Costly NHS reorganisation questioned by Westminster Labour

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Costly NHS reorganisation questioned by Westminster Labour

By Westminster Labour ⋅ October 15, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment
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Government plans to set up a new Quango – the NHS Commissioning Board – has been criticised by Labour Councillors who say they are not convinced of the need for yet another costly NHS reorganisation at a time of when the government is preaching to the public about austerity in public services. Labour say that the public has yet to see the evidence that the Coalition Government has protected the NHS budget – all actions to date show that services are being cut and staff made redundant.

In a submission to the Government White Paper, Councillor Barrie Taylor, Deputy Leader of the Labour Group, said: “We oppose the top down proposal to force all GPs to become Commissioners. Local GPs have said that “GPs do not have the competencies required to undertake health care commissioning” – especially on the scale proposed – £80m of services. Neither do GPs have a history of being accountable to the public concerning their current contracts with the NHS. We are not convinced by the GPs Commissioning argument to transfer £80m of healthcare spending to GPs and believe there will be fewer resources and expertise available to GP Consortia in order to operate the system. One of the consequences will be a significant increase in the privatisation of services and lack of recourse when you want to ask questions.”

“When did you, as a patient, last see a GP on a public platform accounting for their spend of vast amounts of public money?” said Councillor Taylor about the need for greater transparency in decision making about health.

Key points from Labour’s White Paper submission are:

* We support retaining independent scrutiny of health & social care decision making by democratically elected local authority members – not the merging of that role into a proposed quasi executive health and well being board.

* Current health scrutiny processes have facilitated better partnership working between the local authority and local health agencies

* Should ‘Health and Well Being Boards’ be established we call for the Boards to have explicit legal powers and duties.

* In an era where health and social services do not respect local authority boundaries we call upon the government to ensure joint scrutiny committees are set up to for the purpose of public accountability and transparency of decision making.

* We support local authorities taking a lead in Health Improvement

* The proposals for public involvement through LINks and HealthWatch are weak, ill thought out and lacking in detail. Until further information is published it is not possible to provide a clear response to these proposals.

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