1 min read
I haven't been so amused by the reaction to a story for ages. The latest idea to allow some hospitals to be run by management from the private sector has provoked howls of outrage from all the usual suspects - the BMA, the unions, some NHS diehards and lots of other Toms, Dicks and Harriets:
Dr Jonathan Fielden, addressing the BMA Consultants Conference on Wednesday, accused ministers of knowing little of the complexities of the NHS.
He said: "You can't just fly in management. There is no evidence that private management is any better in the NHS.
"How many of us have seen our Trusts bring in the management consultants, paying through the nose, only to get a half baked solution and one that the real talent in the NHS could have delivered for less?"
Professor Allyson Pollock, head of the Centre for International Public Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh, said: "Bringing private management in will simply accelerate the process of privatisation of services which will have catastrophic effects for the patients and the public at large.
"It will mean less care for everyone, and more money for profits and shareholders."
Nigel Edwards, of the NHS Confederation, said the government had tried drafting in private sector management unsuccessfully before - at the Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield in 2003.
"What it revealed is that the reason that hospitals tend to fail is often much more complicated and much more difficult than just poor managment."
Mr Edwards said a much more detailed analysis of why hospitals were failing was needed.
"It seems to me that this is treating a symptom, rather than actually getting to the source of the disease."
(Actually Nigel Edwards' comment is rather sensible, but of course a more detailed analysis would lead to the opposite conclusion to that he'd favour.)
Yes, it's the end of the world as we know it! God forbid that anyone actually receives a reward for providing a service - or, to put it another way, makes a profit.
What I most love about British defenders of the NHS who attack any notion of private profit is that they are so insular that they are caricatures of themselves. They appear not to have the slightest idea that it is the NHS which is the truly weird system, not other systems which allow providers to be rewarded for delivering first class care. You'd think from all this that we had a system to cherish, rather than one which shames our nation.
To get more from opinion, click here to sign up for our free Editor's Picks newsletter.