Andrew Lansley, are you listening?

I've sent the following comment to Andrew Lansley's listening exercise on his NHS reforms:

"I have fundamental concerns about these proposed changes to the NHS and I think Andrew Lansley needs to go back to the drawing board.

For example, I am concerned that proposals to make competition the priority within the NHS would undermine our health service. The NHS should focus on cooperating to provide quality patient care, not on competition. The role of the regulator, "Monitor", should reflect this.

It can be demonstrated that the introduction of competition in the provision of public services, such as the tendering out of Local Authority services, has not led to cost savings, greater efficiencies or improvements in services but instead has resulted in reduced levels of service, waste of resources and increased bureaucracy. The ethos of the 'market' contradicts the ethos of 'public service' and, if introduced, will inevitably erode the government’s “duty to provide” a comprehensive health service.

Dropping this duty would erode the foundations of the NHS and would lead to the 'cherry picking' by private companies of NHS services. Such “cherry picking” must be fully ruled out, and the mechanism for preventing it must be clearly established."

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Athlete - Wires.