Health Matters | Paul Corrigan's blog

Last Thursday I blogged about a report which examined different approaches to losing weight, and received some interesting comments which I will talk about later in the week.

But by chance this post was published on the day that the agreement between the Government and Circle at Hinchingbrooke was finally signed and some people want to know my thoughts about this. Read the rest of this entry »

Regular readers will have noticed that the relationship between integration and competition is an topic upon which I have posted a couple of times in the last few weeks. In my view all the commentators pointing out the importance of creating integrated care services for the NHS are correct. Read the rest of this entry »

Since this issue has been so much in the news, and since those who are defending the NHS against intrusions from the private sector are all over the media at the moment, I thought I would return to a post I wrote when the White Paper came out last July. Read the rest of this entry »

If there is one group that should have received the White Paper with unalloyed pleasure it is the private sector health care companies who are trying to sell their services into the NHS. Read the rest of this entry »

The NHS, alongside all other health care systems in developed countries will soon run out of money. All of these systems have become used to increases in resources that have more than kept pace with the increased demand for health care caused by an aging population and increased public expectations.
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Regular readers of the blog will have come across the way in which I have explored the difference between policy and politics in the Conservative stance on NHS change over recent months and in the first few days of the new Government. Policy argues for a fundamental change brought about by the development of markets within the NHS. More incentives must be given to GPs as commissioners to drive change throughout the system. There must be a policy of “any willing provider” and the NHS must get used to empowered patients with much better information flowing around the system.
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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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Blog readers will have been following the twists and turns of the Secretary of State’s attempt to change the policy of the NHS to enforce his personal preference for the NHS as preferred provider.

Last week Society Guardian reported the end of the line as follows:

The health secretary, Andy Burnham, has lost his political battle to protect the NHS against competition from the private and voluntary sector. He had declared his intention to make the NHS a “preferred provider” of health services: some primary care trusts took this to mean independent healthcare firms and social enterprises should be excluded from bidding for contracts. Burnham’s ambition was seen by some as a sop to Labour’s trade union funders, and an attempt to re-establish the party’s anti-NHS privatisation credentials. Complaints were made to the NHS competition commission, and there were reports of disputes in cabinet over the issue. Today, the NHS published its revised guidance, which appears to blow Burnham’s ambitions out of the water. Stephen Bubb, chief executive of Acevo, which represents charities that provide public services, said:

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