I very much feel this government is threatening our democracy and, along with other bills I am seriously worried about The UK Health and Care Bill and its failure to address fundamental issues of coverage and funding.
The last time the government wanted to "take back" something we never really learned why, what exactly they wanted to do with this power, and how it would improve our lives and it was all explained to us with lies and meaningless three word phrases - or lying, meaningless three word phrases - and it seems they aim to "take back control of the NHS".
They seem to have learned nothing about having a wide range of experts running such things. They have plans for the government to have enhanced powers of direction over a merged NHS England and NHS Improvement, and to transfer functions between health-related bodies, such as the Care Quality Commission, Health Education England, and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to allow this "take back" of control. There seems to be little evidence showing why this should happen and what changes it brings about that we need.
With ministerial control of the NHS, what can we expect? The government may well be seeing that as a way to cut cost and move health to the private sector. They have never denied that "smaller government" (weasel words for privatisation) would be their intention while in government and with talk about "paying back the debt" (nonsense in itself) they may see this as just the place to make cuts.
If the Government is to take control of the day to day running of the NHS we need to look at its record on Covid. This is not a government known for building teams of those best for the job. Its aim has always been to give power only to those it can trust to agree and support it. We have, so far, one of the highest COVID19-death rates in the world. We can look at the shortages of PPE and the Track and Trace system, both of which should be undergoing a Judge led enquiry at this moment.
Conversely, we can look at the NHS during this time, particularly non-government led areas. In weeks it had expanded massively the critical care capacity. It had seen the problem clearly and reallocated thousands of staff. They reorganised to reduce transmission of Covid19. They also established world-leading clinical trials for the vaccines and treatments we would need and delivered those vaccines in a way that used the best of everyone's skills and achieved amazing numbers in a very short time.
The power grabs this government has attempted to make - from Parliament, by misleading the Head of State, and from the people is worrying in itself but to come out of this pandemic, with society even more divided by income and opportunity than I can remember in my lifetime and then taking away our NHS doesn't bear thinking about - but we must.
Sources:
Department of Health & Social Care. Integration and innovation: working together to improve health and social care for all. Feb 11, 2021. www.gov.uk/ government/publications/working-together-to-improve-health-and-social-care-for-all/ integration-and-innovation-working-together-to-improve-health-and-social-care-for-all-html-version.
Raleigh VS. UK’s record on pandemic deaths. BMJ 2020; 370: m3348
Anderson M, Pitchforth E, Asaria M, et al. The LSE–Lancet Commission on the future of the NHS: re-laying the foundations for an equitable and efficient health and care service post COVID-19. Lancet (in press).
The UK Health and Care Bill: failure to address fundamental issues of coverage and funding - The Lancet