Government falls at the first hurdle of healthcare reform!

This story from the BBC announcing a reprieve for the Food Standards Agency (FSA) is, if true, very worrying for a number of reasons.

Not only will the Government have gone back on its promise of abolishing Quangos, but it will also have fallen soundly at the first hurdle in its bid to reform the NHS. For this move will send out signals to Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) that if you make enough noise to justify your existence and roll with the punches to reinvent yourselves, you will be saved.

One can imagine the mutterings in the SHAs and PCTs about being seen to support the changes as long as they do not go so far as too get rid of any “our” jobs or layers of bureaucracy!

It is vital that Andrew Lansley and his health team recognise the forces that they are up against. They have lost the first battle against the FSA, they must now regroup and begin to close down all avenues that could allow the SHAs and the PCTs to have any chance of survival. Otherwise all talk of reform and the ‘Big Society’ will be dealt a blow from the outset.

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