‘We need to be ready for two years of recession’

11 February 2009

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Alistair Darling says economic growth will return this year. But Alan Johnson, the normally chirpy Health Secretary, tells Fraser Nelson that Britain needs to brace itself

His answer is fascinating. Contracts were cancelled, he said, because they were not needed: the very threat of competition unblocked NHS bottlenecks. ‘When you introduce these [private] centres, you find that performance suddenly zooms in the local NHS hospitals that had previously said they couldn’t do any more hip replacements,’ he says. ‘So you had to decide if taxpayers’ money would be well spent on a lovely spanking new [private] centre that very few people would use.’

All this is testimony, one might argue, to the power of competition. So why not have more of it? Stir them up even further? ‘We’re not doing these things for the sake of it, as an ideological challenge,’ he says. ‘We’re only doing what is necessary for the health service. So the capacity issue is still central to this.’ If he thinks the Blairites were being ideological in the pursuit of the internal market, he does not say so in these terms. But it is hard to think he was referring to the Tories.

Instead of accusing Mr Johnson of caving in to the unions (a charge made by a few of the Blairites), Andrew Lansley, his Tory counterpart, is attacking from the other direction. The central Tory proposal is to grant operational independence to the NHS. Mr Lansley says that the NHS has had too many re-organisations, and it would have an independent board under the Tories to ensure it is not so disrupted in the future. This, Mr Johnson says, runs the risk of leaving the health service dangerously unaccountable.

‘The NHS, love it and bless it, concentrates on issues that it sees as priorities,’ he says ‘For example, a clinical discussion can go on in hospitals saying mixed sex accommodation is not so important. But the public feel it is important.’ Last month, he gave the NHS 14 months to have men and women in different wards — an order which he says a Tory health secretary would be unable to make. ‘It is hot breath down their necks that makes things change,’ he says.

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Kram Ekosum

February 12th, 2009 7:03pm Report this comment

An interesting man is Alan Johnson. Very slick politician, completely underated by some. He must be following almost identical policies of his predecessor Hewitt but he actually has some "witt", unlike her. NHS reforms are hardly new and most of the ideas have been centralising until Blair & acolytes suggested ALBs. Their sentiment is correct assuming true objective independence is maintained from politicians. Arguments about 'accountability' are the typical politicians wheeze to maintain their control freakery! Currently politicians are amongst the least accountable members of society when trouble strikes. Agree that Cameron can seem arrogant especially at weekly PMQs. However Cameron is also one of the first politicians since Blair who gets visibly publically upset, giving you the impression that he actually really cares(is it just good acting?). Polls are notoriously unreliable but if the economic gloom persists on New Labour's watch it is only fair that the (un)government loses. That's democracy....

Mrs Josephine Hyde-Hartley

February 12th, 2009 7:12pm Report this comment

Yes but it's no good clinging to nurse when nurse feels like she's being torn apart, with one face to the management ( eg "targets" or this increasingly inappropriate excuse of " security") and one face to the patient. It seems to me that citizens need to make that metaphorical nurse turn round to face us fair and square in order to support our individual civil and human rights first- as a matter of public interest. Protection of our needs as patients or citizens or anything else starts most noteably with our being able to safeguard each others rights to decline to provide consent, in whatever market without fear, favour or further explanation. I think it’s absolutely necessary to remind any untoward effectors of so called executive powers that so many disgraceful burdens which reflect badly on everyone could and should be nipped in the bud at the local level eg when we raise our concerns appropriately as individual citizens, employees or whatever by working in partnership to share perceived risks. I call this approach RISC (see NHS Best research for best health strategy). It's a seriously good idea if we’re interested in equally respectful and dignified new ways of working and may even help create new jobs.

Brian Clarke

February 13th, 2009 1:30pm Report this comment

We should not forget that was Mr Johnson who capitulated, in his pervious incarnation, to the Unions, allowing them early retirement as the expense of the Private sector. He has done almost as much damage to Pensions as Gordon Brown's £110bn Pensions raid. He is a Big State man - just the sort of person whom the country does not currently need.

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