Please read this statement and sign it below
[Note:The Social Liberal Forum is hosting this petition for the movers of the amendment at Conference]
Liberal Democrat members and activists – Demanding changes to the Health and Social Care Bill
Our Federal Party Conference last month overwhelmingly backed a call from Shirley Williams, Dr Evan Harris and 150 others, calling for Andrew Lansley’s health reforms to be significantly amended to bring the policy back in line with the agreed Coalition Agreement and with Lib Dem principles.
Specifically we seek amendments to:
a) ensure the Health Secretary has a duty to provide a fully comprehensive and free health service, with no gaps and no new charges
b) provide more local democratic accountability for the health service
c) curb the market obsession of the proposed reforms to prevent quality being relegated behind price and prevent the cherry-picking of profitable services by the private sector undermining and fragmenting existing provision
d) slow down the pace of change so that the NHS, facing its toughest settlement for decades, does not implode from the stress of another massive reorganisation
The changes to the health bill required by conference are set out in full here. They do not preclude other changes that may be needed but which were not covered by the conference motion as amended.
We are calling on our party’s leadership to fully respect the declared view of the Party on this matter and insist on all these changes in the health policy in any discussions with the Conservatives.
We believe it would be unacceptable for Liberal Democrat MPs and peers to be whipped to vote against conference policy and to vote in support of Tory policies that were not included the coalition agreement and that we have democratically rejected.
Please sign this statement now by filling in the form below. Please circulate it to your local party.
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I feel that these “reforms” have been ill thought and have been rushed through one of the flimsiest consultations for such a profound pontential social change. I am glad so many fellow Libs are up in arms about this. It would be a bretrayal of this partie’s core beliefs to allow the Tories to drag this through. What is needed is calm and considered refelction not a proposal being rushed through like a mad horse running towards a burning barn. What Andrew Lansley wants is what Tories ever since the creation of the NHS have wanted which is the destruction of the same. This was NOT in the Coalition agreement, Cameron promised before the Election that he and his party would not bugger about with the service and now they are coming out of the woodwork to break up OUR NHS. If they insist on pushing this, I hope Nick Clegg stands up with the rest of the Parliamentary party in the commons and they all ask Labour to budge up on the opposition benches.
Funding the NHS requires a different approach and the current proposals will be divisive and bring in cherry picking by default. The NHS resources should be managed through a democratic board with NHS professionals not just the GPs as members of the Boards.
From April 2011 GP registration is not restrained by borough boundaries – health observance ie monitoring and reporting public health will need to be changed to enable the reporting of the health of the wards as a unit for funding resources. Currently boroughs can target resources as data is available based on wards.
Thirdly in inner city areas there are significant numbers of people who no longer have a GP, if you are not a GP user for 2 or more years you can be removed from a GP list so acute sector A&E departments become the first choice for users for primary care services. END
The Conservative party in general election ran a campaign that they would leave the NHS. I am copletely opposed to huge changes in the present NHS. The majority is quite happy with tremendous improvments in the NHS. The proposed reforms are full of legal loopholes and could leave the health services open to exploitation by profiteering outsiders, resulting in second rate health services.
I do not agree with privatisation by the back door.
SLF have been asked whether there is a paper version of this petition that can be used to collect signatures. We are asking Liberal Democrat party members only to sign the specific statement above, but there is a general one at http://www.saveournhs.info . You can download a paper petition at that site.
Thanks for the supportive comments left here. Many stress the importance of getting this sorted to the future of the party.
@Andrew Tucker – the point has been made to the DPM! Have you signed the petition?
@ Cllr James Barber – I agree with you and I hope you will sign the petition
@ Cllr Ben Ord, @ Dennis Gerrard, @ David, @ Pat Fearnely, @ Graham Pyatt, @ R.Underhill – our amendments deliver what you call for and I hope you will sign the statement
@ Nancy Jirira and @ Ruth Goldthorpe – our amendments deliver what you call for and I hope you will sign the statement
I think the reforms are necessary. I understand concerns about these changes being rushed through and i think it is right that the government pause to pursue their ‘listening exercise’ given the very vocal opposition, especially the recent RCN vote of no confidence.
However, I think it is important that the concept of ‘privatising’ the NHS is more clearly defined and shown not to be true. Yes there will be an increase in the number of private services that will come under the structure of the NHS but this is because hospitals currently provide the same services at such an ineffecient level. Secondly, GP service commissioners will still be able to set the costs of services commissioned, as they are now under the PCT’s, which means selection by quality will not be sacrificed as some have implied. Finally, although the idea of private companies ‘cherry picking’ services is a legitimate one, as they will reap profits by applying for the most cost effective services, they will still provide services at a more efficient level than they are at the moment by the NHS. Given the severity of national debt and the budget deficit, i think this is the logical solution especially as it will allow NHS providers to reallocate resources towards improving the quality of existing services, most importantly, emergency and unplanned care pathways.
oh and for more of my thoughts on this subject and others please visit http://www.adrickard.blogspot.com
Mr Lansley’s proposed healthcare disreforms were resoundingly trashed at LibDem conference. I have not seen
any information that leads me to think that they will lead to better NHS provision for brain injuries or other long-term neurological conditions, particularly those not occurring in clusters.
@ Alec Rickard
I believe that it is a myth that including private services in the NHS will provide more efficient clinical care. The bottom-line of a private company is to generate profit but good clinical care is not necessarily profitable.
Private hospitals probably do operate more efficiently than NHS hospitals: they have less complex demands on them; clinical staff often get higher pay, and their pay and other rewards is often more directly linked to throughput; and the companies need to provide a certain level of service in order to attract patients to use them.
But when private companies provide services within the NHS it can vastly increase inefficiency: the purchaser is no longer the patient but the NHS managers, who may not always properly understand or choose value for money in a clinical context.
Privately funded (PFI) hospitals provide good examples of this. I have worked in several, and although they may look glossy from the outside, the NHS pays large amounts of money to companies that often provide a substandard service, and the structure and hierarchy of teams becomes disrupted. Instead of cleaners being part of the ward team, they are employees of a cleaning company; likewise catering; likewise carparking etc. And patients, visitors and staff have to pay high prices for food, parking etc, the profits of which do not go back into improving the hospital but to a private company.
Lansley’s policy can be summarised as
‘WEALTHCARE FOR THE RICH and HEALTHSCARE FOR THE REST’
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Having lived in a country where Healthcare depends on the ability to pay or an employer willing to provide health insurance, I am opposed to any measure that changes the principle of the National Health Service which is free whenever it is needed. I have known people who cannot afford to access the treatment they need. This should never happen in our country. Our government has a duty to care for all citizens who need medical attention.
As a long-term user of the NHS with a pre-existing medical condition I very much doubt that any private medical insurance company would want anything to do with me.
You know the saying ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. The NHS currently is very bureaucratic and this privatisation by stealth that my MP is proposing is not the answer, indeed it could increase bureaucracy and it would certainly increase costs.
Peter Canning.