'Government prepared to defy order to publish risk assessment of NHS changes.'

[Solopower]

Just heard on R4 News. Is this true? If it is, how do they justify keeping a risk assessment secret?

I would have thought it was too late, even if the risk assessment contains information which point to the fact that the reforms were harmful, how can the legislation be changed after the fact.

True, Minimathsmouse. But if it does contain something explosive it might serve to shed a light on why this govt does the things it does, and how far they will go to achieve their ideological changes.

I've just heard it explained on the radio: they want to keep it secret because if they don't people working on similar reports in the future won't feel able to say what they think.

But why should they feel they have to protect the government? How is that freedom of speech?

Have you a link?

Sorry, no - I just heard about it on the radio.

I posted on here because I thought there must be another side to what I had heard, and in the past, there have been people who have been very clued in to what's been happening in the NHS. Edam, for instance.

Found this link to the 6 o'clock news on Radio 4:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01h29n9

Edam has been posting today in the "in the news" section about Tory Privatisation, apparently the police are on the match on Thursday. It just gets worse.

Thanks Solo, will have a listen.

That worries me too. A private police force. It doesn't get much worse.

I expect the risk assessment story will be in tomorrow's papers.

Surely it's illegal for the govt to defy a court order? Or maybe it wasn't a court order?

It was a veto, legally exercised by the govt. Here:

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/08/nhs-risk-register-publication-vetoed

The whole point of risk assessments is that the people doing them get free rein to explore worst case scenarios, go to extremes of 'what ifs' and don't have to be confined to realistic averages. It's to stress test the proposals. Ministers have to consider the risk assessments but, ultimately, steer a middle course of pros and cons and sell in something realistic. Mostly 'pros' obviously. Take the risk assessment in isolation and it's going to look like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with stethoscopes. The Opposition know that, of course. It's very cynical politics.

Of course we the little people would be far to hysterical should we ever have access to it's contents This government isn't transparent and they are prepared to use any means to hide their true intentions and their contempt for the British public.

The reaction is already hysterical on the basis of a modest amount of leaked information. I'm not quite as patronising as you minima to refer to 'little people' but, taken out of context, almost anything can be made to look damning

'Ministers have to consider the risk assessments but, ultimately, steer a middle course of pros and cons and sell in something realistic.'

What I hate, what I really hate, is the way the govt feels it has to 'sell' us something. Why can't they just tell us the pros and cons and let us decide?

The media need to be more responsible as a whole too, but there are some impressive reporters and commentators who would be only too pleased to make sense of it all for us, without putting it through the whole spin cycle.

I am a risk manager (and used to work in the NHS) and risk registers are not stress testing exercises, they are simply a list of concerns together with a rating of the potential consequence and likelihood of each concern (ideally both threats and opportunities, but in practice mostly threats) together with an action plan to reduce the level of risk where required.

They should not be highly contentious if written well and they should be subject to Freedom of Information requests because the public has a right to know how their public services are managed.

I've seen risk registers released and reported on in the media and nothing terrible happened as a result. It's not as if people outside of the inner circles who are protecting this sort of information are oblivious to the potential problems, and if bad things happen then the managers will be blamed regardless with many commentators saying I told you so/you should have known.

Yes, it doesn't seem to make sense, even from the govt's point of view, to suppress this information, because it makes it look as if they have something to hide, and they will also get blamed when things go wrong anyway, along with the managers.

It would be so much braver and more honest, and it would show some respect for us if they would share the info.

When the NHS is fully privatised, will they have to release this sort of information to the shareholders when they want to make changes?

The power to use non-police for police functions was actually brought in by Labour in the Police Reform Act 2002, which gave Chief Constables the right to confer police powers on other individuals. Just like private provision in NHS was brought in by them.

I find it endlessly fascinating how so much that is routinely blamed on the Tories (almost as a knee jerk - even closure of grammars in one memorable thread, and fines for unauthorised termtime absence in another one today) was actually done by Labour. Like widespread use of focus groups and 'selling' policy?

Back to the risk register: it does seem there is a great deal of histrionics about this, including from Miliband. I'm going to be very cynical here, but I should imagine that the document will prove to be actually quite dull, technical and arid, and won't advance the cause of the pros and antis much either way.

I imagine that a copy has been leaked to Labour already, and I'd be amazed if it hasn't leaked further. As it's not been published yet, Then I don't think it can be a smoking gun. Labour seems to have gone quiet on it (is my thesis about to go pfft with statements today?), realising they had been duped into putting a lot of time and energy into a red herring?

"in practice mostly threats"

That's the part that would be taken out of context by those who oppose the reforms.

Any private companies providing the NHS with services will have done their own risk assessments. You don't go into a commercial venture without them

So have they been made public?

Not if no-one's asked.

Cog, don't try to twist my words, anyone can read what I have written and I'm sure it's clear that I believe that the present government shows contempt towards the public.

I don't believe that publishing the risk register would cause hysteria but it's blatantly obvious they have much to lose if they do.

I can't find the document but a couple of years ago someone pointed me to a transcript of a meeting btw the Tories and some big American health care providers and insurance companies. The tories have spent their time out of office for years planning for the day when they could sell Britain and all it's state services to the private sector.

It's laughable that all of these reforms are dressed up as choice, if it is a small less powerful pro choice state they want, why not give the people the choice and the information and let them decide.

"they could sell Britain and all it's state services "

No wonder you don't think publication would cause hysteria if you believe the government is planning to 'sell Britain'. Hysteria appears to be your default setting.

Things that get in the way of decent discussions:
1 throwing insults at other posters
2 going into denial about the things the govt is doing and has done and will carry on doing unless we stop them.

EdithWeston, compulsively trying to fix the blame onto one government or another is also a waste of time imo, as it's what this govt does now that matters. But I agree with you that the risk assessment might well have been leaked - and you could be right about it all being a storm in a teacup. Except that if it was the govt would publish it, surely?

3

And Cogito, what do you call it when the govt sells a part of the NHS (UK taxpayers' property) to an American company?

The govt does it all the time (and so did the previous one, and the one before that). There are no national boundaries as far as company ownership is concerned, are there? Isn't that what globalisation is?

Farming out a part of the NHS to a private company is not the same as 'selling Britain and all its state services'. Selling Britain????

Things that get in the way of decent discussions #2

1. Describing a different point of view as 'going into deial'