Douglas Carswell's Blog

How should we run the NHS? We need a new culture of patient power

"Don't play party politics with the NHS!" shouted a Labour MP during the Commons debate this afternoon.  In a rather partisan way.

Okay.  So how ought we to run it?  Should we carry on with things as they are, despite what we now know about Mid Staffs and the rest?  After discovering how patients were left to die in their own filth, I imagine most people would like to see change.

Maybe that means we should leave it to the experts?  Have the health service run by a sort of FSA, but for health care rather than banks...   I'm not sure that worked out to well for financial services. 

The Keogh report today has revealed that in a dozen of so hospitals across the country, thousands of patients were treated badly.  Why? 

It is not about money.  Page 16 of Sir Bruce's report says "Factors that might have been expected – and are frequently claimed - to impact on high mortality, such as access to funding .... were not found to be statistically-correlated with the results of these trusts." 

It's the management.  Parts of the NHS are badly run. 

Reading the Keogh report, it struck me that perhaps one of the reasons why parts of the NHS have failed patients is precisely because there is not enough accountability to them.  When patients - or the loved one's they left behind - complained, the system closed ranks.  Anyone criticising the NHS is shouted down, attacked for supposedly attacking those who work for the NHS.

That has to change if the NHS is to get better.  Our health service needs to be run first and foremost for the patient.  

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