14 June 2011

Is the NHS reform overhaul merely cosmetic?

The government has accepted "core" changes to its NHS reform -- but the coalition's NHS headache is

The Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has confirmed significant changes to the government’s NHS reforms, following a 10 week “listening exercise”.
This looks like a significant victory for the Liberal Democrats, who resoundingly voted against moves to introduce greater competition. Reportedly, Nick Clegg was cheered by his MPs last night when he told them their demands had been “very, very handsomely met”. In another victory for Clegg, the bill will return to committee stage in the House of Commons, meaning that it will not become law until next year.

At a joint press conference with David Cameron and Lansley, Clegg said that the government now has a plan “we can all get behind”. The two key changes are watering down Monitor’s role in promoting competition, and relaxing the 2013 deadline for reform.

While this is a significant step forwards, however, the coalition’s NHS headache is not over yet. Cameron now faces the challenge of winning over Tory backbenchers who are angry at the way Lansley has been treated. It is believed that he was subjected to unfair briefings, given that his white paper on health was agreed by Clegg and Cameron last year.

However, Lansley and Cameron have both stressed that while the detail has been modified, the fundamentals of the plan — giving greater commissioning powers to GPs and allowing greater competition in the health service — are unchanged.

Gary Gibbon suggests that even these changes to the detail could be merely cosmetic:

Changing the terms for Monitor, the NHS regulator, is an interesting one too. I just asked a very senior member of the NHS Future Forum what was the difference is between an economic regulator and a sector regulator. “There’s no difference,” he said. If Monitor is no longer about “promoting” competition, what is its role on competition I asked. “Enabling” competition, came the answer. These are “totemic” changes, he said. You don’t need a regulator to “promote competition” if you’ve created the space for competition. It’ll just come, like breathing.

My source said the Forum frequently felt it was trying to put the original plans into politically acceptable language, not make radical change to the original Lansley reforms.

All this could be wishful thinking by supporters of the original reforms but I pass it on.

Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston, a former doctor and critic of the original bill, described these new proposals as “a change in emphasis”. The Lib Dems are certainly entitled to their jubilation at these concessions — but at this stage, it is impossible to tell what this will mean in practice.