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| Here we go again |
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| Written by Gordon Prentice | |||
| Saturday, 20 February 2010 17:43 | |||
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Sometimes it is difficult not to feel sorry for the NHS. It has been reorganised more times than I care to remember. The latest instalment comes in the shape of the innocent sounding document: “Transforming Community Services – the assurance and approvals process for PCT provided community services”. Go straight to page 6 paragraph 2.15. We are told that “Primary Care Trusts should principally be commissioning organisations. Circumstances may make it appropriate for some PCTs to continue the direct provision of services but this will not be the norm”. Haven’t we been here before? I think it was in July 2007, just before Parliament rose for the long summer recess, that the then Health Minister, Lord Warner, announced that PCTs should lose their role as direct providers of health services. Around 250,000 NHS staff would be affected, including district nurses, physiotherapists and other allied medical professionals. People were outraged. The Parliamentary Labour Party was in revolt. A few months later the then Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, did a U turn, promising that PCTs would not be forced to give up their direct provider role. Now the agenda re-emerges. Almost by stealth. The latest document talks of community services being delivered by other health providers. Perhaps “innovative hybrid organisations derived from more standard original bodies may emerge”. Pardon? In my experience, people who work for the NHS want to work for the NHS. Not for innovative hybrid organisations or social enterprises or whatever else is flavour of the month. Time, I think, to ditch the Maoist approach to the NHS. Constant revolution is not healthy. Download the "Transforming Community Services" document. 
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| Last Updated on Saturday, 20 February 2010 18:18 |