Evidance based and Skeptic about NHS reforms

I must admit I had not a paid a huge amount of attention to the proposed (actually already occurring) NHS reforms. I attended a Westminister Skeptics meeting along with Chris (I was in London that evening anyway) and now I am scared. These are not reforms, the NHS will cease to exist.

The Speaker was Prof Colin Leys and he presented an evidence based case against the NHS reforms. My short summary is

• The UK has the best clinical outcomes in the world
• For those outcomes it gives the best value for money
• MONITOR will be unaccountable to anyone
• The scope for corporate fraud will vastly outweigh the savings
• Top up fees will become normal
• EU competition laws mean there is no going back as the cost of compensating companies involved for lost earnings would be prohibitive.
• The NHS will cease to exist as a legal body
• Medical training in the Uk will fall apart
• Where England goes the other devolved parts of the UK will have to follow.

Why? Why is Andrew Lansley bulldozing through  a set of reforms for which there is no electoral mandate, will provide worse patient care and cost more and may make both the Lib-Dems and Tories unelectable in 2015? The 3 of us sitting at a table during the break could only come up with 2 possible underlying reasons

• Ideology
• Someone is getting a back hander