It is rumoured that Gordon Brown will give the NHS independence from political control in his first 100 days in power. No doubt he is hoping that this will be right up there with his decision to give the Bank of England independence in 1997. Would this be a good move for the NHS or another smoke screen? Please leave your comments below and/or vote in the poll.
Topics:
Comments
This is devolution of responsibility, not power
Gordon has talked about his plans in this regard before. What he means is that he sets up a quango to assume the current powers and responsibilities of the Minister. The Minister (probably the Prime Minister, knowing Gordon) gives them their instructions, and they are responsible for delivering.
As you say, it is supposedly based on his "successful" "devolution of power" to the Bank of England. The problem (or good news, from my point of view) is that, with the Bank's failure to stem inflation, we are starting to see the cracks in this model.
This is not about devolving power. That would mean handing power, funding (income and outgoing) and responsibility to individual hospitals (or schools) and letting them make their own choices to compete in an open market. This is about relocating the centralised power from someone accountable (the Minister) to someone unaccountable (the quango), so the government can disclaim responsibility for the failures of the central-planning approach.
This is not a step in the right direction, it is a positively dangerous move, particularly as the backlash to this supposed devolution when it inevitably fails to deliver, will be calls for yet more centralisation. Centralisation dressed up as devolution is more dangerous than no devolution at all.