Tory’s NHS reforms going in the right direction?

David Cameron with Health Secretary Andrew Lansley (right)

As a fully-paid Conservative member it pains me to say that I do not agree with their plans to completely overhaul the NHS. I do agree that the NHS needs to be reviewed and reforms need to be made, but The Health and Social Care Bill, in my opinion, is not the answer.

The Bill will see large amounts of public sector work being transferred to the private sector, and alarmingly, allowing GPs themselves to manage their own budgets and to decide treatments accordingly. The idea of such a notion is to remove the vast amounts of bureaucracy that clog up the NHS, wasting its already crippled budget on needless layering, with managers being paid a lot to do a little – an idea that is welcomed among many citizens, including myself.

But I’m not so sure that allowing the GPs to manage their own budgets is the answer. The government have made assurances that doctors will never feel the need to choose cheaper, less effective treatments for patients, to crunch the numbers. Yet, how can they guarantee this? If I’m a GP and one treatment will force me over my budget for the month, whilst the alternative (which of course isn’t as good) will allow me to stay on target, which one am I going to choose?! It’s obvious.

Furthermore, no mention has been made of any changes to the training that GPs and medical students will receive to actually implement these changes. Are the doctors going to be taught basic accountancy skills? Is basic accountancy going to have to be added to an already demanding seven-year long degree course to become a doctor?

If the government want long-term plans to save money with the NHS, they need to think bigger than this. They need to think of more effective ways of increasing the efficiency of every aspect of the institution, not just budget control. They need to consider easier ways of making appointments, more drop-in clinics, more contact time with patients to avoid mistaken diagnoses which are becoming all too common. Now I’m not going to sit here and ‘GP bash’ because it is far too common, it’s unfair and it’s unproductive. But it has to be said, if the government want productivity improved, they need to make sure their doctors get off of Google when making their diagnosis and actually focus on the patient themselves.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley says that the unions criticising these plans, namely the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwives, are an example of them just “want[ing] to have a go at the government”. I think there might be a little bit more to it than that Andrew!

Improving the efficiency of the NHS isn’t just based on crunching the numbers and reducing the deficit (although of course being a Tory, deficit reduction is one of my main economic policy beliefs), it’s about actually improving the care and treatment that patients receive. I hope the government doesn’t forget such a simple fact.