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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The Party Members have spoken at the Federal Conference. It is now time for the Party Leadership in Government to listen to what OUR Members want to be implemented. We need to have much more of a restraining hand on the excesses of the Tories in Government and we need to put the brake on their proposed swingeing cuts in the NHS and other areas. The Party Members put the Leadership into Government, now listen to what we have to say.
I support the proposers of this motion 110%. There is no democratic mandate for these changes, many of which will have a negative impact on the people of Hove.
We must push for greater accountability? Yes. We need to cut back on beauracracy? Yes. We can do better? Yes. But we cannot do is sit back and watch the market privatise one of the greatest instiutions in the world.
The Liberal Democrats must stand fast and hold firm on the NHS. It is the jewel in the British Society Crown, a true representation of the Hippocratic Oath, where everyone can get treatment regardless of ability to pay. I owe my life to the NHS, and will not see it dismantled.
I think this is really the last chance we have to demonstrate that we really can make a difference. If we don’t push this one very hard, an awful lot of us will be wondering why we are bothering to be part of a coalition and not just heading back to the wilderness where at least we don’t have to behave like right-wingers.
Juliet Solomon
I was dismayed by James Lansdale’s report that the Deputy PM would be “selling the NHS reform bill”. Not until he’s secured the changes the party is seeking, he shouldn’t.
“Specifically we seek amendments to . . .” above has as typo in (a), which should be “has” rather than “had”.
Thanks, Tony – correction made
We have already been sold down the river on Education. We are keeping a more right wing government than Thatcher’s in office. It’s crunch time
We have to win this battle. I hope that it will have a galvanising effect and make us really understand where and what we stand for. Let us have no more talk about the end of ideology. The party must hold the leadership to account on this. We have a history of doing this and taking the appropriate action. We have worked too hard – the grassroots – to return to the political wilderness
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Too much is being put onto GP’s who have not been convinced that these proposed changes will bring anything other than mayhem to our NHS. Put it back a year-at least!
As a radical social liberal I find much that our Party is doing as part of the Government very disturbing. We must make a stand on this one, for the sake of all the activists who have worked for principle over more years than one would care to count.
After 35 years working in the NHS as a nurse and having quit the Tories and joined the Liberals in early 1980s when Thatcher started on her destruction of the NHS I am disgusted that we are supporting the Tories on this one. The NHS is the most valuable possession this country has, it keeps people fit and healthy so they can work and so contribute to the wider fabric of society.
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They cannot ignore the party members or our vote. The NHS is to important to mess up and could cost lives.
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The proposed changes to the NHS seem to believe that “the Market” is the cure for all ills. In 2008 we saw the imperfections and dangers of “The Market”. The NHS needs good and sensitive management not a “Big Bang”.
The NHS is such a foundation rock for our society that going off colaition agreement piste with it is just plain not acceptable.
The one failing of the NHS has been 40years of reorganisations. Any changes need to be cross party and kept for decades with cross party fine tuning.
We deserve the best possible NHS and we’ll never achieve it without local political accountability and most important stability.
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I am very worried that ad hc, rushed changes wil now be made to ‘buy off’ opponants of these upheavals. We do not need a pause and then push forward with superficial alterations but a cessation of this Bill and a return to a proper consultation with NHS users, practiononers and managers to agree the changes that are required to strenghthen the NHS and improve its performance.
Can I make it clear that I do believe the NHS needs serious reform and that I believe it needs to be radical ; why I have signed this is because the current proposals appear to please very few and are seriously worrying very many. . It was not endorsed by either party in their manifestoes and is being pushed through too quickly and with a blind eye and a deaf ear to those voices we should at least be listening to and giving time to consider their very real concerns. The” country” should be behind any radical reform and really see the benefits there are some things that are that importnat and the NHS is one of them.
The matter of democratic accountability has not been addressed in sufficient detail. The proposed “Health & Wellbeing” boards will be a waste of time unless their deliberations are open to public scrutiny by local councillors. However, this is yet another burden on the councillor who works at a job, and has less and less time.
That having been said, the edifice is in serious need of reform.
The NHS should be free at the point of delivery and give equal value to all citizens who live in the UK. Why should we have free perscriptions in Scotland etc and not England. Why are staff and patients charged to park at the NHS Hospital, where they work?
I consider that GP’s should have more say and that the PCT’s were “Empire Building” and diverted money from frontline services. We should have pilot schemes prior to any major changes to the NHS. However, there is room for improvement. We should not need to sent patients to France to have an operation!
The proposed changes will soak up money that must be spend upon essential health care. What is proposed will make money for management consultants and do nothing to fight illness and disease.
Change is needed but it must be done in a way that is thought through and at a manageable pace – so that additional resources are not taken by management and administration.
Please keep clinicians primary doing what they were trained for. When I see a GP I want to be sure he/she is up to date on medical matters not financial!
The problem we have with many MPs and ministers is that they have ideas but little real experience of running anything and this shows only too well.
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Well done.
It was not in any manifesto. too rushed and poorly thought through. My worry is privatisation.
No need to restructure the NHS at the moment.
Enough management control as it is.
What is proposed will further stifle initiative to get the best possible
NHS.
The proposed reforms were not in any election manifesto and are potentially the most damaging to the NHS in its entire history.If the Lib Dems can not stop stop them they should dissolve the coalition-if they do not I and many others will simply resign in despair and disgust.
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The NHS should evolve continuously with its procedures constantly reviewed in the light of current circumstances. Throwing everything up in the air each time the government changes is criminal, wasting resources needed for healthcare, causing confusion and anxiety in patients and their relatives, destroying careers and putting in jeopardy the whole concept of a national service free at the point of delivery. Lansley’s proposals, if implemented, guarantee that a further upheaval with these consequences will follow the next general election.
this is worthwhile and is essential to keep services accountable
Such major changes will probably leave the whole process in the hands of a mutiplicity of bodies/organisations rather than the few PCT’s we have now. Expertise will be lost. Pet projects will take centre stage. In some areas local and regional variations in care quality and availabilty are certain to arise. Local control and influence by locally elected representatives will not be enough to sort it out.
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The huge changes proposed here seem to have appeared from nowhere. They were not put forward in an honest way by the Conservative Party in the general election – the Conservatives ran a campaign which suggested whatever else they would do, they would leave the NHS largely untouched. They are in direct conflict with the coalition agreement which rules out large scale reorganisation of the NHS. There appears to be little desire for them amongst those who work in the NHS, or amongst the population as a whole. Large scale changes inevitably involve large scale extra cost putting them in place, and loss of efficiency as those involves deal with the upheaval, so even if they have merit, they ought not to be a priority at this time when we are told cutting immediate costs is the prime necessity.
Changes to the NHS appear to be needed, but rushing this major proposal, is not the best way to do it..
The NHS may be inefficient but it is steadily getting better and, meanwhile, is trusted by those of us who use it. Ill-conceived moves towards privatisation can only serve to damage that trust and add to the growing inequality in our society.
The NHS needs reform because too much money is being wasted on overbeaurocracy but reforms need to be well thought through, staged in steadily to ensure that each stage is working efficiently before moving on to the next so that the end result is efficient management of services and money. These changes are too many and far too quick to ensure any efficiency. The Government has 4 years to do this so the haste makes me very suspicious of the true intentions.
The NHS is working, and it is worth paying for. While the idea of clearing away bureaucracy is eyecatching, the practicalities are untested and gung-ho to say the least. Giving GPs 80% of commissioning power beggars belief. Doctors are not administrators and should be left to do the job most of them do very well. The Tories can arrogantly clear away quangos and appeal to large swathes of the electorate, though in reality a lot of these organisations like EMDA create nearly ten times the wealth per pound spent. The UK Film Council is another example of a body scythed away with little thought about the cultural consequences. We may have live with this philistinism, but leave the NHS alone.
The NHS already places very highly in the rankings of the health services of western industrialised nations, therefore the purposes behind the Lansley reforms are following an agenda that has little to do with the universality and overall wellbeing of the people of Britain. I have come to the position that I no longer wish to see the reforms altered, amended, or watered-down – I want to see the proposed bill killed stone dead. If not, the coalition agreement can be considered null and void and we should then move into a post-coalition situation.
Currently the NHS is completely unaccountable and Liberal Democrats should be angry about about the way this vital public service is run by multiple tiers of unelected quangos, without much regard to the views of patients, residents or taxpayers. Therefore, I am very much in favour of reform to increase democratic accountability and to make frontline staff like GPs more accountable and responsible. However, it has got to be the right reform at the right pace, and I agree with 90% of what’s in this petition. We need to make sure the reforms are evolutionary.
As a supporter of the coalition and the agreement I have been shocked by the way the Health Service has been put into play in a most cavalier way. The proposals are ill thought through and have alrerady caused immense damage to the NNHS
Top down reorganisations have been the bane the health service and I am ashamed that our colleagues in government have appear to be such enthusiasts for yet another unproven reorganisation
Serge Lourie
Andrew Lansley admitted in the Commons that he may be too close to this.
A combination of overwork and stress, so familiar to staff, could also affect the Secretary of State.
Many Ministers and have retired, citing health as the reason, when policy difficulties underlie their stress.
He should get a check-up, and if advised to take a break, go on holiday, away from the Department of Health and away from the electons, leaving his deputy in charge.
Dont forget the £14 billion that is spent on the market machinery of tenders, invoices, contracts, adverts etc. These were not necessary before 1991 and are not now.
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I think the NHS reforms are just not required. The NHS needs a time of reflection and a period where it can evolve not face more changes and reformation. Too much change over a period of decades have left it is disaray. A time of reflection is required.
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