Medicine Men

The Government's latest proposal on privatising the NHS, which is to be sharply distinguished from any similar, identical or otherwise indistinguishable proposals on privatising the NHS which may be put forward by Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, has been criticised by the chairman of the British Medical Association consultants' committee, Jonathan Fielden. In yet another radical new initiative, precision-tooled and scalpel-honed to make the NHS the best NHS in the world subject to those economic considerations which the Government may consider to be economically considerable, New New Labour has issued a document called Developing the NHS Performance Regime, ordering health authorities to "identify failing trusts in their area, remove failing board members and bring in new management, including from other hospitals or the private sector". This is vintage New New Labour: if it isn't working, shuffle the suits about. "As the prime minister made clear in his speech in January, we will not tolerate under-performance in the NHS," quoth the placebo that walks like a person, Ben Bradshaw. Under-performance by the private sector in such trivial matters as national transport, the penal system and hospital hygiene are presumably beyond Bradshaw's remit: one of the many convenient features of privatisation when the issue is considered from the point of view of those who really matter.