The ultimate betrayal – Shirley Williams and the Lib Dems hit the NHS where it hurts

April 24 brought Lord Philip Hunt’s motion against the Health and Social Care Act Secondary Legislation Section 75 - a rarely achieved format in the Lords, only allowed in exceptional circumstances.

April 24 brought Lord Philip Hunt’s Pray Debate fatal motion against the Health and Social Care Act Secondary Legislation Section 75 – a rarely achieved format in the Lords, only allowed in exceptional circumstances.

Lords on all sides had been inundated with letters and emails of concern – not just, as Shirley Williams said in what must count as one of the most disingenuous speeches this parliament,  due to “a blizzard” of distortion “extensively spread via social networks”, but because more and more of the general public had gained an understanding of basic procurement law.

If the law says that a Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) may allocate a clinical service to a sole provider as long as none other are capable of running the service, then it stands to reason that the CCG will be more concerned with how to prove that when challenged than just going for the simple route of selecting their own long term preferred provider.

Far from the 40 staff of Monitor being equipped to block a legal avalanche, or Regulations 2 and 3 overriding errant 5, this is a lawyers-cum-privatisation charter which can only be stopped by CCGs undertaking the very tendering the coaltion are pretending they are preventing – whilst of course setting them up to do exactly that.

The Lib Dems decided that they would once again portray themselves as saviours of the faulty elements of the legislation – although some stared ahead in a rather fixed manner whilst Lord Clement-Jones and Shirley Williams spoke of the wondrous things they had done and of the terrible injustice in criticising their efforts.

Perhaps they had been hypnotised. Earl Freddie Howe turned his head from his front bench to fix his gaze upon Baroness Williams as she spoke –  in part needy, in part threatening. Hopefully he had a crick in his neck afterwards.

They continually stated that their own changes in March, meant no change since 2010 – conveniently ‘forgetting’ that the introduction of the Health & Social Care Act has changed everything. If no change – why bother with the Act or Section 75 at all? Do they think we didn’t notice? Probably.

Lord Warner (of Lewisham ) was overtly the most audacious of the night – not for him the mealy mouthed meanderings of the Lib Dems. Everything he has been saying in private, came to the fore in publicly disowning Labour’s efforts. This man is all about competition and the ‘managed market’ – he clearly stated he was “with Earl Howe” before sinking low in his seat to mutterings of disapproval. Let us hope that the party soon disowns him in return.

Although Lord Hunt presented an excellent case, the whipped Lib Dems declared solidarity with Earl Howe, which sadly meant he really knew that it was lost before he started. The Tories had dragged out all of Thatcher’s old contemptibles and from the conspiratorial looks being shot across the chamber, it was evident that Shirley Williams had worked her ‘magic’ on a couple of key cross benchers – where there were also notable abstentions.

The most moving speech of the night came from  Lord Owen – who spoke strong and true and visibly elicited more than a solitary tear when he mourned

‘tonight I feel one feeling only: overwhelming sadness’.

The debate in full: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201213/ldhansrd/text/130424-0003.htm.

64 Responses to “The ultimate betrayal – Shirley Williams and the Lib Dems hit the NHS where it hurts”

  1. Harry Leslie Smith

    I am a very old man so I have strong memories of Britain before the NHS. I remember my sister dying of TB in a workhouse infirmary and me almost succumbing to whopping cough b/c we couldn’t afford a doctor.
    As a small boy, I remember hearing screams coming from a home on our street where a woman was dying of cancer without any medicine to relieve her pain. It was a barbaric world where money decided who lived and who died because that was the formula for medical care.

    In fact it wasn’t until I was 18 that I saw a physician and that was because World War Two was on and I had volunteered to join the RAF. The people of my generation sacrificed so much during the Great Depression and through the World War. The NHS was our reward, our peace time dividend. It was also our solemn pledge to future generations that we would be a civilized nation that would treat all citizens as worthy of care and compassion.

    The NHS is for me as great as Magna Carta because it freed millions from the tyranny of sickness and poverty to move forward and lead productive lives. No one can fool me about these new measures. They are not about making the NHS more efficient, more accessible and more accountable to today’s economic situation; its all about profit. Now a small minority of people and corporations are going to get very rich while making Britain a less healthy and vibrant nation. The names of all that voted for these provisions should be cut into a memorial stone to commemorate the death of Britain’s greatest achievement the NHS. It was a tide that raised all boats

  2. LB

    No mention of the 40,000 killed a year by the NHS. Avoidable deaths.

    As for TB, the NHS infected me with TB.

  3. Alexander Bamford

    Care to provide any sort of case for the NHS being responsible for those deaths and giving you TB beyond merely pointing out organisational failures that happen in healthcare systems (often to a far greater extent) around the world, then coming to the conclusion that as it is capable of also happening in a publicly run healthcare system, it’s the fault of the NHS?

  4. Lb

    40,000 is the figure from the British Medical Journal. Peer reviewed research.

    TB was as a result of a school doctor giving me a BCG vaccination in spite of a positive mantou test and a prior vaccination. End result TB in my arm, massive infection then 9 months of TB drugs which are foul. However I survived, unlike the 5 people I have direct personal knowledge of being killed by mistakes in the nhs. One of which I would put down as murder.

    If you haven’t noticed one hospital killed at least 1,200. Scale that up.
    Another 9 of the worst are under investigation.

    That leaves off those who are maimed from the list

  5. TristanPriceWilliams

    Can I respectfully (because I agree with every other word you said) point out that the reforms are not to be enacted in Scotland, where we have our own separate health service run by our own government. NHS Scotland is far from perfect, but at least it’s not being used by Cameron as a way of making pots of money for his pals. My heart bleeds for the poor English who have to live under this unfeeling monster. Thatcher’s child right enough. No wonder he gave her a good send off.

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