British Liberal, house husband, school play leader and stepdad. Campaigner, atheistic feminist, amateur baker. Male.
Known to post items of interest on occasions. More likely to link to interesting stuff. Sometimes talks about stuff he's done. Occasionally posts recipes for good food. Planning to get married, at some point. Enjoying life in Yorkshire.
Likes comments. Especially likes links. Loves to know where people came from and what they were looking for. Mostly posts everything publicly. Sometimes doesn't. Hi.
Mat Bowles
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Date: 2012-10-16 08:58 am (UTC)"We need to allow patients to choose the best care available, giving healthcare providers the incentives they need to drive up quality."
Hmm, better quality healthcare, and I have a choice to get "the best care"? Brilliant!
"So we will give every patient the power to
choose any healthcare provider that meets NH S
standards, within NH S prices. This includes
independent, voluntary and community sector
providers."
Fantastic, this aligns with my personal beliefs/politics/special needs that a one size fit all approach doesn't!
"We will strengthen the power of GPs as
patients’ expert guides through the health
system by:
• giving them the power to hold patients’
budgets and commission care on their behalf;"
Uh... ok, well GPs are smart people who I trust, so it can't be a bad thing to let them control what money is spent on
"• linking their pay to the quality of their
results; and,"
Sounds fair, no pay for bad GPs!
"• putting them in charge of commissioning
local health services."
*scratches head* sure...doesn't sound bad?
---
So... aside from whether people have actually read the manifesto or not, those who have will barely know what they're actually voting for anyway.
Something as complex as NHS reform simply can't be agreed with or not up front, and there's a definite argument that not enough public scrutiny was put on the NHS changes to either have people confirm their support or opposition.
But whether you dislike the reforms or not, they are what a government of power voted in believe will improve the service for the public.
Perhaps with the same sentiment as Mat, my frustration on NHS reform debates was that there was no coherent opposition to it. Sure, lots of protests against privatisation of the NHS, lots of (wrong) protests about the NHS suddenly ending it's free service...but actual reasoned discussion about the dangers of the bill were few and far between, and almost exclusively held outside the realm of the mass media. If Labour and those against the NHS changes really cared they'd have made a case against the flaws in the bill, as those who were invovled in the consultation stages did, and do the proper job of amending and taking control of the bill. Instead there was much stamping of petulant feet, and an easy passage was made for the bill.
At the end of the day I feel opponents of the bill wanted it to be passed, so that they had a new rod for Tory backs...political opportunism before the needs of the country that *could* have quite easily got an even more improved bill than we got.