Campaign to protect NHS won’t stop with implementation of Act – George
As new commissioning bodies prepare to take responsibility for the management of the NHS, one of the chief Parliamentary critics of the Government’s policy, Andrew George MP, has said that health campaigners shouldn’t stop just because the Health and Social Care Act is due to be implemented.
Mr George said: “Just because the Act is being implemented does not mean that the NHS will inevitably become a fragmented service which puts profit before patients. The risk of the NHS becoming strangled in management babble and legal challenges against Commissioners who private companies deem have acted in an anti-competitive manner is not a foregone conclusion.
“Of course I was disappointed that the Government, which promised no further ‘top-down reorganisations’, went on and introduced the biggest re-disorganisation in NHS history. But the new GP Commissioners must be held to task and defend patient interests from predatory private companies.
“Following last week’s Government response on the Mid Staffs situation it is clear to me that our health service will end up with more people with clipboards and fewer people on the front line doing the work. We’ll have more management babble and not enough Registered Nurses on our wards. At the very time the NHS needs more integration it risks becoming more fragmented.
“But it doesn’t need to be like this. We may have lost a battle, but the campaign should go on.
“The complex web of clipboard wielding scrutineers of the health service (CQC, HealthWatch, Health and Wellbeing Boards, Monitor, Overview and Scrutiny Committees, GMC, NMC, CCG and now a Chief Inspector of Hospitals!) is more likely to add to confusion than reassurance. It’s now up to responsible GPs on local commissioning bodies and those who care about our NHS to use the structures which have now been created to protect the service and drive improvements.”
Sign up to Andrew George MP’s email newsletter : http://www.andrewgeorge.org.uk/