How much to polish a turd?

The scary motives and underhand agenda behind the government's NHS reforms continue to be unpicked. The Skills for Health scheme bears all the hallmarks of a New Labour dog's dinner. It is based upon the logic of a brain dead mango, has been orchestrated by a government stooge and offers to tangible benefits to anyone, other than the government and their close friends in business. The government does not want anyone to know how much it is spending on the ridiculous Skills for Health scheme, it is using the classic economical get out clause:

"Thank you for your email of 2 February requesting, under the Freedom of Information Act, information about the costs of the Skills for Health project. Your email has been passed to me for reply.

I can confirm that initial searches indicate that the Department of Health is likely to hold information which may fall within the description specified in your request. However, it is estimated that that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit of £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending three and-a-half working days in determining whether the Department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting it. Under section 12 of the Act, the Department is not obliged to comply with your request and will not be processing your request further."

If the DoH is telling the truth, then it is massively embarrassing that they can't even work out how much the dimwitted Skills for Health scheme has cost. They will be hearing more from my ferreting representatives.

The motives behind the government's reforms are becoming crystal clear. New Labour's ideological framework of poo has been assembled to service themselves and the party's backers, the agenda of all out privatisation in all areas of the public sector continues apace. In the NHS we have seen the damage inflicted by the patient pseudo-choice agenda, as Darzi's private polyclinics are trotted out like a bad case of the runs.

Skills for Health is part of the deprofessionalisation of medicine, it is about dumbing down standards so that more and more health care can be flogged off to the private sector. Service is sacrificed so that medical care is no longer monopolised by those with the proper training and skills, perversely 'Skills for Health' means the very opposite of its name, it is New Labour newspeak yet again. Dumb me down Scotty.