Nurses for Reform

I've just stumbled across this fine manifesto at Nurses for Reform:

NFR believes it is no longer acceptable for nurses to sign up to careers in public sector healthcare only to find they are unable to access the resources and autonomy they need to do their work. It rejects bland egalitarianism in favour of competition. And it believes in people - not politics.

NFR believes that the government should re-cast the NHS as simply a funder of last resort alongside an insurance and self-funder based market. It believes that the state should set free – through a range of full blown for and not-for-profit privatisations – all NHS hospitals. Moreover, NFR believes that all hospitals in Europe should be allowed to openly compete with each other. If a hospital fails in this market it should either close or be taken over by a more successful organisation.

Significantly, NFR believes that all hospitals - as independent entities - should be allowed to pick and choose from a dynamic and fluid labour market. The totally counter-productive idea of national pay agreements should be abandoned forthwith...

Today, too many nursing trade unions and representative bodies fail nurses because they invariably stick to old and out dated agendas. Instead of championing substantive reform - and in doing so, championing the rights of consumers - they default to short term platitudes such as demanding more tax payers’ money or new forms of legislative favour. Such an approach is not only disastrous for nurses but it is catastrophic for patients...

I particularly like the closing sideswipe:

For NFR America does not represent a free market healthcare system. It has a highly planned, regulated and government funded system which takes - through state programmes such as Medicaid and Medicare – a historically greater proportion of GDP than our own NHS.

This is much the same as Health Minister Dick's manifesto, and the bit I've boldened is much the same as what I have always said, e.g. yesterday at LFAT:

The NHS is two completely separate issues, which the Lefties in particular like to conflate and the Tories are too thick to counter it.

Issue 1 is how healthcare should be funded. I’ve nothing against ‘the taxpayer’ funding a large part of it, e.g. via vouchers (quite how large that part should be is open to debate); with voluntary private payments out of your own pocket or out of private insurance.

Issue 2 is who should provide healthcare. As we know, The State is pretty **** at providing anything apart from ‘core functions’ (which are always worth doing, however badly). Ergo healthcare should be provided by competing providers.

A bit like in most European countries. Or possibly New Zealand.

Where the Lefties have hijacked the debate to say that healthcare has to be provided by The State because IF NOT then poor people won’t be able to afford it – that’s actually only addressing the funding side (and I tend to agree with them on this) AND NOT the provision side (and I hotly disagree with them that The State should be the main or sole provider).