbourg last month to try to explain the case:
(This is a video recording I took of Andy’s talk at the Southwark Labour meeting recently.)
Labour will need to abolish PFI contracts or renegotiate them or both. But Ed Balls will need to be on the wing to help Burnham shoot. And it’s hoped the football manager is not asleep on the job. Labour has indeed proposed a five point plan to tackle ‘tax avoidance’. Labour supports a form of country-by-country reporting. It would extend the Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes regime, which Labour introduced, to global transactions. It would open, further, open up tax havens, with requirements to pass on information about money which is hidden behind front companies or trusts. Crucially, Labour also wants to see fundamental reform of the corporate tax system. But Peedell’s work is not done.
@legalaware @andyburnhammp 3. Abolish purchaser provider split 4. Improve NHS accountability with transparency & openness — Clive Peedell (@cpeedell) April 22, 2014
The abolition of the purchaser-provider split remains one of the totemic political decisions to be made, as is not a ‘deal maker’ for many grassroots voters.
In fact, the whole issue of whether the general public is interested by public health or competition remains uncertain.
Nonetheless, a pioneering integrated healthcare scheme in New Zealand has improved the care of patients while reducing demand on hospital services.
On the contracting side, the report said that the abolition of the purchaser-provider split in the health system was important as it gave boards the autonomy to decide how to fund their hospitals.
The project was launched in 2007 in response to rising hospital admissions and waiting times and to a population that was ageing more rapidly than in other parts of New Zealand and other developed countries.
Similar to the drive towards whole person care in this jurisdiction, is aim was to create a “one system, one budget” approach to health and social care, together with various aspects as centrepieces: sustained investment in training, support for staff to innovate, and new forms of contracting, including abolition of the split between healthcare service purchasers and providers.
The outgoing NHS England chief executive Sir David Nicholson last year told HSJ his organisation was looking at “whether the straightforward commissioner-provider split is the right thing for all communities”.
Hospitals wish to focus on delivering better services to patients and often get frustrated by the amount of time they have to spend negotiating contracts with commissioners with the legal shutgun pointing in the direction of their necks.
And there’s no doubt there’s a steady stream of whistleblower tragedies, with Raj Mattu the latest in the long line of casualties.
People still struggle to think of a NHS whistleblower who has had a good outcome.
The Nursing Times ‘Speak Out Safely’ has only so far succeeded in signing up 30% of NHS Trusts.
Most people accept that the whole system is rotten, not least in how clinical regulators appear to pass the buck or even worse target whistleblowers.
Many do not think the Public Interest Disclosure Act, enacted by New Labour is 1998, is fit for purpose either.
So Clive Peedell is right, but Andy Burnham may have trouble in shooting goals on target with nobody on wing or a manager more concerned about ‘One Nation’.
Moyes, sacked by United on Tuesday after the 2-0 defeat at former club Everton on Sunday confirmed their failure to secure Champions League qualification, oversaw just 51 games in charge of the team after succeeding Sir Alex Ferguson last summer.
Moyes, like Ed Miliband, though had his army of people who thought he was doing a good job.
But Burnham like many, although focused on sorting out the undeniable problems of the NHS, is avoiding relegation for his team too.
I certainly don’t want to ask who the Ryan Giggs is. That certainly would be tempting fate.
