04 October 2009

Alan Milburn attacks Andy Burnham

So Alan Milburn has attacked Andy Burnham for making the NHS the preferred provider. Now why can that be? Does this hold a clue:

Interestingly, former health ministers have done particularly well. The ex-health secretary Patricia Hewitt earns more than £100,000 as a consultant for Alliance Boots and Cinven, a private equity group that bought 25 private hospitals from Bupa. After leaving the department, her predecessor, Alan Milburn, worked for Bridgepoint Capital, which successfully bid for NHS contracts, and now boasts a striking portfolio of jobs with private health companies.

When I rang Milburn yesterday to ask whether he saw any conflict of interest in his directorships, he swore and hung up........



It is a peculiar change of policy. Dr Grumble has witnessed how the private sector has been wooed under ludicrously favourable terms. When it comes to private providers the term "level playing field" is not in the government's lexicon. As a result the private companies have been on a runaway gravy train rife with nonsenses - such as being paid for operations they haven't even done. And all this has been carefully but surreptitiously crafted by Burnham and his henchmen.

So why the change of heart? Has Andy Burnham really seen the error of his ways? Or has he realised that the great British public is beginning to rumble what is going on? Or is there another explanation?

Whatever the real reason, mark the Grumble words. The policy will drift back after the election. Probably more quickly under a Labour government than a Conservative government. The Conservatives are distrusted when it comes to the NHS so have to tread more carefully. Unfortunately the same malign interests lean heavily on both parties. All three parties actually. What the British public want does not really enter into it - except just before an election. For we are now entering the period known euphemistically as the post-democratic era. Those in charge know what is best for us and just get on and do it. But they don't expect doctors to behave like that. Rightly or wrongly. Odd that.



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hewitt was/is also a non exec director at BT which of course is one of the main contractors screwing up NHS IT

Cockroach Catcher said...

Snap! I used the same Guardian article on my September 2 posting: ”NHS & the Repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act”
There needs to be more such coverage. The Cockroach Catcher

Anonymous said...

Trainer 1 has been re-reading Orwell. His "post-democratic society" was one of "oligarchical collectivism". Its worth looking that one up. Certainly we are being softened up for unelected leaders as we can see here..

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6857807.ece

and here...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/14/peter-mandelson-in-charge-country

Orwell's 'doublethink' concept is very interesting. 'Cognitive dissonance' is the tension one feels when there is a contradiction in one's belief system. For example 'this government support the NHS but appear to be dismantling it'. One method of relieving this tension (or rationalisation) is to say 'the government is incompetent and misguided in its well-intentioned methods'. The alternative - 'the government is actually trying to dismantle the NHS' is just too challenging to one's belief system. The more mature and established the subject, the more entrenched the belief system and the worse the dissonance. From reading Grumble's blogs Trainer 1 thinks Grumble is familiar with this feeling (Trainer 1 gets it all the time).

In 1984 doublethink is a more evolved response to this. It is when a willful form of denial is used to reconcile conflict in a belief system - a self-imposed defiance of logic which Orwell called 'controlled insanity".

With doublethink the response would be "the government is the saviour of the NHS, I can see it with my own eyes and know it to be so!" Ergo the statement 'the bank bailouts will protect my pension and save me from debt', or Orwell's own 'ignorance is strength!'.

Trainer 1 sees doublethink everywhere, in fact it almost seems everyone needs a bit of doublethink to get through the day.

Trainer 1 wonders what Orwell would have made of this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2638075.stm

or this...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/mar/06/fingerprinting-children-civil-liberties

or this...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3275246/Parents-to-be-fingerprinted-by-nursery-schools.html

or this...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1178508/Right-fall-line-orrible-little-pupils-Government-wants-military-run-state-schools.html

or indeed this...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6466430.ece

Orwell died prematurely of TB as he was allergic to streptomycin. If only he were here now.