Archive for November, 2007
Quite like heaven?
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 29/11/2007
In an important new report for Civitas, Nick Seddon argues compellingly that it is out of respect for the founding principles of the NHS – to provide universal and comprehensive health care – not to mention better care, that it must embrace fundamental, market-based, reform.
Described in a foreword by Mr Bernard Ribeiro, CBE, President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, as ‘an excellent analysis’, Seddon picks apart the recent NHS reforms and shows:
State control means state schools struggle to shine
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 28/11/2007
The number of privately educated pupils being accepted into the UK’s top 20 universities is gaining over state educated pupils, despite government policy to encourage universities to widen their intake. The BBC’s somewhat aggressive headline ‘Private pupils grab top courses’ makes it sound almost like their achievement is more down to their superior grappling technique, perhaps practiced during the push and shove of the tuck shop queue!
Secularism poses a worse threat to social cohesion than does Islamophobia
Posted by David Conway in Social Cohesion on 27/11/2007
In a follow-up piece in today’s Guardian Unlimited to his important debate on Islam last week with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ed Husain laments the woeful ignorance about that religion whch he claims is displayed by her and other ex-Muslims and non-Muslims who condemn it in toto on the strength of what he argues are only certain immoderate versions of it.
continued on the Centre for Social Cohesion blog.
Let’s play the PCT lottery
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 26/11/2007
Last week, this blog wrote strongly in favour of David Nicholson’s hints that it might not be too long before choice might eventually be expanded to allow patients to choose their commissioner or PCT – and not least because it could end the postcode lottery in the NHS. If ever there is a case to support this it is the figures released today by the Conservatives on cancer care expenditure. This proves it really is a lottery, just not a very funny one. Oxfordshire PCT spends £5,182; Nottingham City PCT spends £17,028 and spending by the rest is spread right across the range in between. Clinical need alone cannot account for such wild differences.
Some will say this is the ultimate case for more central direction to ensure ‘equality’, but this would be disastrous – the last seven years have well and truly proved this approach doesn’t work. Enabling patients to vote with their feet by switching PCT if not satisfied with the outcomes of their care would be a much more effective way.
Show me the money!
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 22/11/2007
Despite Alan Johnson’s protestations in the FT that the newspaper is ‘wrong to suggest the government is reversing the NHS reforms’, few are that inclined to believe him. As Blair’s former health advisor, Julian Le Grand, has said: the government no longer seems to believe in, or at least wants to pay for, the idea of using competition to drive up standards in the NHS, following its decision to slash the second wave of the ISTC programme last week. But then along comes what might possibly more than a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
School choice: our best hope for equitable access to education
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 21/11/2007
The Conservatives have barely stuck their head above the parapet with their new education green paper but the backlash from the self-appointed champions of the disadvantaged has already begun. Fiona Millar attacks their policies as re-heated Thatcherism.
Admittedly, the Tories have left themselves open to this sort of criticism. Their policies are a bit of mishmash that combine suggestions for greater parent choice and hesitant supply-side reforms with centrally driven directives that threaten teacher autonomy every bit as much as the New Labour regime. These policies include targets to get every child reading by the age of 6 using synthetic phonics and more streaming by ability within schools. The problem, as we have commented before, is that no matter how well designed these ideas are, imposing them centrally often produces perverse consequences. The, originally Conservative implemented, National Curriculum is a case in point: centralisation leads to politicisation and the easy corruption of teaching by whatever ideologies are nested within Whitehall.