rationalskepticism.org

Here's an idea - Lansley et al's promise of no top-down reorganisation (which we now see was always a lie) should be honoured. We might continue with the ground-up improvements that have always been part & parcel of professional attempts to improve practice & patient outcomes (action learning groups, clinical supervision, clinical research etc), strengthen these, formalise the identification of best practice & sharing thereof, with a particular emphasis on cost-savings (where these have no negative impact on patient outcomes), beef-up NICE & its influence in terms of clinical practices, feeding into the NSFs and so on, tied to certain 'targetting' measures that have been successful in reducing waiting lists from the previous Tory government's 18 months to what was increasingly a couple of weeks under Labour (no regressing way past the 18 week maximum in many cases - well done Lansley), and so on. No need for more bureaucracy, no need for reorganisation, pretty much certain to get approval from all staff groups.

A key feature of leadership is that you need to take your workforce with you. You offer a vision, outline a means of achieving it, convince people it's worth working towards, and involve them in planning & implementation. Lansley has done none of this. His actions have been autocratic, crass & incompetent. He's barely fit to run a dolls' hospital, let alone a health service. He should be sacked & the Bill abandoned.