Comments on: True Tory agenda of public service profit revealed

By: willstraw

willstraw — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:20:28 +0000

Anonymous – It would have been better if you’d left a valid email address but happy to reply in any case.

1) It’s not inconsistent for the headline to refer to part of the article.

2) The body of the Gubb article was about costs and efficiency savings so it seemed reasonable to focus on input measures.

3) Others have commented on the satisfaction and output measures. If you have good data, send it our way and we’ll update.

4) Also happy to see stats on the public vs private breakdown. Do you think it would show a dramatically different story?

5) We never suggested that Gove was signed up to bringing profit into education (hence referring to the think tankers as the “true Tory agenda”). We included his quote so we couldn’t be accused of leaving out the Opposition’s position.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:53:28 +0000

This is quite poor, really. The headline suggests that what a few think-tankers write about is the “true agenda” of the Tory party – a little silly. The piece then leads on a quote about the NHS which has nothing whatsoever to do with profit – a lot silly.

It’s only the Fazakerley quote that the profit issue is raised, not Gubb’s point on the NHS. You’ll note that his article doesn’t mention profit once. His suggestion about having competing social insurers doesn’t imply they’re profit-making. His further suggestion that they’re formed from existing PCTs also makes the quote from the IPPR report about public and private sector involvement of limited relevance.

Your graph then shows an obsession with input measures. As other commenters have pointed out, raw spending numbers are rather immaterial (is the US a model to emulate on this score, given its ridiculously high spending?). Plus, you fail to give the full OECD data which unpacks it into public and private spending – which is where we would see that other systems’ higher spending levels owe mainly to their routes of private co-funding. This has potentially adverse side effects in terms of accessibility, but if higher spending is sought, the highest levels are rarely achieved through an exclusively publicly funded route.

Finally, the Gove quote at the end seems to offer exactly the opposite message to that which you’re putting forward. He says that US Charter Schools are primarily non-profit and work successfully, and that lots of people want to start a school under the proposed plan, and “profits [aren't] an issue” – i.e. that the current policy’s bar on profits isn’t getting in the way of it gathering momentum for implementation.

By: David Oladele

David Oladele — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:09:07 +0000

I do not agree we should in any bring in any sort of insurance or look on to other countries in order to reform our NHS. The present system is working based on what people a willing to pay for it therefore, if there is going to be any reform on efficiencies it be based as it. This is due to to fact we all agreed that those others are more expensive yet we are able to do things economically therefore what l would suggest would be let the NHS contiue with more efficence drive instead of bring in other countries model. Also, in this country NHS faces bad press on daily basis so it is not suprising that most French would like their system whereas those of us here would be more reluctant due to the bad press. There is evidence that majority of people who had use the NHS were extremely happy with myself included. I have blood pressure and each time l go in for my blood test in my local Queen Elizabeth hospital in Woolich l find the team on duty very caring and working hard to make us happy and it does not usually take more than 30 mintues.

By: joe fd

joe fd — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:29:54 +0000

Yes the graph is simplistic. But it makes the simple point that social insurance systems tend to spend more. if the challenge is to extract savings then proposals to move to more expensive systems seems counterintuitive. Nb France has extended central tax funding to ensure equity and control costs.

By: Ed S

Ed S — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:52:49 +0000

The international comparisons provided are useful, but do not include any reference to outcomes or to patient satisfaction with either their specific use of the health services or with the overall arrangements. Without this data, making the right judgement on where to go next with the NHS is not possible. Anecdotally, the French seem hugely more satisfied with their health service arrangements than with ours. And, yes, they cost more. Quality usually does. I really think we have to stop defending the NHS at all costs and open our thoughts and analysis to other ways of organisation. The NHS has many faults ,even after 12 years of permament reform by the Labour government. Organisations of that size are always going to be very slow and difficult to reform. There is an alternative. Let’s really stop living in the past and deal with today’s reality.

By: Henry

Henry — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:26:37 +0000

It would be interesting to know how many of these likely corporate beneficiaries are bankrolling the Conservative Party or the Shadow Cabinet. For example, many of Lansley’s office costs are paid by companies in the health sector.