Nurses for Reform Blog

This really is great news.  Dr Peter Carter, of the Royal College of Nursing, is finally beginning to listen to Nurses for Reform and to really understand the NHS reforms.

His understanding that failing hospitals should close is a major step forward.  Sadly, he still seems to think that healthcare provision should still be managed top down by central government rather than develop via market mechanisms, but this  is definitely a start!

Matt James, the Chief Executive of the private hospitals campaign group ‘H5’  recently got it right when commenting on the government’s Health Bill he accused trade unions of having falsely “whipped up accusations of privatisation”

NFR has long argued that the government’s Health Bill does not go far enough. So long as trust hospitals remain in the public sector and are not privatized there cannot by definition be sufficient independence or genuine market driven competition. That is why NFR believes in universal independent provision and wants full-blown hospital privatisation.

If only the trade unions were right. If only H5 would openly campaign for more privatisation!

This is a truly shocking report released yesterday by the NHS Ombudsman, detailing an investigation in to the systematic neglect of elderly patients by the NHS.

I also find it terrible that at the end of this Daily Telegraph article Nigel Crisp, Head of the NHS Confederation, states that he wants the 10 cases that the Ombudsman investigated put in to perspective.  The perspective is that only 10 cases were investigated, the NHS Ombudsman stated that they considered the neglect to be more widespread and that elderly patients with relatively little political voice are being left to die in the most appalling circumstances by a system that will continue to fail them unless radically and speedily reformed.

This story is great news for the UKs education system.  For me it also bodes very well for other state services, including the NHS.  With the government prepared to allow good schools to expand and failing  ones to decline and close, or to be taken over by the successful organisations, the next logical step would be to allow the same process to be applied to healthcare and hospitals.

It is also the view of Nurses for Reform that this is a historic opportunity for the failing institutions to be taken over by the independent sector.  It would be great to see failing hospitals regenerated and run as not-for-profit mutuals that would truly benefit the local communities.

This is a truly shocking story reporting the views of the Chief Medical Officer of Wales Dr Tony Jewel.  He has stated  that people should be banned from smoking in their own homes to protect children from the effects of passive smoking.

His remarks give me real cause for concern.  First, there has been a wealth of research questioning the so-called dangers of passive smoking. Second, this is a gross invasion of private property.  What does he propose is done to enforce this ban? Government CCTV cameras in everyone’s home? !

Last Friday I spoke at the 2010 European Resource Bank, organised by the Taxpayers Alliance.

This is my speech.

I would like to begin by thanking Matthew Elliott and the staff of the Taypayers Alliance for inviting me to speak at this year’s European Resource Bank, and also to congratulate them on its success.

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I am the Director of Nurses for Reform.

I am also a Senior Nurse with more than 25 years experience working in both the NHS and the UK’s private healthcare sector.

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In addressing the subject of this session “Campaigning for healthcare reform” I would like to make several key points.

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In its campaigning, Nurses for Reform aims to influence opinion formers – academics, journalists and politicians – who in turn inform and influence the voting public.

This is done by placing articles in the press.

Media interviews.

Blogs.

Speeches.

And by networking at events like this one today.

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As a libertarian organisation, for NFR healthcare will only truly respond to consumers and customers, ageing or otherwise, when we get the state out of medicine.

When Margaret Thatcher was prime minister she privatized telephones.

Back then, no-one had ever heard of the mobile.

But look at the glories of where we have got to today.

The market is a process of discovery.

And NFR wants to unleash its potential across health and medicine.

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Today, sadly, there is no country in the world that has a great healthcare system, because there is no system in the world that is built on a genuine free market.

People talk of state and private medicine.

They talk of state and private healthcare sectors.

Yet, all these systems rely on professions that themselves rest on monopoly legislative favour.

In this country, to be a doctor you have to be registered with the General Medical Council.

To be a nurse, you have to be registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

These are the underlying monopolies that we find in all countries.

These are the state monopolies that stifle training.

That lower standards.

That undermine innovation…

…This is the statism that kills people and that means our all healthcare systems cannot be as good as we want them to be.

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When it comes to America, not to mention other countries, Nurses for Reform is clear.

Demonopolise the professions.

Open up the whole system so people can voluntarily co-operate and coordinate better.

Deregulate insurance.

Move away from an imposed, employer based system.

Bring down barriers to entry.

Scrap the pseudo-science of State Sposored Health Technology Assessments.

I could go on…

In America, as in all other countries, we have got to stop the communism!

If the people in this room really are really serious about wanting good and glorious healthcare in the 21^st century, then we have to be clear ourselves what it will means to talk about a genuine, free market.

Thank you.

A report this month has shown that the number of complaints against the NHS has risen to its highest level yet at more that 101,000.

What astonishes me is that while seeing this and other evidence of NHS failure bodies like Unison are still claiming that the NHS is successful and that more money will solve all of its problems.

The truth is that money has been poured in to the NHS for decades and it has gradually and systematically failed its customers.

This is a very encouraging story from the BBC reporting David Willett’s announcement that the UK’s Coalition Government are going to allow the establishment of more private universities.

The first, run by BPP will expand it’s courses to include the training of healthcare professionals such as nurses.  NFR welcomes this move as evidence that the Government are following yet more of our policy ideas, for we have long believed that nurse education and the definition of what constitutes being a nurse should be set free from government and the Nursing and Midwifery Council.  It is imperative that this new university is allowed to set its own curriculum for nurse training and set it’s own standards.  I am sure that Foundation Trusts and hospitals from the independent sector will be more than happy to work with an institution that has high standards and that trains nurses who provide high quality patient care.

The unions that are decrying this initiative are peddling pure fallacy when they say that:

“Encouraging the growth of private providers and making it easier for them to call themselves universities would be a disaster for the UK’s academic reputation. It would also represent a huge threat to academic freedom and standards.”

For in truth, if this university wants to survive it will have to provide and maintain exceptional standards to retain its reputation and to continue to attract the best students.  Just as the pioneer of private universities in the UK,  The University of Buckingham has done for many decades.

Following the success of papers I have written for organisations such as The Heritage Foundation, I have recently been asked to write a new paper for the Hoover Institution.

The Hoover Institution is one of the United States most prestigious academic think tanks and closely affiliated to Stanford University.  The institution greatly influences public policy development globally  with its ongoing research agenda and I am very honoured to be asked to write for them.

This is a great piece in the Daily Mail by Dr Karol Sikora.  In it he points out that NHS patients are being put at risk by hospitals using untested doctors to ensure that they achieve government targets.

What is interesting here is the contrast with the UK’s independent sector.  Patient safety is paramount to the independent sector, as harming their patients harms their reputation and this would ultimately destroy their business.  The independent sector are much more careful of the staff that they employ or allow admitting rights to their hospitals, Consultants wishing to have admitting rights to independent sector hospitals are subject to strict scrutiny and peer review and only allowed in when it is trusted that they will bring benefit to the organisation.

The problem with Government setting targets for NHS hospitals it that the target not the patient becomes the priority, as NHS managers strive to please their political paymasters they lose sight of the damage that is being done to the people who should really matter, the patients!