Tamasin Cave of Spinwatch exposes the anti-NHS, linked-to-private-health-companies individuals who've taken to the airwaves today to defend the government's NHS reforms.
By Tamasin Cave of Spinwatch
Just as yesterday the British Medical Society urged Andrew Lansley to scrap ‘top-down reforms’ of the NHS, today we see the government’s champions hit the airwaves. Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show this lunchtime featured two such champions, one introduced as a GP, the other a ‘health expert’.
The former, Dr Paul Charlson, is indeed a GP in favour of Lansley’s reforms. He also runs a private centre which specialises in cosmetic anti-aging treatments (Botox), not typical of most GPs. Charlson is also spokesperson for a lobby group called Doctors for Reform, which is supported by the free-market think tank, Reform. Funding for Reform has come from the UK’s largest private hospital group – General Healthcare Group – and other private health companies set to benefit from Lansley’s reforms.
Vine’s ‘health expert’ was Dr Helen Evans, director of Nurses for Reform. Its funding is more opaque, but it does have ties to many free-market think tanks that favour privatisation. These include the Adam Smith Institute and the Centre for Policy Studies, a think tank that promotes “the opening up [of] state monopolies” in health.
Evans has labelled the NHS a:
“Stalinist, nationalised abhorrence.”
And written:
“Britain can do musch [sic] better without its so called ‘principals’ [sic].”
As the criticism of the NHS reforms gets louder, expect to hear more from these two.
47 Responses to “Exposed: Lansley’s NHS reform cheerleaders”
Roberta Smith
GPs have been on gravy train of perks from the vast salesforce of big pharma -taking perks in order to use whatever companies brand of a drug-thats hardly independent healthcare-indeed its downright scary – think SEROXAT – at least these changes will make the money and perks GPs get more transparent – more honest
Alex
The NHS is a stalinist horror – and an expensive one. Not accountable to patients, overstreched due to immigration and expenditure on people who don’t look after themselves. A little bit of competition should be encouraged.
Stephen Lintott
Exposed: Lansley's NHS reform cheerleaders | Left Foot Forward http://bit.ly/e2OTuG
Matthew Houlihan
RT @Slintottuk: Exposed: Lansley's NHS reform cheerleaders | Left Foot Forward http://bit.ly/e2OTuG
Cath C
Don’t think the proposed changes are going to make anything more transparent. We’re gradually going to end up with more and more private companies having a monopoly over services and resources which seems ominous to say the least. Also, GP consortia trying to spend as little as possible and bidding for patients will surely disadvantage children, elderly, those with multiple medical problems. Try not to tar everyone with the same brush in your criticisms, most GPs nowadays prescribe from an evidence based formulary of medications that are deemed to be most cost-effective, though sure maybe this hasn’t always been the case.
As for comments about NHS being a stalinist horror, I think you might be being a little melodramatic there! It certainly isn’t perfect, we could do better, look at France for example, but it does score highly in opinion polls.
Are you proposing that we stop spending money on immigrants and ‘people who don’t look after themselves’? Sounds worryingly fascist to me.
Private healthcare is fine for a straightforward investigation/procedure until something goes wrong when you will be sent back to the NHS who will then have to clean up the mess.