tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25200961.post3405326560360329236..comments2024-03-26T07:19:50.901+00:00Comments on Dr Grumble: An expensive dog's dinner?Dr Grumblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04417731064007601504noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25200961.post-38457108787836420872009-03-15T08:45:00.000+00:002009-03-15T08:45:00.000+00:00The book, Confuse and Conceal, tells the story, fi...The book, Confuse and Conceal, tells the story, first as the government presented it, then as the House of Commons Health Select Committee tried to assess it, and finally as it really is - a bridgehead for the private sector to take over NHS services and staff on a steadily-growing scale.<BR/><BR/>It shows how the real aims of the programme have been obscured and how information on it has been regularly massaged or withheld. All over the country NHS trusts are closing services as patient income is diverted to for-profit providers on highly advantageous terms. The aim is to make NHS trusts compete in a new healthcare market. The effect is to accelerate the fragmentation of the NHS into a series of unequal units, in which profitability takes priority over patient needs.<BR/><BR/>Why is there all this obfuscation that required Dr Grumble a couple of years ago to decipher what was happening to his disbelieving colleagues. Why does our government confuse and conceal? It is, surely, antidemocratic. Why do they progress with what the Witch Doctor calls creep? It is, of course, because they want to avoid the normal democratic processes. They do not want the common person to have a say. That's why they support Common Purpose. It is all part of doing the opposite to what Nulabour refers to in its sanitised Clause 4. It is about the few not the many. It is about a small elite controlling masses of workers. And doctors are very much workers. We are, mostly, coalface workers. We don't do what the top people do which is set up businesses which require other more stupid people to do the hard grinding work to make money for the people who set up or funded the business in the first place. Doctors are not part of this elite. They are very much with the workers. They are workers. That's why so few doctors have been through Common Purpose. And the other reason is that we are not, in general, malleable.Dr Grumblehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04417731064007601504noreply@blogger.com