Published: January 3rd 2011 - at 9:10 pm

Tories speed up plans to private NHS Direct too


by Sunny Hundal    

The Pulse magazine reports:

The Government has announced it will rapidly expand the number of areas piloting the new 111 non-emergency telephone line, ahead of GP consortia taking control of the service.

The 111 phone service – which provides patients with a single phone number to access non-emergency care and will replace NHS Direct – is already being piloted in four regions: County Durham and Darlington, Nottingham City, Lincolnshire and Luton, but the Department of Health wants to expand this in England prior to universal coverage by 2013.

Not only is the pilot being rushed forward quickly, the provider may also change.

Health secretary Andrew Lansley revealed last month that GP consortia will be charged with commissioning local providers for the 111 service, offering the job to any NHS provider – including NHS Direct or private firms – under the controversial ‘any willing provider‘ policy.

(via @Richardblogger)

After recently announcing that NHS Direct would be replaced with a ‘cut-price service’, Lansley quickly backtracked in face of public pressure.

He said he had not announced plans to scrap NHS Direct, only to “phase out the NHS Direct number”. It is now obvious that Andrew Lansley plans to do much more than just change the number.

Not only that, he wants to accelerate the process of privatisation before its effects have been properly measured.

Only a few months ago Cameron said: “Conservatives will stop these pointless, retrogressive re-organisations and closures.”

Now even Conservative MPs such as Sarah Wollaston (former GP) are critical of their party over the scale and speed of NHS privatisation.

The Royal College of Nursing say it would be “shortsighted” to axe a service that had saved the NHS more than £200 million by dispensing advice over the phone.

Update: As LC contributor Ellie Mae revealed a few months ago, outsourcing firm Capita is looking to get in on the business.


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About the author
Sunny Hundal is editor of LC. Also: on Twitter, at Pickled Politics and Guardian CIF.
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Reader comments


1. sally

So why don’t the LIE DEMS put a stop to this crap?

The pathetic, weak LIE DEMS have no balls.

2. Chaise Guevara

@1

“So why don’t the LIE DEMS put a stop to this crap?”

Possibly because the only place a party called the LIE DEMS exists is in your head?

3. the a&e charge nurse

John Neilson (Chief Executive NHS Shared Business Services) said moving some NHS services overseas would help in the drive to save £20 billion by 2014.

Call centres in India already handle invoices and other administration for some trusts at a fraction of what it would cost in the UK.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/nhs-wasting-1-billion-a-year-on-supplies-2174875.html

Presumably Neilson’s long term aspiration is to replace lowly paid overseas workers with snazzy little COM-PEW-DERS?

4. Bob B

Where will this new non-emergency NHS telephone service be located?

I ask because of this item in the news today:

NHS should outsource more call centres and offices to India to save millions, says top health adviser
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1343614/NHS-outsource-centres-offices-India-save-millions.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

I must say that I’ve had some excellent computer technical support from callcentres in India. One insight gained from experience which surprised me is that women techies are often better than the men. For a start, their language skills are usually better.

5. buddyhell

Er, shouldn’t the word be “privatised” not “private”? The sentence called for a verb not an adjective.

6. Richard Blogger

@Bob B

Where will this new non-emergency NHS telephone service be located?

Wherever.

Seriously, take for example the current out-of-hours services, that is commissioned by the local PCT. (In my area, the local PCT deliberately commissioned a private company so that the Department of Health – under Labour – would not think that it was unduly preferring the NHS. There were better NHS tenders, but the PCT realised that they would be seen as not using the private sector enough if they awarded the contract to an NHS provider. Dead Ed must do something about the Blairite obsession with privatising the NHS.)

Under Lansley’s plans the out-of-hours service will be commissioned by the GP consortia. As will the new, parallel, expensive, 24/7 service, that will replicate out-of-hours service and GP home visits. (All for the sake of “patient choice”.) In addition,
GPs will commission the local 111 service, and hopefully it will integrate (ha!) with the GP home visits service, out-of-hours service and the bonkers 24/7 service. It makes sense for the same commissioner to commission all four services.

However, GP commissioning as it is being implemented is plain daft. The current GP “pathfinder” consortia cover populations between 18,000 and 630,000. While it makes sense to commission a 111 service (out-of-hours, in-hours and the bonkers 24/7 service) for 630K it is plain ludicrous to commission such a service for a population as small as 18k. Consequently the tiny consortium will piggyback on the commissioning of a nearby larger consortium. Their patients will use the 111 service commissioned by the bigger consortium but the tiny consortium’s commissioners will get no choice. Bonkers. And it cynically takes the piss out of “choice” and “localism”. But we already know that this plan has nothing to do with what is best for patients.

7. Phil Hunt

The NHS seems to get reorganised every 5 or 10 years.

If all these previous reorganisations have made it more efficient, it must be approaching 100% efficiency by now, and doesn’t need reorganising again.

If — as is more likely — previous reorganisations haven’t made it more efficient, this one probably won’t either.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
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