Health Policy Commission
Health Policy Commission Continues its’ Work
Duncan Parker is the convenor for the Health policy commission.
This is a renewed call out for any Left Unity activists who wish to get involved in the Health Policy Commission. The aim of the policy commission is to continue to develop principles for the sort of wider healthcare system we want and policies relating to the NHS and its’ defence against ConDem attacks and transformation into the sort of healthcare system that we want.
Left Unity members can join the googlegroup, LUhealthcommission@googlegroups.com or e-mail Duncan at healthpolicy@leftunity.org
12 comments
12 responses to “Health Policy Commission”
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Given the NHS is under massive attack and the establishment of Clinical Commissioning Groups by NHS England alongside other provisions in The Health and Social Care Act 2012 will open the door to further outsourcing and privatisation then primarily our task will be to Save Our NHS.
But this struggle does not have to be purely ‘defensive’ in the Run up to what will hopefully be a monster mobilisation on September 29th at the Tory Conference in Manchester we can seize the opportunity to promote a vision of an extended and improved NHS.
One of the obstacles in the West Midlands to building mass campaigns on the NHS has been the harsh reality of the long running scandal in Mid Staffs Hospital – and in many other district Hospitals like the one closest to me the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch.
Poor patient care and in some cases criminal negligence and a bureaucratic culture of secrecy – has undermined the preparedness of significant numbers of people to get involved in campaigning.
On top of that some local campaigns to ‘defend the NHS’ have been dominated top down by bureaucratic deals between establishment political parties that rather like the Grand old Duke of York seek to mobilise people in cynical manoeuvres that de politicise people and prevent debate about the underlying problems of the NHS.
For Example, In Staffs the local Labour Party and to a lesser extent Health Unions bureaucracy spent most of their time and effort seeking to blame Julie Bailey the founder of ‘Cure the NHS’ as somehow the reason for the threat to local health services rather than a genuine whistleblower who was exposing uncomfortable truths.
In North Worcestershire the ‘Save The Alex’ Campaign was run completely undemocratically by a clique of new Labour politicians in alliance with the Local Tory Party… who were reluctant to call any events meetings or demonstrations and the few demonstrations and meetings that were called were so controlled that campaign activists were prevented from speaking … in Particular the problems caused by the PFI Deals that artificially created huge funding shortfalls were not allowed to be raised or discussed – The emphasis was on a cross party agreement on a vague empty promise to fight to maintain local services that in Reality was doomed and was much more about a public relations exercise to ensure seating MP’s and Councillors and Would be MP’s and Councillors could pretend to be defending the NHS – when the policies they supported and voted for were killing the NHS.
The new party of the working class and the oppressed that we are seeking to set up must develop comprehensive policies on Health and break decisively from the terms of debate and mechanisms of campaigning dominated by establishment political parties.
Into this process of developing policy … I would just like to indicate one area of NHS ‘Reform’ that we could advocate.
In England [and Wales and Scotland] Effective local preventative health care could be developed using CUBA as a model.
In Cuba Local Family Doctors live in the centre of the community they serve [usually a very manageable few hundred households] in purpose built Surgeries and the GP’s live in Accommodation above the Surgery.
This proximity to and the manageable size of the Doctors Patient base… gives immediate flexibility and accessibility to health care and improves patient outcomes.
Virtually all local Districts have a functioning Polyclinics which can carry out basic x-ray pathology minor surgery and other functions including a small number of in-bed facilities and operate on a ‘walk in basis’ with or without a referral from a local Family Doctor.
In many ways the Cuban model for local health care was exactly what was envisioned by socialist Health Pioneers and Nye Bevan himself… However the resistance of the Tory Party and the BMA meant that to get the NHS up and running as promised a compromise was made on the status of GP;s…. and today the potential of GP led Clinical Commissioning Groups threatens to put the last nails in the coffin of the NHS.
We need to go back to basics and re-found the NHS via a massive program of training health care professional modelled on that carried out so successfully in Cuba.
For heavens sake, Abu Jamal ! You start of with a perfectly OK description of the dangers facing the NHS , and then bring in CUBA as an exemplar model !
The Cuban Healthcare system was indeed astonishingly excellent for many years within the context of a very poor Third World country – and of course also existed in the midst of what was ,and is, for most ordinary Cubans a US blockade imposed life of severe, rationed, hardship materially.
However The Cuban Health system, (with most doctors nowadays forced to also have second jobs, the state wage is now so inadequate) is now falling into disrepair rapidly as Cuba is forced by the continuing US economic blockade to increasingly “liberalise” its economy in a distinctly conventional free enterprise direction.
It is simply ridiculous to suggest the Cuban healthcare system at its very best could hold a candle to ours, in terms of the sheer quality and strength of in depth free care available to all UK citizens from the NHS. We don’t need to make ourselves look ridiculous to the UK electorate with calls for a healthcare system based on “The Cuban Model” for heavens sakes ! We still have the best healthcare system in the world HERE , today, We just need to stop the current privatisation drive, and the sleight of hand hidden robbery by PFI interest payments, which is set to destroy its still massively impressive quality and ” free healthcare at the point of need” principle within a few disastrous years if we don’t all act in unison to defend it.
A Left Unity Slogan of “Let’s Adopt the Cuban Model of Healthcare , NOW !” would have about the same level of sympathetic resonance with the UK public as that infamously daft old IMG slogan of the 1970’s Common Market Debate. ie, “Common Market.. NO ! – COMECON… YES !”.
I’m concerned as to why you’re launching a discussion on Google groups and not using the more central forum that’s been set up. You’re excluding anyone who “drops by” and sees that there is a commission and discussion. You can have the forum closed to only those people who join the commission, but so much fragmentation with discussions going on in god-knows-how-many-places is not going to garner full participatory democracy.
Agree with John. Forward to the Cuban Health Model doesn’t float my boat.
Without fitting your policies into an overarching philosophy such as socialism and presenting them as part of an integrated manifesto or programme you are likely to end up with a load of demagogic and contradictory policies maybe even fascistic ones such as `Spend £85 Trillion a year and expel all black workers’ just to give an extreme example.
Anyhoo. For the NHS I would make the following few suggestions in the interests of open discussion:
The minimum of a trade union living wage for all workers in the NHS; the end of service provision by private contractors skimming 10% from front line services to pay fat cat salaries and absentee shareholder dividends; no to means testing for access to national health services; no to private companies leasing health service equipment, wards, etc; the replacement of NHS managers and leaders appointed by politicians, private contractors or the Old School Tie Network with those elected by the workforce and those workforce elected managers should liase with user and community representatives. No more reorganisations carried out above the heads of the staff that work in the NHS and the patients and communities that use it and no more gulag hospitals. In order to be elected by the workforce managers must explain how they intend to run hospitals, trusts and the service as a whole in the interests of the patients, the workers, the community and within the framework and budgets set by the democratically elected government. In the meantime LU will encourage and support the establishment of committees of all workers in NHS workplaces that can challenge for management and argue for public ownership and proper funding and organise sit-ins, protests, etc against closures and job cuts.
Thanks for the comments. I agree on the limits of the “cuban model”. The aim is to develop the already existing potential of NHS, and demonstrate how a truly universal, socially owned, democratically controlled and egalitarian healthcare system could function as part of a different social system.
Suzanne, I am skeptical as to how accessible the forums are to the vast majority of people. I’ll happily post this statement here, and any more developed by the health commission e-list and invite comments and contributions, but I think an egroup discussion (which everyone can access and join if they wish) where everyone gets copies of everything that is posted, is more participatory and democratic than a forum which requires people to login and read through many different threads and discussions to see everything that is posted. I have made the effort to advertise the health policy commission on the main website, a step not many others have taken yet.
But Mark, having your “commission” as a Google groups one, someone else has an email list, someone else facebook makes it VERY inaccessible. The forums are just as accessible as this page here. And all the commissions are on one site. I don’t have to read through every different thread if I don’t want to. They have headings on them. I can’t possibly see how your google group is going to be any more accessible. I’m certainly not joining it.
Are you talking about the same thing I am? The discussion forums have been set up here: http://forum.leftunity.org
Never heard of lefties knocking the cuban health service. Maybe Left Unity is attracting members of the Tory Party who will need a little help with understanding alternatives to freemarket healthcare.
David – The comrades who choose to distort what I said about Cuba in relation to possible policy on primary health care – are just being silly –
All I said was that having many more family doctors who will live at local surgeries and manage a much smaller patient base is a model worth considering for the future. This will imply a complete change in the social status of Doctors… something that the profession will resist.
Some like John Penny made a distorted caricature of my point then shot it down Mark Boothroyd and Baton Rouge joined in dismissing the ‘Cuban model’ – this is basically a very unhelpful way to debate and is in my view a form of ‘goading’ – this may be due to political hostility towards me personally or the achievements of the Cuban Revolution – I don’t know…but I expect an apology from John Penny when I see him face to face at our Founding Conference.
Interesting points on the Cuban health Model.
Clearly it has its’ failings, however the model does have a focus on the social determinants of health and understands that health is mostly affected by what happens in school, work, at home, communities etc and VERY rarely by what goes in hospitals. By looking at health in this way, effective, socially beneficial, preventative models can be used which are certainly something we should be looking at in this country.
Basic message – Don’t dismiss Cuba entirely, as with all health systems there are likely to be some features we feel might be interesting to examine further.
Abu,
While I don’t know a huge amount about the Cuban health system I’m not convinced with all the political will in the world that you could encourage GPs who have established salaries of £100k+ to live in flats above surgeries. At primary care level my understanding is that we’re struggling to get GPs to take out of hours care back in house, which to me would be far preferable to the contracted out services most practices seem to use at the moment.
Two of the biggest problems facing the health service are the aging population and obesity. An area interests me within the health umbrella is the extent to which it could be integrated with transport, sport and work policy. Could greater incentives be given to encouraging cycling as to reduce short car journeys which reduce congestion, and encourage more active lifestyles? Also, could more emphasis be given to teleworking which might allow those working to stay closer to home and provide care to the elderly and young children.
Mark I am trying to join the google group I have a suggestion that has got some support in the forum but there is no way of contacting you. If you get this please go into the LU forum and look up my suggestion and add me to google group.
My suggestion is based around the setting up as part of the Health Commision of an NDVS (National Drug and Vaccine Service) to produce all the medicine, vaccines and medical supplies the NHS can need, be a hub for research and producer of cheap medcines for overseas.