Only one way ‘to save NHS from short term politics’

A leading public health consultant has said that the only way to save the NHS from short-term fixes and political in-fighting is to release it from direct government control and place it in the hands of an all-party body including clinical and health service experts.

Dr Layla Jader, a member of the British Medical Association’s Public Health Committee in Wales, told the British Medical Journal that a new democratic system that replaces short term decision making would be the “best hope” to retain an NHS that matches 21st century needs.

She said: “[The] pressure of constant media attention and the threat of political retribution – which drive many politicians to short term solutions that won’t solve long term problems and mean they never learn from past mistakes – will be eased.”

“The NHS is too vital to our future prosperity to be governed by any specific party,” she added.

Dr Jader drew comparisons between an NHS independent of government control with the delegation of interest rate control to the Bank of England, a move which has brought relative economic stability after years when interest rates were controlled directly by the chancellor of the exchequer.

She concluded that too much had been wasted on “constant structural changes” and that the current modernisation programme has provided a good opportunity to install these seemingly ambitious reforms.

The government is a critical phase of its NHS reform blueprints, announced as a ten year plan in 2000.

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