Posts Tagged market
Who should ‘run’ the NHS?
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 22/04/2010
Andy Cowper of healthpolicyinsight.com writes up a seminar Civitas hosted this week on the future of the NHS. What should a new government do? Specifically, evidence suggests the market in the NHS is not delivering anything like was anticipated. Why? Is it flawed? Or is it failing because it is being blocked? Not least, is there a fundamental problem: that the DH promotes competition, yet also hails the cultural sanctity of the NHS as a provider system; and acts as though it wants to run everything? Read on.
‘Reform our libel laws, but not our NHS’?
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 25/03/2010
The budget has set the challenge. By 2013-14, the NHS will be expected to deliver annual efficiency savings of £15 to 20 billion. The financial year 2010-11 will be the last year until at least 2013-14 (if not further) when the NHS will receive real terms increases in funding. Whatever they say currently, it will not be very different under a Tory government.
The market can help the NHS
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 18/02/2010
The British Medical Association needs to stop its scare stories about the private sector, because the evidence isn’t there. Continued on The Guardian’s Comment is Free.
BMA campaign to shut out independent sector from NHS is misguided and foolhardy
Posted by James Gubb in Economics, Health on 12/02/2010
The BMA today extend their ‘Look After Our NHS’ campaign, to stop commercially run firms providing NHS care and end the market in the NHS, to patients.
Leaflets will be distributed containing stories such as a 70-year-old lady who is forced to go to a treatment centre run by a private provider and suffers ‘complications’.
The BMA are shamelessly politicising health care on cherry-picked evidence.
A not-so-surprising result of the BMA’s latest survey
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 23/12/2009
The latest salvo by the BMA in its ‘Look after our NHS’ campaign (i.e. get rid of the market) is to ask the following question, in a poll carried out by Doctors.net.uk:
“The BMA’s ‘Look after our NHS’ campaign is concerned that some large multinational companies are making profits out of running local clinical services on behalf of the NHS. To what extent do you agree with the campaign’s concerns?”
There were 697 responses with 80% saying they either strongly agreed (51%) or agreed (29%) with the statement. Just 7% said they either disagreed (4%) or strongly disagreed (3%).
Might I suggest a couple of problems with this?
‘Evidence’ BMA style
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 06/08/2009
A few weeks ago now the BMA launched a campaign to end market-based reform in the NHS. Their vision: the NHS ‘restored as a public service working co-operatively for patients’, that is publicly funded through central taxes, publicly provided and publicly accountable. Ok. Very good. It’s a nice idea, but we should also remember why the Thatcher/Major government and then the Blair government sort to introduce competition in the first place (and we should also remember that this is competition for provision… the service is still publicly funded).