chairman bill wrote:Actually, it's collaboration & cooperation that act to improve standards in healthcare. Health professionals have been sharing examples of good/best practice for years. I do remember under the last Tory government, staff being told not to share information outside of their respective NHS Trusts, and being threatened with disciplinary action if they did. 'Intellectual Property' was claimed by the Trust, and that was a commodity to improve thier performance over others, or sell, not share. I can see those sorts of things happening again.

Conservative support shrinks as voters turn against NHS bill

• Tories down four points to 36% in latest Guardian/ICM poll
• Labour up one point on 37%, Lib Dems down two on 14%
• Majority of respondents (52%) want NHS bill dropped


David Cameron has squandered the Conservatives' new year lead as voters turn against his health reforms, according to a Guardian/ICM poll. The Tories are down by four percentage points in a single month, slipping from 40% to 36% since January.

Labour is one point ahead, on 37%, with Ed Miliband's party up from 35% last month. The Liberal Democrats slip back two to stand at 14%, and the combined total of the smaller parties has climbed by four points, to 13%.

As the prime minister hosted a special NHS summit, which excluded the professional bodies most opposed to his health and social care bill, the public is siding with those royal medical colleges who want the legislation ditched.

An outright majority of respondents, 52%, say that the bill – which would overhaul NHS management, increase competition and give family doctors more financial responsibility – should be dropped. That is against 33% who believe it is better to stick with the plans at this stage.

The 19-point overall margin in favour of abandoning the legislation is mirrored in strong leads for killing the bill across all social classes and regions, as well as among male and female voters.

chairman bill wrote:Actually, it's collaboration & cooperation that act to improve standards in healthcare. Health professionals have been sharing examples of good/best practice for years. I do remember under the last Tory government, staff being told not to share information outside of their respective NHS Trusts, and being threatened with disciplinary action if they did. 'Intellectual Property' was claimed by the Trust, and that was a commodity to improve thier performance over others, or sell, not share. I can see those sorts of things happening again.

Paul G wrote:Ok so I got to 12 pages in and couldn't find this proof that competition drives up standards in healthcare. Im not sure what counts as proof or early on so you'll have to show me.

Strontium Dog wrote:It's not ideological conviction - it's science:

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publicati ... ct242.html

Our data set is large, containing information on approximately 68,000 discharges per year per hospital from 160 hospitals. We find that the effect of competition is to save lives without raising costs. Patients discharged from hospitals located in markets where competition was more feasible were less likely to die, had shorter length of stay and were treated at the same cost.

I am happy to be on the side of science, opposing the ideological intransigents of the unscientific anti-competition mob.

ED209 wrote:Since the torydems are ideologically opposed to evidence, expert advice, and reason in general

ED209 wrote:a note on methodology; ICM are the libdems' favourite pollsters because they adopt the unusual approach of categorising 'don't knows' according to how they voted at the last general election. This means they score the libdems more highly than all other polls, because the libdems did unprecedentedly well in the general election

Strontium Dog wrote:

Paul G wrote:Ok so I got to 12 pages in and couldn't find this proof that competition drives up standards in healthcare. Im not sure what counts as proof or early on so you'll have to show me.

It was on page 3 of the thread, post #48:

Strontium Dog wrote:It's not ideological conviction - it's science:

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publicati ... ct242.html

Our data set is large, containing information on approximately 68,000 discharges per year per hospital from 160 hospitals. We find that the effect of competition is to save lives without raising costs. Patients discharged from hospitals located in markets where competition was more feasible were less likely to die, had shorter length of stay and were treated at the same cost.

I am happy to be on the side of science, opposing the ideological intransigents of the unscientific anti-competition mob.

This bit bears repeating in large font:

We find that the effect of competition is to save lives without raising costs

But apparently this scientific fact doesn't apply in the case of the NHS reforms because, er... well... the Tories! the Tories!

Paul G wrote:
You're still calling the opposition anti-scientific and anti-competition, not only that, a mob.

Any more studies confirming the same thing? Any studies contradicting the findings? Any evidence that the current changes are along the lines of research and conclusions found herein? Any idea what percentage of similar studies find in favour of competition compared tho those which don't?

Who on earth declares something scientific fact in the complex area of running a healthcare system based on one study?

ED209 wrote:

Exactly. Also, it's only a working paper - peer-review is over-rated, perhaps

THWOTH wrote:

Strontium Dog wrote:Some opponents are against ANY kind of reform being implemented by this government, irrespective of what it is.

<snip>

Unless you can point to some concrete examples I don't really think you can say that some oppose 'ANY kind of reform' whatsoever - opposing the reforms is necessarily conditional - and until this is done the case for these reforms has not, and indeed cannot be made.

Strontium Dog wrote:

Strontium Dog wrote:It's not ideological conviction - it's science:

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publicati ... ct242.html

Our data set is large, containing information on approximately 68,000 discharges per year per hospital from 160 hospitals. We find that the effect of competition is to save lives without raising costs. Patients discharged from hospitals located in markets where competition was more feasible were less likely to die, had shorter length of stay and were treated at the same cost.

I am happy to be on the side of science, opposing the ideological intransigents of the unscientific anti-competition mob.

<snip>

chairman bill wrote:It seems that the government, having excluded those openly opposed to its deforms from the meeting, sat down with what it thought was supportive Royal Colleges & organisations, only to discover they were raising the very same objections as those who were excluded. Awkward times.

Strontium Dog wrote:

chairman bill wrote:It seems that the government, having excluded those openly opposed to its deforms from the meeting, sat down with what it thought was supportive Royal Colleges & organisations, only to discover they were raising the very same objections as those who were excluded. Awkward times.

Only if you accept the outright lie that "opponents" of the reforms were "excluded". It was just the first in a series of meetings.

Strontium Dog wrote:

Paul G wrote:Ok so I got to 12 pages in and couldn't find this proof that competition drives up standards in healthcare. Im not sure what counts as proof or early on so you'll have to show me.

It was on page 3 of the thread, post #48:

Strontium Dog wrote:It's not ideological conviction - it's science:

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publicati ... ct242.html

Our data set is large, containing information on approximately 68,000 discharges per year per hospital from 160 hospitals. We find that the effect of competition is to save lives without raising costs. Patients discharged from hospitals located in markets where competition was more feasible were less likely to die, had shorter length of stay and were treated at the same cost.

I am happy to be on the side of science, opposing the ideological intransigents of the unscientific anti-competition mob.

This bit bears repeating in large font:

We find that the effect of competition is to save lives without raising costs

But apparently this scientific fact doesn't apply in the case of the NHS reforms because, er... well... the Tories! the Tories!

VII. Summary and conclusions

We have examined the impact of the introduction of a pro-competition policy on hospital outcomes in England. Our results constitute some of the first evidence on the impact of a market-based reform in the health care sector. We find strong evidence that under the regulated price regime hospitals engaged in quality competition and that the 2006 NHS reforms were successful. Within two years of implementation, the NHS reforms resulted in significant improvements in mortality and reductions in length-of-stay without changes in total expenditure or increases in expenditure per patient. Our back of the envelope estimates suggest that the immediate net benefit of this policy is around £276 million. While this is small compared to the annual cost of the NHS of £100 billion, we have only calculated the value from decreases in death rates. Allowing for improvements in other less well measured aspects of quality will increase the benefit, as will any further falls in market concentration which may occur as the policy continues in operation. If the UK were to pursue policies that lead to de-concentration of hospital markets, the gains could be substantially larger.

These results suggest that competition can be an important mechanism for enhancing the quality of care patients receive. The adoption of pro-market policies in health care, as well as policies directed at increasing or maintaining competition such as antitrust enforcement, appears to have an important role to play in the functioning of the health sector and assuring patients’ well being.

I started in the early 1990s when there were two-year-long waits, and I've seen them drop so fast in the past 10 years. Now managers are deciding lots of patients are 'not in clinical need'. But a builder who can't work waiting for a hernia operation is in need, isn't he?"