So, 96% of 497 delegates at the Royal College of Nursing conference backed a motion questioning Andrew Lansley’s handling of NHS reforms in England. Is it any surprise really when we consider the ridiculous nature of the NHS changes in his proposed bill. The only people who stand to gain from it are private companies, who through a curious coincidence donated a lot of money to the Tories in recent years, and MC NxtGen whose Lansley Rap rap on Youtube has gone viral. Only six of the delegates voted against the motion with 13 abstentions.
There are many and various reasons that this bill is just wrong from the private companies who will have to run the GP consortia deciding on care to the amount of front line posts that it involves shedding. Recently the RCN said analysis of 21 NHS trusts where cuts were taking place found more than half of posts under threat were in areas such as nursing and midwifery. The simple fact however, and it is one the government can’t spin or escape from is that no one wants it. The people are against it, the professionals are against it, everyone who matters is against it because it would be a disaster for the NHS, the thin end of the wedge, the beginning of the end, however you want to phrase it.
We don’t do brilliantly in various areas of health provision, but transforming our delivery model to one based on the USA, who do worse than us in key areas such as infant mortality and life expectancy. One of the reasons for this could be the almost Trotskyist method of permanent revolution that our health service has had to face. None of the organisations that it has had to implement since 1948 has had the time to bed down because there is always a change of government and that new government has to be seen to have its finger on the pulse. Stop tinkering with it, let the doctors, nurses and patients decide what is best and let the most recent change bed down before deciding on whether the NHS is fit for purpose or not.
cogitare aperiat 