NHS reforms: How Labour’s grassroots can fight back

By Andy Burnham MP / @andyburnhammp

The coalition are attempting to push through their plans to break-up the NHS in the face of opposition from groups representing patients, GPs, nurses and NHS staff. They have no mandate for the break-up of a successful NHS. Patients aren’t asking for it. GPs and NHS staff don’t want it. The public did not vote for it.

In June, a respected international think tank gave this verdict on the NHS: the 2nd best health care system in the world and top on efficiency. This is the final word on Labour’s NHS.

But it’s all at risk. 13 years of careful work – staked on the roll of a dice. A 1000-piece jigsaw thrown up into the air. Before the ink was dry on a coalition agreement that promised ‘no more top-down reorganisations of the NHS’ we get the biggest and most dangerous ever. It is nothing short of scandalous to spend up to £3 billion on a political experiment with our NHS at a time when every single penny is needed to maintain jobs and standards of patient care.

There are five reasons why the reforms are so dangerous:

1. Wrong reforms, wrong time – initiating a structural upheaval in the middle of a financial squeeze will throw the NHS into chaos. Right now, it needs organisational stability.
2. A bad deal for patients – removing national 18-week maximum wait and scrapping the private patients cap will see a rise in waiting times and a return of the old Tory choice – wait longer or pay.
3. A postcode lottery writ large – the creation of hundreds of new, untested GP groups meaning variable access and quality depending on where you live. It is an attack on the N in NHS.
4. Fragmentation and privitisation – forcing Trusts to leave the public sector will create an unstable free market and change the character of our hospitals. The hand-over of the budget represents the privitisation of the commissioning function and a green light for private consultants and contractors.
5. No public accountability – the dismantling of PCTs and allocations set by an independent Board combine to create a real lack of public accountability. It is not at all clear what ability patient groups will have to challenge commissioning decisions.

In light of fierce criticism from professional groups including the Royal College of GPs, the Royal College of Nursing and the British medical Association, I wrote to Andrew Lansley suggesting a way forward – make the White Paper a Green paper, maintain PCTs for the medium term and pilot GP commissioning.

He had the opportunity in his conference speech to show he had listened, but he chose not to. He has set himself on a collision course with the NHS, and with the Labour movement.

I call on all of you to sign up today. Put your name on Labour’s Defend Our NHS petition and recruit friends to do the same.

GPs, nurses, NHS staff – visit your MP and tell them about the risk that the NHS faces. Hold public meetings to discuss the changes, and invite the local press.

Write to your MP and ask them to write to David Cameron and Andrew Lansley, rejecting their plans. Ask them if they believe the people who voted for them support the break-up of the NHS. Tell Lib Dem MPs that the seven million people who voted for them will not forgive them for nodding through these plans.

To those who say we can’t win – 16,000 people have already proved you wrong. We saved NHS Direct.

Let’s build an army of NHS defenders in every community in the land. Let’s take the fight for a universal, public NHS to every street and doorstep. And let’s show this arrogant government the might of this Labour movement when it fights as one.