Health and Social Care Bill – Guest Blog 

Tom Lake, long time Labour and Health campaigner writes:

Parliament has just published the latest version of the Government’s Health and Social Care Bill.   The Bill starts out by naming a number of highly desirable duties placed on the Secretary of State for Health and then proceeds to deny him any powers to carry out these duties lest he interfere with the autonomy of any provider of the services.

The bill, currently with 472 pages, is substantially in the form of amendments to the National Health Service Act 2006, which currently has 286 pages.  No statement of the 2006 Act as it will be after the application of these amendments is provided – probably for fear that the public might find out what it is all about.

There is no straightforward order in which the present Bill can be read. For example, at section 13, subsection (8) the Bill prescribes a new paragraph (zza) to be inserted before paragraph za of section 272, subsection 6 of the 2006 Act (are you following me?).  But the 2006 Act has no such paragraph. Paragraph za of section 272 of the 2006 Act is actually inserted by section 179 subsection 8 of the present Bill (got that?) . So section 179 , subsection 8 of the Bill has to be read before section 13, subsection 8. In short ,it is a jumble. To place such a muddle before the sovereign and ask for her assent seems the height of disrespect.

The Government’s contribution to the health of the nation is indeed guided by  the maxim, “laughter is the best medicine”. But I fear we shall all be crying before too long.

 

Vote NHS

Doctors are proposing to stand NHS candidates against the Lib Dems

I have been wondering lately how far the people of this country will allow an unelected, unrepresentative, dictatorial Government push them before they react. It seems that in the medical profession at least that moment is, potentially, not far away!

Click on this link and judge for yourself.

Schools not for profit

Keep Reading’s schools for Reading’s communities, says Labour

The drive by Tory Education Secretary Michael Gove to make schools become ‘academies’, run by a myriad of private organisations and responsible only to him as Secretary of State, has come under fierce attack from Reading Labour Party, with education lead Cllr. John Ennis saying the Government’s aim is to privatise education and destroy the accountability of schools to their local communities.

“Mr Gove started,” he says, “by saying that all schools judged ‘outstanding’ ought to become academies, but his officials are now coming to me and demanding that schools that are not reaching their targets become academies!  What Mr Gove really seems to want by the end of this Parliament is to take over all the country’s 22,000 schools, creating the most centralised education system ever in this country or any other.

“Reading’s Labour Council,” Cllr. Ennis goes on, “is proud of the work we have done in partnership with heads, teachers, Governors, parents, pupils and the wider community to drive up education standards in Reading – our schools are getting their best results ever – and of the huge investment that Labour made in school buildings and equipment.   Of course we know there are some schools where progress has not been as fast as it should. We are committed to working with those schools to get it right.  We believe we can do that better, working locally with heads, teachers and parents than a set of remote civil servants up in Whitehall, and  much better than the various private companies springing up to grab a piece of the action. For all Mr Gove’s spin, there is no evidence that academies as a whole perform better than schools that remain with the local authority.

“At the next meeting of the Council,” Cllr. Ennis goes on, “I will be moving a resolution opposing Mr Gove’s grab on our schools, and as and when he targets individual schools my colleagues and I will meet with Governors and parents in the hope of agreeing a common response.    Like with the NHS, this drive of Mr Gove’s is something that wasn’t in the Tory election manifesto, but that didn’t stop him pushing the legislation through Parliament on an emergency basis, with LibDem support, within weeks of taking office.”

We believe in Reading schools for Reading’s communities – that’s true localism – and will be campaigning on that basis.