Cameron's Myths about the NHS
From the West Midlands Socialist Health Association, February 2011
The Tory-led Coalition’s health policies are under heavy fire. The defence being put up by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is so feeble that David Cameron was recently forced to come to his help. We respond here to his six claims.
Cameron claims we are behind the rest of Europe on heart disease and cancer
FACT: Prof John Appleby of the King’s Fund, writes in the British Medical Journal that the UK had the biggest fall in heart attack deaths between 1980 and 2006 of any European country. By next year this would mean the UK having one of Europe's lowest death rates. The story is similar for lung and breast cancers, two of the other main killers.Cameron says he wants to improve patient choice
FACT: the myth being peddled is that individual GPs will look after each patient in a cosy one-to-one relationship. Not so: GPs are being dragooned into groups (‘Consortia’) and patients will be stuck with whatever deals the consortium has done with providers on care-pathways, treatments and locations. Result: less choice for GPs and patients.
Cameron claims GPs are keen to make the changes
FACT: GPs surveyed by their own Royal College of General Practitioners have come out at least two to one against the proposals. As their President, Dr Clare Gerada, has made very clear, they do not believe the reforms will improve services. GPs are only joining the Consortia because they see no alternative. They are jumping before they are pushed.
Cameron claims the reforms will cut bureacracy
FACT: The number of GP Consortia will be roughly the same as the number of Primary Care Trusts they partly replace. Cameron himself admits that the Consortia will have to hire people to commission services on their behalf – otherwise they will be dragged away from seeing patients. If they hire private sector firms to do this it is effectively privatisation (and if they re-employ PCT staff, why make them redundant in the first place?). As Dr Sarah Wollaston, former GP and currently Conservative MP for Totnes, wrote in the Guardian on 30 December ‘To avoid NHS privatisation, Lansley must change course’
Cameron claims the changes are necessary because drugs prices are rising and there will be more old people
FACT: These factors are external to the NHS, so reorganising it makes no difference. But GPs will find themselves responsible for rationing care as costs and demand rise. There is nothing to suggest that they would be better at it than PCTs, and as small businesses they have a built-in conflict of interest. How could you as a patient hold them to account if they decided their bottom line was more important than your treatment?
Cardiology consultant Carl Brookes – David Cameron’s own brother-in-law – thought that too much power was being given to GPs (until he was re-educated!).
David Cameron claims that fundamental reform of the NHS is needed because it was failing under Labour. He is wrong, and even his own party and his own family don’t believe him!