By Andrew Woodcock, Tim Schulthorpe
The Independent, March 27, 2012
The Government’s controversial reforms to the NHS became law today after a tortuous 14-month passage through Parliament, when the Queen granted Royal Assent to the Health and Social Care Bill.
The new rules mean the Government can create GP commissioning groups to buy health care for patients and scrap Primary Care Trusts (PCTs).
Labour has bitterly opposed the passage of the new law, insisting it threatens the foundation of the NHS and paves the way for private services to get too involved.
A draft risk register leaked today showed that ministers were warned 18 months ago of the risk that the reforms could lead to a loss of financial control, reduced productivity and emergencies being less well managed.
The Department of Health, which refused to comment on today’s leak, has resisted a ruling from the Information Commissioner that it should release the final version of the risk register in response to a freedom of information request from Labour.
Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said today’s document showed that ministers were warned before they launched the Bill that it was “likely to cause major damage to the NHS”.
Identifying 43 separate areas of potential risk, the draft register rates each on a scale of one to five, where a rating of one means little likelihood and very low impact and five means almost certain to occur and very high impact.
The likelihood and impact figures are multiplied together to give an overall risk rating, with a maximum score of 25.
Among 13 areas given a risk rating of 16 – with likelihood and impact each assessed at four out of five – were:
* Parliamentary amendments creating “unforeseen consequences for the system”;
* Costs being driven up by GP consortia using private sector organisations and staff;
* Implementation beginning before adequate planning has been done;
* Loss of financial control;
* “Unhelpful conflict” between the NHS commissioning board and regulator Monitor;
* GP consortia going bust or having to cut services for financial reasons;
* GP leaders being drawn into managerial processes which end up driving clinical behaviour.
Other dangers, considered to have a lower rating of 12, included the risk that “NHS role in emergency preparedness/responsiveness is more difficult to manage through a more devolved organisation, and so emergencies are less well managed/mitigated”.
Staff concerns and union action over the reforms could lead to “deterioration in relations, lower productivity in the Department of Health/NHS and delays in programme”, the document said.
And there was a warning that strategic health authorities and primary care trusts might lose “good people” who then have to be re-employed to run the new system.
Mr Burnham told the Guardian: “Now we know why David Cameron refused to publish the risk register before the Bill was through Parliament – it’s because civil servants were telling him his reorganisation was likely to cause major damage to the NHS.
“David Cameron will never be forgiven for knowingly taking these risks with the country’s best-loved institution.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-reforms-finally-become-law-7592991.html
Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD
David Cameron’s conservative government has succeeded in dismantling the National Health Service, turning it over to “GP consortia using private sector organisations and staff,” with “GP leaders being drawn into managerial processes which end up driving clinical behaviour.” The process became final today when the Queen granted Royal Assent.
As a sign of the nefarious process involved, the Cameron government refused an order to release the “risk register” that described the dangers inherent in this legislation that were “likely to cause major damage to the NHS.” Only on the day that the Queen granted her Royal Assent was a draft of the risk register leaked.
The lesson for the United States? Without greater citizen involvement, nominal democracies are, in fact, plutocracies. We bear the consequences of our inaction.
What greater example could there be than the fact that the most watched Supreme Court decision in decades evolves around a consideration as to how large the private insurance industry’s market will be, rather than the consideration that should be under review: whether the people have the right to join together as a nation to ensure health care justice for all.