What are we to make of the White Paper – Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS?

Of course they will! They’re getting an enhanced management allowance to do it, they are more entrepreneurial than a souvenir salesman in Bombay, and they’ll wheel in the private sector to do it for them. Bet your house they’ll make a few quid out of this! 

However, this is not the main issue. The issue is that Foundation Trusts are going to be able to migrate into social enterprises (SEs). SEs are businesses with a social purpose.  Yes, businesses, and the only thing that distinguishes them from Tesco’s is the fact that their profits have to be retained in the business and cannot be disposed of as dividends or profit. All trusts are going to have to become FTs or be subsumed into an existing one. 

Community services, currently housed in PCTs, are going to have to go the same way as PCTs are dead. 

So let’s take a pace back and a good look at the new ‘liberated NHS’. 

Commissioning is going to be done by self-employed GPs with private sector help. All the NHS supply-side services will be in SEs that are outside the NHS and their balance sheet is outside the reach of the Treasury. Does this look like privatisation to you? Well, it should, because it is. Andrew Lansley has done, by stealth, what Mrs T and Tony Blair never dared to do. The costs of the provider side, their buildings, wages, and, going forward, their pension problems, gone in a stroke and no one has noticed.

What does this mean for you? It means FTs will be able to manage their estate and dispose of assets as they see fit. It means GP surgeries will all be too small as the doctors will want to cash in on being able to commission services from themselves and buy their mistress a new fur coat. 

Cheer up, the only problem you’ll have is where you’re going to park your new yacht!  

Click here to go to Roy's website

DO YOU THINK ROY IS RIGHT ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE NHS? PLEASE TELL US YOUR VIEWS USING THE COMMENT BOX BELOW