Will GPs have to call in the bureaucrats?

Published: 14 October, 2010

• THE Lib Dem-Tory government’s promise to end top-down reorganisations of the NHS is particularly laughable given the ink was barely dry on the paper before it set about reorganising the NHS from, er, the top down.

Why the shift to GP consortia, and why now? My best guess is that it is driven by the two main forces in the Tory party: a “doctor knows best” attitude to running services, and a Thatcherite thirst for opening up the NHS to private companies.

GPs can offer expert insight as daily commissioners of services.

But they appear reluctant to be commissioners on this scale, and will no doubt end up hiring the Tories’ favourite bugbears, the primary care trust “bureaucrats” who currently buy healthcare, to do the purchasing for them. Meanwhile, the right-wing Liberal Democrats are complicit by-standers in the upheaval.

Camden GPs have indicated they may create a consortium matching the borough’s borders.

This would be welcome, but it sounds like a lot of time and money will be spent abolishing one Camden-wide commissioner just to install another in its place.

It’s also possible that GPs will set up two or more consortia covering Camden.

This pattern may be repeated across the country. In which case, how much money will be saved from such a proliferation?

With plans also afoot to abolish council health scrutiny committees, weakening our role in shining a light into local health services, there may be fewer people keeping an eye on the changes and subjecting the new bodies to the scrutiny needed to help them work for Camden residents.

CLLR ADAM HARRISON
Labour, Bloomsbury