Nick Clegg's Duplicity Reigns Again! This Time On PCTs & SHA's

More Lies From Clegg

This morning on the Andrew Marr show Nick Clegg was put on the spot about his manifesto promises on the NHS, Marr accused Clegg of not mentioning this radical reform in the manifesto, the Tory manifesto and later the coalition agreement. Clegg said the manifesto did say that they would radically reform the NHS and that the manifesto said they would scrap the Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs).

I checked the Liberal Democrat 2010 manifesto to see if it indeed contained information on the kind of radical changes now being hastily pushed through by the Tories.

Liberal Manifesto

Page 40 (my comments are in red italics)

Cut the Department of Health by half abolish unnecessary quangos such as Connecting For Health and cut the budgets of the rest, scrap Strategic Health Authorities and seek to limit the pay and bonuses of top NHS managers so that none are paid more than the Prime Minister.

Clegg has made much about what his manifesto said, so why hasn't he managed to reduce Andrew Lansley's Department of Health by half?
It does say they would scrap SHAs, but does not say what they would replace them with, specifically is does NOT mention replacing SHAs with GP Consortia.

Page 43 (Primary Care Trusts)

Empowering local communities to improve health services through elected Local Health Boards, which will take over the role of Primary Care Trust boards in commissioning care for local people, working in co-operation with local councils. Over time, Local Health Boards should be able to take on greater responsibility for revenue and resources to allow local people to fund local services which need extra money.
Where does it say here that the Liberal Democrats would introduce consortia and private health care providers into the system? Where does it say that it would introduce the external market into the NHS pitting surgery against surgery and hospital against hospital? In fact here is what they say on the  matter of GP funding, (again extremely vague).

Giving Local Health Boards the freedom to commission services for local people from a range of different types of provider, including for example staff co-operatives, on the basis of a level playing field in any competitive tendering – ending any current bias in favour of private providers.

What he is in fact talking about here is the thorny issue of preferred providers, but in the majority of cases the NHS itself is the preferred provider, if you take it away from them, then it will go directly into the hands of "any willing provider" which means your service will become subject to market competition, cash strapped GPs may go for the cheapest, but the cheapest will not necessarily be the best and will not necessarily mean value for money.

What they say they would remove PCTs and replace then with an elected Local Health Board, what is the difference between that and a PCT? One is elected an one isn't, it is just words that I am afraid mean absolutely nothing.
In fact this whole chapter is just weak wishy washy Lib Dem speak, it is extremely vague about what it would do, it does NOT say that they will take the entire £80 billion health care budget and give it to GPs, in fact it is so vague, the most radical reforms of the NHS in its entire 63 year history are undertaken in just 15 vague sentences, this covers service providers and GO funding and scrapping SHAs and PCTs. It is laughable and completely childish.

And once again the Liberal Democrat leader is caught out in the act of duplicity, but this is more than just a broken political promise, this is not just about a manifesto that is not worth the paper it is written on, it is about the actual lives of the nation and Clegg should not be able to make claims like this and lie through his back teeth, it is simply not good enough.

This is about our NHS and Nick Clegg is helping vote through its complete dismantling and privatisation, which has never before been attempted anywhere else in the world and certainly not in the 63 year history of the NHS.
Ask Clegg why he is doing thism he will waffle what he hopes to sound like patient choice and GP care providing, all the warm words, but they are just words and they hide the cold hard facts that the Tories helped by the Liberal Democrats are privatising our NHS, they are not telling us they are doing it, they know this would cause outrage, but make no mistake this is what they are doing. Look over this blog you will see that I have written much on this, trying to warn people.
There is absolutely no reason to totally and radically reform the NHS, it was not an election issue because satisfaction with the NHS was at an all time high, which is a far cry from where the Tories left It almost dead on its feet in 1997!