Health Matters | Paul Corrigan's blog

My post yesterday claimed that the two letters I reproduced in that post, the first published on March 26^th from the patients’ organisation (national voices), and the second on April 28^th from many of the Presidents of the Royal Colleges, could be more important for the future of the NHS than the result of the general election. Understandably this relative comparison of what is important has been of some interest to people and probably needs defending.
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On March 26^th the patient’s collective organisation National Voices wrote an innovative and important letter to the Times in which they called for a grown up debate about closing beds in hospitals. Whilst on the inside of the NHS we have known the maturity of these organsiations for some time, to publish these collective opinions just before an election campaign was an important step forward.
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Whilst the opinion polls  show that the electorate still see the NHS as the second or third issue of importance to them (Behind the economy and in some polls behind immigration), there is really no trace of the politics of the NHS in this election. Given my comments on the Conservative manifesto this is exactly what the Conservative Party would hope from the campaign. At the start of the campaign the Labour Party was trusted with the NHS more that the Conservatives and it would therefore be to the Conservatives advantage if there was not much discussion of the NHS.
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I am sure that blog readers are riveted by the politics of the NHS in the election, but to just remove yourself for a moment from that excitement, the real world of policy implementation doesn’t stop just because of the election.

Most of you will know that there is a set of rules called purdah where the Government is not allowed during the election to do anything that could give it political advantage.

But that doesn’t mean that all normal business stops.
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A very interesting analysis of the election campaign and the politics of the NHS in today’s Guardian:

The weekend polls pointed to a sudden shift in the political weather, but the vicissitudes of party conflict are underlain by the everyday concerns of the voters, which move at glacial rather than cloud-like speeds. Foremost among them is the NHS, recently ranked by Ipsos Mori as being second only to the economy in determining how the nation will vote. You would hardly know that from the coverage of the campaign so far. Still less would you guess that the Conservative party is planning to entrench a regime of competition which could shake up British healthcare just as dramatically as the leaders’ debate has shaken up the election.
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One of the biggest problems for NHS policy is how do you maintain the vital principle of a NATIONAL health service that is paid for out of national taxation and is therefore fair across the country, with the necessity of actually commissioning and delivering that system locally. Whilst this is an issue in all policies- what is national and what is local- it is a much more central issue for the NHS because – well the tip is in the title – the public really want this service to be NATIONAL.

That means the public have shown time and again that whilst they want local input into the NHS, they are very angry at the local variations in service that have become known as the postcode lottery.
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The politics of the Conservative electoral strategy on health is not to have it as an issue during the election.

At the moment when the public are asked to choose who has the policy that they approve of the most, a larger number of people choose the Labour Party than the Conservative Party. Therefore, politics would tell us that if the entire campaign was fought about health policy, people would see the most important issue – health policy – as one where they think Labour are better than the Conservatives. After a campaign such as that more people would vote Labour.
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This is the week of the election manifestos. And for the first three days I will give an analysis of what their health policies might add up to. 

Starting with the Labour Party today.

I’ve all but given up reading the Sunday papers but in Sunday 11 April’s Observer there was a very shrewd article by Andrew Rawnsley which outlined the issue about Manifestos.
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