The e-petition calling on the government to drop its Health and Social Care Bill has now reached 153 000 signatures to become the second most popular campaign on Number 10’s official petition site. It already qualified for a debate in the House of Commons, when it passed the 100 000 signatures milestone. Some 90% of general practitioners, celebrities including Stephen Fry, Rio Ferdinand, and Jamie Oliver, three Cabinet ministers, and a good part of David Cameron’s own party (see Tim Montgomery’s blog) don’t want the bill. Rarely have doctors, nurses, and the public been so united on a political question. Sadly, David Cameron is closing his eyes and ears. more…

The Prime Minister’s summit on implementing the NHS reforms has provided a new focus for debate about what the reforms will mean in practice. The government’s critics maintain that competition will undermine the core values of the NHS to the detriment of patient care. Some of these critics go further to claim that competition will result in the privatisation of much healthcare provision and the end of the NHS as we know it.

History suggests the need to treat these claims with caution, if not scepticism. Ever since the Conservative government introduced the internal market reforms in the early 1990s, opponents of choice and competition have warned that the future of the NHS is under threat, and yet it is performing better today than ever before. And as Nick Timmins showed in a recent analysis for the Financial Times, the private sector’s share of the market for elective care for NHS patients has remained stable,  giving the lie to the argument that widespread privatisation of provision is inevitable. more…

I have to admit that after working for the NHS for 19 years I felt the need for a different challenge. I was four years into my appointment as a consultant dermatologist in East Kent, and although I enjoyed the clinical work, I was finding the fluctuations in health service politics somewhat exhausting. My sons, Zac and Josh, aged 7 and 6, were very happy in our local village school, and my husband Aaron was planning his PhD. more…