GP led commissioning?

The great work of fantasy fiction the novel called Liberating the NHS was supposed to give GP’s the chance to commission services for their patients. Remember such words as these:

“The headquarters of the NHS will not be the in the Department of Health or in the new NHS Commissioning Board but instead, power will be given to the front-line clinicians and patients.

The headquarters will be in the consulting room and the clinic.”

A piece in this weekend’s press shows how much of a fantasy this was. Have a look at the diagram and see where GPs fit in. Look at the mountain of beaurocracy that has been created something that we felt was self evident in the great liberation war. It looks like the headquaters has not moved to the consulting room and the clinic but has dug itself deeper into existing layers of beaurocracy and entrenched themselves more firmly than ever merely changing their names.

Although some of these new and increased layers of bureaucracy are set to disappear (cluster PCTs/SHAs, PCTs/SHAs) you can bet that the manpower will not and will continue to function as command and control organs rather than liberators.

It makes the Soviet style control of healthcare even more powerful than under Za Nu Labour and as anyone at the coalface knows the names may have changed but the same idiots are still in control.

So much for Marshal DC’s claim that

'We are not reorganising the bureaucracy of the NHS, we are abolishing the bureaucracy of the NHS.'

Really?

As the song of all governments goes Things can only get better . . .

Praise be to the Party for our liberation. The chains get heavier with each day that passes . . .