Government bites back against NHS reform naysayers
pharmafile | January 27, 2012 | News story | Sales and Marketing | BMJ, Lansley, NHS, reforms
The UK government has come out against healthcare groups that are opposing its plans to radically reform the NHS.
Speaking at a Liverpool conference the health secretary Andrew Lansley said critics of his restructuring of the health service were spreading ‘lies’ about the reforms.
He reserved his most venomous remarks for doctors’ union the BMA, which publicly opposes the Health and Social Care Bill, saying that it had failed to back ‘every single important reform’ in the health service’s history.
“Look back to 1948 when the British Medical Association denounced Aneurin Bevan [the architect behind the NHS] as ‘a would-be Führer’ for wanting them to join a National Health Service. And Bevan himself described the BMA as ‘politically poisoned people’.
“A survey at the time showed only 10% of doctors backed the plans … but where would we be today if my predecessors had caved in.”
The Health and Social Care Bill is currently in the House of Lords and could be passed into law by April.
The Bill is seeking to remove the current managers of the NHS and replace them with family doctors, whilst also increasing the role of competition in the health service.
Government pulls through a tough week
Lansley’s speech was delivered in a tough week for the health secretary, as unions renewed their pressure against his reforms.
At the start of the week, the royal colleges of nurses and midwives came out against the government’s plans for the first time, saying they were worried that the reforms would not deliver on their original promises.
This was swiftly followed by an MPs’ report, co-written by the former Conservative health secretary Stephen Dorrell, which said the restructuring of the NHS was hampering its efforts to make the £20 billion in savings by 2015.
To top of the bad week, the group representing all 20 medical royal colleges had a meeting to discuss whether it should also oppose the reforms.
But reports suggest that last-ditch phone calls from MPs persuaded them not to come out against the plans.
A source at the meeting told the Independent: “Ministers have been busy ringing college presidents – a lot of conversations have been had in the last 24 hours. It was felt that while those conversations were continuing it was not appropriate to say anything. These are shifting sands.”
While it was ‘perfectly legitimate’ for the BMA, as a trade union, to ask its members to withdraw co-operation over the Bill, it was not appropriate for the colleges to do so, which were professional organisations concerned with quality and standards, not terms and conditions of service, the source added.
Ben Adams
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