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Hi<BR> <BR>Some feedback from Sheffield Save our NHS on Andrew Lansley's view on competition in the NHS, interesting information on Clinical Commissioning Groups.<BR><br><br>
David <br> <br>Occupy<br><br> <br><br><br><BR><div><div dir="ltr"><div><hr id="ecxstopSpelling">From: </div><div>To: </div><div><a href="mailto:sheffield.uncut@hotmail.co.uk">sheffield.uncut@hotmail.co.uk</a>;</div><div>Subject: Fw: Andrew Lansley's thoughts on competition + some info on CCGs and information about Rotherham GPs role in commissioning<br>Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:34:32 +0000<br><br>
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</div><div><font face="Arial">The e-petition to Drop the Bill now (Wed pm)
has over 140,000 signatures - more than doubled since Sunday thanks to 38
degrees. </font><font face="Arial">Unfortunately
parliamentary opposition to the Bill seems to be focusing more on getting
rid of the competition elements. </font></div><div>
</div><div><font face="Arial"></font> </div><div>
</div><div><font face="Arial"><strong>Lansley: </strong>Perhaps as a last
ditch defense Andrew Lansley has written an article for <em>Health Service
Journal</em> celebrating the role of competition. I attach a copy but
you don't have to open it!! There are several extraordinary features - his
belief that healthcare is all about new treatments and technologies; his
assertion that other major countries are now seeing how essential it is to
have comprehensive healthcare provision such as that provided by the NHS in
order to maintain productivity and boost growth; and that the only way to get
these treatments and technologies to the right patients is to reject centrally
planned delivery (which he believes can only be based on past performance) and
to create </font><font face="Arial"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">more informed and more demanding
patients and health professionals who will agitate for these new treatments and
technologies to be made available. These "thousands of individual
decisions to adopt a new technology – from, say, cassettes to compact discs to
mp3 players – will combine to sweep away less effective services.
</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">And
this individual creativity and innovation is best supported by
competition."</span></span></font></div><div>
</div><div><font face="Arial"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></font> </div><div>
</div><div><font face="Arial"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The
man is dangerously delusional. He has no understanding of people and
care. He can't seem to make up his mind about whether the NHS is a major
problem (his reason for the Bill) or something to be emulated. There
is no way such a system could work. Is healthcare really analagous to
recorded music? And what would happen when we got to the healthcare
equivalent of HMV and EMI failures - not to mention the healthcare equivalents
of piracy. </span></span></font></div><div>
</div><div><font face="Arial"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></font> </div><div>
</div><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Somebody
on the website commends his analysis of </span></span><font face="Arial">problems: technology, ageing population, multiple pathologies, the
need to shift towards a less hospital=-based model of care; but then
says "Y</font><font face="Arial">ou want to pick the guy up and shake
him. His analysis of the solution is so facile, inept, one-dimensional and
downright ignorant, I could scream. I could go on for hours, but let's pick just
two: - his idea that central planning always equals service delivery based on
past patterns of service.Codswallop. Tripe. Balderdash. I've worked in the NHS
long enough to see massive reshaping and improvement in the delivery opf
services in a whole shedful of areas (cancer springs immediately to mind).
Centrally driven and led, with local engagement. - the idae that millions of
individual market exchanges between patients and Drs drives big technological
and service change is equal twaddle. Let's not forget the enormous percentage of
patients who access services as emergency and unplanned admissions. The idea of
competition being the driver there is bunk. I could go on, but I won't.
The man's bright but he's inept and arrogant and has spent too much time talking
and not enough time listening properly."</font></div><div>
</div><div><font face="Arial"></font> </div><div>
</div><div><font face="Arial"><strong>CCGs:</strong> The Department of Health has
published spending estimates for future Clinical Commissioning Groups. The
largest is for Peterborough and Cambridgeshire (Lansley's patch) but this does
cover 2 previous PCTs. Sheffield is also one of the largest. There are one
or two tiny ones where particular practices or consortia are still insisting on
going it alone. There are currently 244 prospective CCGs, down from 335 a
year ago. One anonymous commentator writes "</font><font face="Arial">I'm designing a database of CCGs (not very interesting I know, long
story) and it's remarkable how many have the same geography as the PCT. There
are a few pockets across the country that look different, but many of these seem
to be merging. Given the last 19 months, what an UNBELIEVABLE waste of time this
has all been...."</font></div><div>
</div><div><font face="Arial"></font> </div><div>
</div><div><font face="Arial">Another offers an interesting slant: </font></div><div>
</div><blockquote style="margin-right: 0px;" dir="ltr">
<div><font face="Arial">"Two to three years ago GPs were complaining that
the bureacrats at the PCTs were stifling Pratice based commissioning and not
letting them implement their interesting little scheme which wouldn't save any
money but would improve the quality of care. Eighteen months ago GPs
were saying great now we have control we can sack all these bureacrats and we
can implement as many of these little schemes as we want. Six months ago
GPs were suddenly realised life was more complicated that they thought and
realised that they needed these bureacrats to help them implement their
schemes. Now GPs are staring down the the double barrels of the shot gun
which is increasing demand and no additional resources. They are also
realising that the bureaucrats that used to protect them from such realities
are no longer doing so and that they have to make some big decisions. So they
are either walking away or clustering together into what looked like the good
old PCTs.<br><br>If there is anything good that has come out of this last 15
months it is that more GPs now realise that<br>a. Commissioning is hard<br>b.
Big savings have to be made and that means big changes<br>c. Their behavior is
a major contributor to both the problems and the solutions. <br><br>What we
need to do now is scrap this bill and start again with another one that puts
hospital consultants in charge. If they can go through the same learning
process we may end up with a system that works"</font></div></blockquote><div>
</div><div><font face="Arial">Finally </font><font face="Arial"><strong>Rotherham PCT</strong> are now making available details
of how Rotherham GPs are involved in commissioning</font> </div><div>
</div><div class="ecxSection1">
<p class="ecxMsoNormal">at <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://www.rotherham.nhs.uk/about/board/clinicians-in-commissioning.htm" target="_blank">http://www.rotherham.nhs.uk/about/board/clinicians-in-commissioning.htm</a><font color="#000000"> and associated links. It's not much different in
structure from Sheffield but anyone from Rotherham might be interested in who is
involved.</font></span></p>
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