Health and Social Care a deserving issue to trouble a prime minister

Yesterday saw Government Health Secretary Andrew Lansley address the House of Commons over growing concerns regarding the direction of his Health and Social Care Bill, despite the Bill having already passed its Commons vote, in an attempt to calm the spread of anxiety and discontent over health service reforms that are being questioned by an increasing number of leading health professionals.

Lansley, in his Commons statement, was keen to highlight some of the positive reactions to the Coalition’s policy that he felt had been overlooked by those seeking to capitalise on the growing discontent, that he accused of being ‘misplaced concerns… based on misrepresentations’ while pointing out that 90% of local councils have so far approached the Government to discuss how they can ‘lead the way’ in embracing the new policy.

Despite emphasising these strengths, however, Lansley’s tone was also a conciliatory one, seeking to embrace health professionals’ concerns by promising to ‘pause, listen and engage’, then being jeered by the Labour benches when claiming his statement represented ‘a natural break in the bill’ as opposed to being a step he had been pressured into making. The Health Secretary did though have some bite of his own for the opposition, reminding them of the £250m of health service funds that were never directed into the areas the previous Government had claimed it would, while insisting that Coalition measures would lead to competition on quality not on price, welcoming any willing provider rather than favouring deals with certain companies as had previously been the case.

After less than a year of Coalition politics, it turns out that the issue proving most divisive between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats is not that of economic austerity, but in fact NHS and social care reform, over which the leaders of both parties have this week been compelled to direct their efforts into assisting their colleague in achieving more wide-scale support for the reforms. Assurances given in the Commons yesterday were furthered today in a media-friendly visit to Frimley Hospital, attended by both Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg as well as Lansley himself

Pressure has steadily been growing upon the Prime Minister since the Liberal Democrats announced their opposition to a number of the NHS plans at their Spring Conference, aided in the media by Cameron’s pre-election commitment to avoid a ‘top-down reorganisation of the NHS’. Today’s hospital visit also included the announcement of a ‘Listening Forum’ that the PM clearly hopes more service users and professionals will approach to voice their concerns rather than adding to any more negative media momentum on the issue.

Depending on what media sources we pay attention to we can, on the one hand, infer that the PM and his Health Minister have come very close to, or else already have, fell out over the Health and Social Care Bill; on the other that Cameron is keen for the Conservative side of the Coalition to be seen as the champion of NHS reforms and is concerned that, in the long-term, the Liberal Democrats will seek to gain credit from being responsible for usurping the Conservative-led direction. In whatever light we may judge the political mood and the Bill itself, the healthcare sector might be reflecting with some irritation over the Government’s naivety on thinking health reform would not be such a contentious issue, having spent much of the run up to last year’s General Election highlighting the reality of an ageing populace and the multiple complications the NHS and related services face in securing consistent standards over the coming years and even decades. Whether or not the anxieties of the last few weeks are justified, Health and Social Care is a worthy issue on which to insist that Governments do not tread lightly.