26.01.11
Privatisation the ‘real agenda’ of health bill
Labour has accused the Government of burying a “privatisation” agenda for the NHS among more popular plans for GP-led commissioning.
Shadow Health Secretary John Healey said the Coalition was “deliberately disguising the true purpose” of the health bill, saying the reforms would “open up all parts of the NHS to big private healthcare companies”.
Speaking in Parliament yesterday, Healey told Health Secretary Andrew Lansley to “be straight with the public”.
He said: “The Secretary of State talks a lot about GPs using £80bn of public money to commission services, but if they are to carry on being family doctors, the planning, negotiating, managing and monitoring of hundreds of commissioning contracts will be done not by GPs but in their name, either by the people who do it now in PCTs or by the big health companies that are already hard-selling the service to new GP consortia. Is he not deliberately disguising the true purpose of his changes, which is to open up all parts of the NHS to big private health care companies?”
Lansley insisted the reforms were aimed at improving quality and raising standards, saying: “What I hope you will acknowledge is that putting clinical leadership at the heart of this is essential. Leadership is not the same thing as management.”
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