Jeremy Hunt accused of covering up critical NHS report

[blacksunday]

Health secretary has withheld damning management study by former M&S boss Stuart Rose for political reasons, claims Tory MP Sarah Wollaston

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt faces allegations of a politically motivated cover-up after the Tory head of the health select committee said his department’s refusal to publish a damning report on NHS management before the general election was not acceptable.

Sarah Wollaston, a former GP who took over the chairmanship of the committee last year, said it was not reasonable or right that a report by former Marks & Spencer boss and Tory peer Stuart Rose, which was commissioned by Hunt a year ago and completed in December, was being kept from the public.

Senior government officials have made it known that Rose’s report is strongly critical of management systems in the NHS – findings that are potentially damaging for the Tories before an election in which the NHS is centre stage.

There are also suggestions that the report implies that the government’s own NHS reforms, steered through by Hunt’s predecessor Andrew Lansley, may have made matters worse.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/07/jeremy-hunt-accused-cover-up-critical-nhs-report-tory-mp

I read this too and have very mixed feelings. I am a very senior manager in the NHS and have a clinical background. I see bad management and I see poor clinical practice, I see and feel as system bowing under the weight of political interference and unrealistic public expectation. I was required to listen to Stuart Rose discuss leadership and management as part of his review. His complete arrogance and lack of understanding that the NHS is different to M&S was breathtaking. But given that he has been asked to do a report it should be published. It will slate NHs managers and more of us will leave because why we came was not to make sure that people got the right denier tights or that prawn Mayo sandwiches were fresh and the team work that we see and support when the NHS Is fantastic, when my staff managerial and clinical go way way more than the extra mile is so undervalued I no longer have the energy to fight. The Tories want to break the NHS, they are succeeding.

I'm confused, are the Tories being blamed for holding the report back to protect the NHS managers when it is a NHS H.R. matter to be sorted out constructively over time, rather than be "weaponised" Miliband style, before an election, blaming the other party for mis-management in the first place?

March 2010; ”Rise in NHS managers outstrips doctors and nurses”

“The number of managers in the NHS has risen at double the rate of doctors and nurses under Labour, official figures have disclosed.”
www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7520408/Rise-in-NHS-managers-outstrips-doctors-and-nurses.html

"The NHS workforce in England has now reached a record high of 1.43 million, up by 30 per cent on 1999."

"The majority are qualified clinical staff but the fastest increase has been among managers which has outstripped any other group, data from the NHS Information Centre has found."

"In the last decade the number of managers has increased by 84 per cent to reach 44,660. This is an average increase of 6.3%per year."

"In comparison the number of clinical staff has risen by a third in a decade with an average annual rise of just 3% per cent."

There is no doubt that 'productivity' for all the money Blair threw at the NHS did not rise/translate to front line care as it should have done, probably as Mr Rose is pointing out, but as poster Aaaassssses points out, the NHS is not a 'kin factory.

Therefore a large part of such a report may not be seen as NHS 'constructive'.

The Coalition has bragged that over the past 5-years much of the management 'overcapacity' has been swapped for several thousand more front line staff i.e doctors and nurses, but maybe there is some blame there.

But based on the 13-year hollicks prior to 2010, I'd suggest far from being frightened of releasing such a report (that if 'weaponised' could suggest Labour went for quantity over quality as so often was the case in their public sector recruitment policy), Mr Hunt is taking some aspects of the report on board, throwing out others, and looking for solutions, NOT political point scoring. IMO.

Well, Hunt does seem to be on a roll.....(not that I'm in the habit of linking to DM, but here goes)

I-misled-MPs-40m-Savile-bill-admits-Hunt-claimed-paedophile-s-charities-pay-victims-compensation-actually-s-taxpayer.html

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is to issue a humiliating apology after The Mail on Sunday exposed him for misleading the House of Commons over who will foot the huge compensation bill for victims of Jimmy Savile.

In a statement to the House last week, Mr Hunt pledged that Savile’s charities are responsible for paying up to £40 million due. But this newspaper can reveal that the charities are exempt – and that it is the NHS which is liable.

The Mail on Sunday has also learnt that a further bill, which may eventually be as large, will be met by BBC licence fee payers.

I wonder how long he thought he could keep that under his hat?

WhistlingPot ..... and that Mr Hunt seemed such a nice boy, NO WONDER Mr Burnham's gasted is all of a flabber.

"Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham said: ‘It is of great concern that Jeremy Hunt could give such misleading information to victims and the Commons on a matter of this significance. He needs to return to the Commons at first opportunity to apologise to victims and correct the record.’

But while we are quoting Daily Mail articles, wasn't Andy Burnham the last Health Minister, so who was responsible for covering up the Mid Staffs Trust hospital deaths, didn't Mr Burnham have to apologise for that far more serious matter? or did he not bother?
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2363808/Labours-NHS-denial-machine-Experts-verdict-ministers-covered-problems-failing-hospitals-thousands-died.html

As the 2015 choice looks to be that nice Mr Hunt, or the nice Mr Burnham and his bare faced lies that the Conservatives 'privatised' the NHS, when out of the under 6% of NHS contracts with the private sector, nearly 5% were made under a Labour government on pee-poor terms - it seems to me we have to judge them both on the LEVEL of 'porkies'.

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8779598/Private-Finance-Initiative-where-did-all-go-wrong.html

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9356942/Blair-defends-PFI-as-NHS-trusts-face-bankruptcy.html

What a shower, but a choice of two.

It's enough to make you vote green!

In a red jockey vs blue jockey, winner-takes-all, two 'orse race? Bless.

More likely to turn people purple with rage, but what am I saying, that nag changes direction on the hoof, possibly due to liquid substance abuse, so even in the final race, may fall at the final hurdle. lol

As my old mother said to my old dad (both departed) when they first got married and he asked her if if she wanted a 'two way bet' on the Grand National, and she replied "won't it get tired on the way back?".

Naive but true as told.

There was I saying elsewhere that in old age our families grey cells go before our heart valves, thinking back, the jury is still out if in situ in the first place. Bummer.