Dominic Browne asks whether Andrew Lansley will be scapegoated by David Cameron and suggests him being left in the job might work better for the left.
Some might argue it’s stating the obvious: a health secretary who received a vote of no-confidence from 99 per cent of the Royal College of Nursing, and a rejection of the flag-ship NHS reforms he spent seven years working on, by the British Medical Association, is in danger of losing his job.
The obvious is not always the inevitable in politics but calls for Andrew Lansley to go turned to rumours and speculation, and now have become that most ominous of understatements – ‘talk’.
The Financial Times writing yesterday under the headline: “Meeting prompts talk of sidelining Lansley” reported that:
“Health experts have been called in for a breakfast meeting with Paul Bate, David Cameron’s new special adviser on healthcare, prompting fresh speculation on Tuesday that Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, is being sidelined.”
The experts attending the meeting don’t at first glance provide any comfort to Lansley:
“Sir Ian(Carruthers) is understood to have reservations about the government’s plans.
“This list is also thought to feature Jennifer Dixon, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust think-tank which has highlighted the risks in the reforms; and Nigel Edwards, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, who has produced some of the most constructive criticisms of them.
“Others expected to be present include Sir Robert Naylor, chief executive of University College London Hospitals, who warned Mr Cameron before Mr Lansley’s white paper of the dangers of having purely GP-led commissioning.”
David Cameron has done his best to let department heads take the blame for the u-turns and failures of his government such as in the forests debacle, or when William Hague was “forced to shoulder the blame for mishaps in the Foreign Office”.
Lansley has already apologised for his part in the health bill failures and been subsequently “humiliated” by Cameron who billed the problem as one of “charging ahead” with the reforms instead of listening.
In light of this and the difficult relationship the Conservatives have with the British public over the NHS, Cameron might make Lansley a scapegoat. This would be humiliating in itself and would have to accompany some major compromises on the health bill. The best outcome for progressives would be for the unpopular Lansley to retain his job, and the healthcare bill to be defeated outright.
Lansley has become a liability and the bill has already lost the support of Liberal Democrats. Tomorrow’s election results may well give the Lib Dems even more reason to retreat back to their base and disassociate themselves from the Tories.
24 Responses to “Will David Cameron make Lansley a scapegoat, and will it work?”
Richard Blogger
@1 If it were just “trades unions” (FYI the RCN and BMA represent the vast majority of nurses and doctors, unlike other trades unions in other industries) then you may be right. The problem for Lansley is that all of the professional organisations are dead against the policy too. The professional organisations are NOT trades unions (the clue is in the name), they take an attitude based upon what is best for the service, and it is clear that the best thing for the NHS is this bill stopped completely.
FWIW Lansley could have got most of his policy implemented without a bill, he has the powers. However, Lansley’s ego is so large that he just had to have his name on a Bill. I am afraid that does not make him seem like a suitable man for the job, the NHS is far bigger than one man. Lansley wants to be the Dr Beeching of the NHS, it is important that Labour makes sure that he does not get his way.
UNISON Health
Don't let Cameron avoid his share of the blame for NHS debacle http://fb.me/ZgWu5LN9
Richard Blogger
@6 Nonsense!
“With more managers without medical knowledge than medical staff in the NHS”
Why don’t you do the intelligent thing and actually read the facts? That statement is the most dimwitted of any I have ever read from a dimwitted right winger. The NHS Information Centre says that (Oct 2010, latest figures):
Managers 29,097
Senior Managers 12,257
Total 41,354
Hospital and Community HS Doctors 106,639
Qualified Nurses 353,678
So there are two and a half times more doctors than managers. There are 11 times more doctors and nurses (“medical staff”) than managers.
The rest of your response was largely drivel, and not helped by the fact that you are incapable of looking up facts.
Trevor Cheeseman
Lansley is a dead man walking.
But even without him, the Coalition will remain on the defensive on health. Calling together another group of independent experts reflects that Cameron is clueless about how to approach NHS reform. Hospitals are already being told by their regulator to make “efficiency savings” of up to 7% every year for the next 4 years!
Perhaps that poster should have read: “I’ll cut the deficit, via the NHS”…