The NHS Review

It seems that the government have shot themselves in the foot in an attempt to gage public opinion. Their latest website http://www.nhsreview.com/ has been set up to provide further backing to the consultation process regarding the NHS review that is being undertaken by the Brown administration, led by none other than Professor Darzi.

A recent poll of public opinion has shockingly found that not one single member of the public trusts Prof Darzi or Gordon Brown to lead the NHS review, astonishingly as things stand over 20% of people have more faith in small marine animals that may not even be alive. The current opinion poll leaders are Dr Rant, Dr Crippen and Alyson Pollock.

It As Dr Grumble saysmust be admitted that it is a brave and admirable move from the government to set up this open dialogue with the public. It appears in sharp contrast to the rather dubious consultation methods employed by the Darzi/Brown partnership, this video shows how biased and leading this consultation process has been so far.

There are some things that it would be sensible to ask the public and there are some things that it is not sensible to ask. The public are simply not adequately informed enough to know when they are being fed big fat porkies, the public also do not know enough about health care provision to be able to make complicated decisions about its future nature. As Dr Grumble says, if on a random day you were to ask people if they wanted it to be Christmas day then they would probably say 'yes'; this doesn't mean it would be sensible to make it Christmas day every day. Ask a child if they wanted chocolate for every meal and they would probably think it a great idea, not the best parenting in the world though; governing the country well is a bit like good parenting, there are simply some things best left to those in the 'know'. Unfortunately the government wants us to eat chocolate supplied by big business 24 hours a day. Their leading questions and manipulated consultations do not appear to be in the best interests of public health.

The people who do know enough are the clinicians and NHS staff on the ground, yet these are the people that the government is excluding from the consultation process. It is fairly clear that with the skillful abuse of selective opinion polls, one could come up with solid backing to do just about anything. It is clear that the government wants backing with which it can then cut costs, privatise, shut excellent local hospitals and replace them with tacky polyclinics.

I, for one, am glad that the excellent NHS Review site gives us all the opportunity to let the government know exactly how we feel about their abuse of their power.