Does doctor know best? Or does Lansley?

The doctors’ trade union, the BMA, is predictably up in arms over the proposed reforms to the NHS. But, of course, doctors have always opposed any changes to healthcare. When the NHS was first proposed, opposition from doctors was fierce. However, as with so many previous changes, when more money was put on the table, suddenly doctors thought whatever was proposed was a jolly good idea after all.

But with buffoon Lansley’s “reforms”, the doctors may be right. A colleague of Lansley described him to me as “incompetent” and a “waste of skin”. The only proper job Lansley has ever held was at the DTI (Department for Total Incompetence). The man is an idiot and anything he does will inevitably be wrong. What is needed in the NHS is to put all the 40,000+ managers on a 3-day week saving �8m a day (�2bn a year). Then some new ways of commissioning healthcare could be tested in a few pilot areas and if successful then rolled out across the NHS. Lansley’s idea of a “big bang” change with untested new structures is bound to be a costly disaster. But Lansley is too stupid to see that.