09.03.11
Monitor chief attacked for comparing NHS reform to utilities privatisations
The newly-appointed chairman of health service competition regulator Monitor has been criticised by the NHS Alliance for “simplistic” arguments about breaking up the organisation.
Speaking to The Times, Dr David Bennett said the UK’s experience in privatising and splitting up the gas, power, telecoms, rail and water industries, “taking monopolistic, monolithic markets and providers and exposing them to economic regulation”, would produce many benefits that could be replicated in the NHS.
But the NHS Alliance said the comments were “simply wrong”, and its chairman Dr Michael Dixon said: “Mr Bennett’s comments demonstrate a naïve and simplistic view of the NHS. This type of analogy shows little understanding of the complexity of patient care within the NHS. Putting markets before patients is ethically wrong.
“The blanket imposition of market philosophy may sometimes even reduce commissioning effectiveness. Government has recognised this as it has moved to avoid outright price competition by amending the Health and Social Care Bill.
“Competition may have its place in the NHS, but patients come first. The privatisation of the utilities industry was based on the dynamic of supply and demand, with excess supply being key to regulating the market’s economics. In the health care system, especially considering the NHS’s limited resources and the complexity of patient care, this analogy becomes flawed, to say the least, and extremely dangerous to the future of the NHS.”
Monitor will have a larger role in the NHS under the changes outlined in the Bill as competition becomes more embedded.
In a letter to foundation trusts when he took up his new role at the beginning of March, Dr Bennett said: “I want Monitor to become an exemplary economic regulator, building on lessons from other sectors and making sound decisions in an open and transparent way based on dialogue, widespread consultation and rigorous, fact-based analysis.”
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