New Model NHS
According to the government, the driving force in the new health service is the patient. The theory goes like this: the English NHS is becoming like a market, with different NHS and private organisations competing against each other for business. Patients can supposedly shop around for their care, in the same way that they can choose between Tesco and Sainsbury's for their food. This choice, it is argued, will mean GPs, hospitals and health workers will raise their game and become more responsive. The health service will be remoulded around patients’ priorities.
In this vision, NHS staff are dismissed as 'producers' who are unwilling to change, while patients are the 'consumers' who are in the driving seat of NHS reform.In reality, of course, all power is not with the patients. The key decisions are taken well above their heads – by ministers in Whitehall; by managers in Strategic Health Authority board meetings; by lawyers drafting contracts between the NHS and the private sector. A thousand decisions have been made, and millions of pounds spent, before the patient is presented with a limited choice of hospitals in which to have an operation.
This brave new world for the NHS is exemplified by the flood of 'independent' providers, with a number of US companies in the vanguard, eager to take over particular services.
See US private health assault for the background.
Lord Darzi's Next Stage Review.... stage 1
Ara Darzi was appointed as (unelected) health minister by Gordon Brown in June 2007 with a brief to improve patient care. He immediately began the NHS Next Stage Review, described by health secretary Alan Johnson as a 'once-in-a-generation opportunity to ensure that a properly resourced NHS is clinically led, patient-centred and locally accountable'. The interim report Our NHS our future: NHS next stage review , published in October 2007, emphasised the need to build on earlier government reforms such as Payment by Results and confirmed fears that the marketisation of the NHS would continue apace.
See our Summary of Darzi interim report.
Lord Darzi's Next Stage Review.... stage 2
The next stage of the Next Stage Review was the final report High quality care for all: NHS next stage review , published in June 2008.
See our Summary of Darzi final report.
No. 10 e-petitions
Since the launch of Downing Street's e-petition website in November
2006, there have been numerous NHS related petitions posted, some
dealing with particular functions of the NHS such as the National Blood
Service, and many dealing with particular proposed hospital closures
and other changes to local services.
The
effect of the petitions is a moot point, with Downing Street posting
responses (although not to all the petitions submitted) at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/list/closed?.
See No 10 e-petitions for links to current e-petitions and No 10 responses to past petitions.
Right to Care campaign
See Long term care for 10 questions to ask your MP.