Shadow health secretary John Healey criticised the prime minister today over the government's response to its own NHS plans, reports Left Foot Forward's Shamik Das.
Shadow health secretary John Healey criticised the prime minister today over the government’s response to its own NHS plans. It follows the tabling of an Opposition motion yesterday calling on Mr Cameron to recommit the Health and Social Care Bill to a Public Bill Committee, were the “listening exercise” and public consultations to bring about major changes to the ill thought out bill.
In a speech to the Royal Society of Medicine this morning, Mr Healey said:
“David Cameron is a PR man looking for a PR answer. He must accept the problem is not the presentation of his NHS plans but the full-blown free-market ideology behind them. This Tory ideology is totally at odds with the ethos of the NHS and the essential way it works…
“The test for the prime minister now is whether he makes the changes required to honour the promises he made to protect the NHS and guarantee patients that they will see health care get better not worse, and whether he makes the changes required to safeguard the NHS and prepare it to meet the challenges of the future…
“The risk is that the prime minister decides on a political fix to deal with divisions in his government not the dangers to our NHS… Whatever the prime minister decides to do with his NHS plans, this first year has raised serious questions about his judgement, competence, values and integrity.”
Earlier, when tabling the motion, he said:
“David Cameron has promised significant and substantial changes to his NHS plans. If he’s true to his word, he must also agree to full and proper scrutiny of the amended Bill by sending it back to Committee.”
Yesterday, Left Foot Forward reported concerns the health bill’s competition clauses were “tantamount to privatisation”, following Nick Clegg’s failure at Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions on Tuesday to say he would block part III of the health bill; we also reported how Mr Lansley was failing to listen to voters’ views on the bill, with 390,000 people having signed 38 Degrees’ “Save the NHS” petition.
As 38 Degrees’ executive director David Babbs put it:
“For a Secretary of State currently presiding over a high-profile listening exercise, Andrew Lansley has yet to convince many of us that listening is really something he’s interested in.
“38 Degrees members hope these adverts – [challenging Mr Lansley to start listening properly, to be run in major newspapers] – make more people aware of how they can work together to make their voices heard, and turn up the pressure on the Secretary of State to start genuinely listening, rather than just pretending he is.”
34 Responses to “Healey: “Cameron is a PR man looking for a PR answer””
Anon E Mouse
George McLean – Healey is spouting off to deflect the public from the real story today on the NHS where basic needs of patients are not being met.
That is far more important than this waffle and if you see Healey ask him to return the public’s money then crawl back under his rock.
On a day a doctor has to prescribe water to ensure a patient doesn’t die of thirst, I’d have thought this useless individual might have articulated an opinion on that. Labour just don’t get it…
Jos Bell Lewisham SOS NHS
As an RSM member I was able to attend this morning’s event, which had been planned long before the revelations about appalling poor care examples in specific hospitals – eg. Alexandra, Redditch; Royal Free – which have since thankfully been addressed.
John Healey was undertaking a task which is commensurate with his role – that of analysing and challenging the Health & Social Care Bill. Indeed we have been awaiting the Shadow response, so it would have been very odd for this not to have been forthcoming!
Whatever your views about today’s event, the fact remains that the Bill as presented is designed with the specific intent of dismantling and destroying the NHS – and in such a fashion that swathes of communities will end up without sufficient cover. Doctors will be forced to take into account the potential profit that can be made from their patients, not just how they cure and prevent illness with the best treatment.
EU Competition Law may sound far removed from your GP appointment – and so it should be, however 83 clauses in this huge bill ( larger than the original one which launched the NHS ) are specifically designed to let in the flood gates of legal challenges by private companies to the commissioning decisions ( treatments ) made by Consortia – who will needs must waste precious funds to employ full time lawyers to fend off these assaults, whilst at the same time keeping their shareholders happy by reducing costs to maximise on profit. This is not in any way in the best interests of the patient.
Overall, the most fundamental concern must be that this government has absolutely no interest in their statutory responsibilities for safeguarding services – from Clause 1 onwards the message is clear – the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that every person in England has access to health provison which is free at the point of need would be terminated….
Given also that they have tried to implement all of this before it has gone through due Parliamentary process and in defiance of democracy, then this shows the measure of their intent. Thus we continue to clarify the reality in the hope of ensuring that these would-be destroyers of the nation’s health are not allowed to have their way!
George McLean
@6. Anon E Mouse
“if you see Healey ask him to return the public’s money then crawl back under his rock.”
No. You do it: you’re the one with a personal grudge against him. I’d rather critique the bill constructively. Keep trolling!
Anon E Mouse
George McLean – Funnily enough being a lifelong Labour voter (pre-Brown) I do not have a lot of time for these dishonest types of careerists who steal our money and become rich from public service.
I’m funny like that…
George McLean
@ 9. Anon E Mouse
I was a 20+-year Labour Party member until the dishonesty of the Iraq invasion. Funnily enough, I also do not like dishonest careerists. But, having dealt with the bleeding obvious, I note that I’m still waiting for you to address the issues raised in the OP.