I despair

Moves are afoot to prepare the health service for any moves that Gordon Brown may make to give it independence from day-to-day political control. David Nicholson, the NHS chief executive, has announced a drastic re-shuffle of the management team that will see a leadership team within the department led by the permanent secretary, Hugh Taylor, David Nicholson and Liam Donaldson. This 'top team' will include the aforementioned as well as Mark Britnell, Clare Chapman, Chris Beasley, Richard Granger and Chan Wheeler.

David Nicholson has the cheek to claim that this will 'provide greater clarity on accountabilities, a stronger focus on both our Department of State and NHS functions, and ultimately enables us to better lead the transformation of the health and social care system for patients and users.' When the Department of Health say one thing they invariably seem to do precisely the opposite.

David Nicholson denied they were trying to pre-empt the arrival of Gordon Brown to no10, another likely story. Incredibly the new commercial director general Chan Wheeler is a senior executive with the US health care giant United Health, I'm sure this dual role will suit her and United Health nicely, shame about the patients though. It seems Mr Wheeler will have to work hard to control things as he did back home. As we can see, this team is a combination of the SHA chief executives and director generals within the department who work most closely with the NHS, exactly the same people who have overseen so many recent catastrophes in the NHS.

Guess what? Their role is to:

· build strategic capacity and capability in relation to commissioning and system management;
· strengthen the operational grip on finance and performance in the NHS;
· ensure effective clinical engagement.

It seems that this bunch will have the job of continuing to bulldoze through the government's absolutely useless reforms. This is the same bunch of cronies that has brought as the joys of MTAS, MMC, PFI, ISTCs, WICs, PBC, PBR, NHS IT scheme, ENDLESS RECONFIGURATION, QUACKS, and more. I have seen little evidence of their work doing anything that hasn't been downright bad for patients in this country.

Whether it's Donaldson's MMC or Granger's IT we have seen absolutely useless policy rushed through without any proper consultation time and time again, and each time millions, if not billions, of pounds have been wasted. These incompetents have shown repeatedly that they are not fit for office, so what happens? They get shuffled about a bit and given new jobs in which they can wreak yet more havoc, while adding in someone from a big American corporation which has a track record in dodgy practice; that's the D'oH for you.

I wouldn't trusts this bunch of morons to tie my shoe laces, let alone run the NHS. This idea of freeing the NHS from direct political control may turn out to be one of the most dangerous ideas ever, especially if it is left in the control of a bunch of incompetent politically appointed cronies. Many of the appointees should be resigning now rather than being given new jobs, Sir Liam is one notable example of this. Everything Labour have done with the NHS has increased top down autocratic control, destroyed anything democratic that was present and reduced the efficiency of the service. The poor patients will be the ones to suffer as a result of this corrupt meddling. I despair, I really do.