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Tag Archives: May 7th 2015
Trust has become totemic for the NHS, so a promise to preserve it would pay dividends
The CEO of the English National Health Service, Sir David Nicholson, sent out a stark warning in the Guardian today:
“Public support in this country for our healthcare system is greater than in almost any other country in Europe, and that’s so important for a taxpayer-funded system. My worry is that if it gets worse, before you know it you get to a place where a minority of the people support it and then people who can afford to [do so] will go elsewhere for their healthcare. In those circumstances the question of how sustainable the NHS is becomes a much more difficult one to deal with. That’s my worry.”
Various aspects of what Nicholson has said have in the past made me conclude Nicholson is definitely a Socialist, and not merely a Social Democrat.
At the end of a recent interview with Jeremy Paxman, Nicholson referred to how a private insurance system based on complicated genetic diagnoses would simply not work for the healthcare system, referring to imminent issues such as the growth in prevalence of the dementias.
Some even say that the private healthcare companies do not wish themselves a private insurance system; in that, they currently benefit from having some of the work outsourced to them in a controlled manageable way.
Ed Miliband said two highly significant things yesterday.
One was that he would take NHS policy out of the claws of EU competition law.
That is going to be essential if Labour is to have a manageable approach to ‘whole peson care’ or integration.
“We recommend that the benefits are considered of a single regulator covering issues of both care and economics, whilst recognising that is not feasible at present. We believe that the Office for Fair Trading’s role in reviewing competition decisions should be withdrawn.”
With an eye-watering contract having been put out to tender only this week, it is going to be essential that the Government tightens up the law in this area, as integration might offend EU competition law.
The second thing which Miliband said, about electoral priorities in 2015, was equally interesting.
Miliband said he wanted the 2015 election to be about ‘the cost of living crisis’ and the NHS, and not whether he would hold a referendum on EU membership.
Whether or not the media will allow this to happen is another matter, but there has been considerable concern over NHS issues during the course of the parliament.
Firstly, Andrew Lansley against all the odds enacted his vanity project, now known as the Health and Social Care Act (2012); only this week, Jeremy Hunt managed to bring in his ‘fast track to hospital closure’ mechanism in the Care Bill.
As long as contracts continue to go out to the private sector, Miliband will be unable to pledge no further privatisation of the NHS. Labour can pledge to repeal the Health and Social Care Act and Clause 119, but this is different.
If the Labour government wishes to pursue ten-year contracts using the ‘prime contractor’ model, it is likely that many of these contracts will subcontract to the private sector.
The NHS ‘preferred provider’ plan, which Andy Burnham has been advocated, may indeed have limited scope if the TTIP (EU-US free trade mechanisms) are negotiated in the favour of the multinational corporations.
The bungle over #caredata has further demonstrated the need for politicians to be transparent with the public.
Angela Eagle may wish to talk up the progress she is making in overcoming the ‘democratic deficit’, the millions of lost votes and so forth, but essentially Ed Miliband’s Labour will rightly come under some scrutiny in the election leading up to May 7th 2015 regarding the NHS.
David Nicholson is a true socialist. He has spoken his mind about the public’s affection for the NHS. Hunt never talks about the Lansley legislation.
If Labour is unable to pledge much on this, it might at least pledge a term of government where the NHS is free at the point of need and paid for entirely through general taxation.
What more can Labour do?
There’s an old adage that a third of all the people who know you will love you, no matter what you do, a third of people will hate you, no matter what you do, and the rest will simply be indifferent. It’s only one day every few years, but there will be millions on 7 May 2015 (if that’s the actual date of the General Election) who literally won’t be arsed to go down to their local election headquarters, because they feel their vote will not make any difference.
As usual, all of the nation’s woes and triumphs will be distilled into an election campaign, where you can sure that some things will be blown up out of all proportion, and other things won’t be discussed. Because of the short attention span of the media, and possibly even some readers/listeners, many issues will be distilled into soundbites. Remember the ‘tax on jobs’ debate we had last time in 2010 when the economy was actually recovering, prior to any discussion of ‘double dip’ or ‘triple dip’. You can rest assured that there’ll be no debate about A&Es closing, or the GPs’ out-of-hour contracts. Immigration is likely to be a headline though, not least because of Nigel Farage whose party has yet to get a MP elected to Parliament. However, the debate won’t go anywhere near how migrant workers are needed to keep the NHS alive, or the inevitability of globalism.
All Councillors I know are incredibly passionate about their ‘doorstepping’, and the general impression that I get is that the general public is generally more clued in than one might expect. However, because of the nature of politics, it’s going to be as usual pointless voting for certain parties in certain constituencies. Last time saw Nick Clegg being propelled into the limelight, with his famous tuition fees pledge. If there is to be another battle of the personalities, it is likely that Nigel Farage will be invited this time. Some gimmick like the “worm” will be back, and we’ll all be none the wiser until polling day.
So does this mean that politics doesn’t matter? Probably yes, as long as politicians fail to inspire potential voters. Many people on the left wing are just totally uninspired between a choice between Tory and Tory lite, and do not see a Labour leader leading on issues such as disability, a state-run NHS, or an economy which doesn’t take workers for a ride. Is there much Labour can do? Possibly get a move on, as people are totally sick to death of waiting for the climax of this neverending “policy review”, which many suspect will not answer certain fundamental issues, such as the fate of NHS Foundation Trusts. We seem to be waiting an eternity to find out what else will accompany ‘The Living Wage’ as a major manifesto issue, and if Labour didn’t do as well as they had wished for in the local elections it was simply because many voters did not consider them to be offering a valid alternative.
This is dreadful, when you consider quite how disastrously this current parliamentary term has gone for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Clearly, ‘One Nation’ is going to run into trouble, if voters in the South of England only feel as if they have a choice between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. If the Greens are becoming increasingly popular, it is because many people believe they deserve it: for example taking a strong stance against the Bedroom Tax. Labour indeed seems to be populated by ‘big personalities’, but there is no coherent strand to their philosophy at the moment. Their narrative appears to be a collection of sparse streams of consciousness, and this does not constitute a useful sense for direction.
It is not too late for Labour to remedy this. The reputation, deserved or not, that Labour is “fiscally incontinent” is going to be difficult to shift. Whether or not Labour was right to increase the deficit through recapitalising the banks as an emergency measure is not going to be a battle to be won now, ever. If anything, the Coalition have already won that battle, as they still cite the deficit for the reason that they are governing ‘in the national interest’. Labour can take the lead on a NHS which is universal and comprehensive. It can decide to push for an economy where workers have some security and long-term prospects in their job. It can also decide to represent the views of disabled citizens, many of whom have felt demonised by this Government.
Or else, despite great Councillors, it can carry on being… well… very bland.
