Socialism and Health the magazine of the Socialist Health Association July 2011 Editor’s Opening This issue is largely devoted to our first attempt at a vision for a future health policy. The Labour Health Team has been completely pre-occupied with fighting the Health and Social Care Bill for the last year, and it will still be many months before the Party really starts to think about the policies on which we should fight the next election. Much may change before May 2015, and the leadership are understandably wary of committing themselves to ideas which might be used against them. The Director of the Socialist Health Association has a place on the Labour Party‟s Health Policy Commission and that is now starting to think about key policy areas, starting with social care and public health and moving on to the lessons to be learned from the successes and failures of Labour Government policy over 13 years. We have had long arguments over markets, choice and privatisation. The view of the majority is that patient choice of provider is helpful, where it is possible, but the amount of NHS expenditure which is susceptible to patients making choices is small, probably less than 20%. Few patients are enthusiastic about making such choices. We cannot make this the central principle of the NHS. Patients are more interested in how they are treated than in where they are treated. We are not against independent service providers in principle where they have something better to offer which the NHS cannot provide, but we do not see the commercial sector ever playing a large part . This isn‟t an agreed statement of Socialist Health Association policy, but a contribution to debate. There are many issues it does not deal with and a number of issues about which members will not all agree. The key points we need to stress are:
The futility of structural reorganisation
The importance of integrating health and social care
Active involvement by patients in their own care
Stress on prevention determinants of health
Commissioning to be under the control of democratically elected local authorities
Move towards Best Value
Shift resources out of hospitals and towards integrated services
Aligning the incentives for clinicians and organisations with the interest of patients
Genuine debate about the benefits of the service model adopted in Wales and Scotland
and
the
wider
Contents
P 2 The
Plot Against the NHS: book review P3 The Impossible Challenge: A Model for Future Care P7 Still Dark: The state of the Health Bill P9 Focus on Liberal Democracy P10 Timetable of Events Editor Irwin Brown 22 Blair Road Manchester M16 8NS 0161 286 1926 irwin@sochealth.co.uk
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