Thread by @MerryMichaelW

A very long thread on aspects of the recent history of the NHS. 😊😊😊

The first attempt at removing democratic control of the #NHS was by Kenneth Clarke, when he was health secretary, 1988 - 1990. But that failed completely.

So we move on to Virginia Bottomley, who succeeded in removing the last vestiges of democratic control during the reorganisation of the NHS, prefigured here: "Health of the Nation" api.parliament.uk/historic-hansa….

Are you sitting comfortably? Area Health Authorities, 1973 - 1982 were replaced by District Health Authorities, 1982 - 1996. Thereafter no more input from those elected, the Health Authorities were entirely managed by "professionals", & are listed here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_au….

These were the fledgling designs for the so-called "NHS Trusts", which themselves were precursors to the modern Integrated Care Systems, which are set up to become Private Limited Companies. A map(The turquoise ones are complete. HSJ are saying that the ICSs are failing.):

2002: In 2002, the existing regional health authorities were renamed and merged to form 28 new strategic health authorities, under the National Health Service Reform and Health Care Professions Act 2002.

This was the first time that the regional tier in the NHS reported directly to the centre rather than having a board and non-executive members.

The SHA chief executives were appointed after a wide-ranging search and selection process and did not represent continuity with the previous regions, not least because CEOs were allocated to areas they were not generally familiar with.

A number of the new CEOs had previously been health authority CEOs or CEOs of large trusts, rather than arriving on the traditional path. Thus was both expertise and experience trashed.

The final nail in the coffin of the NHS was the Health and Social Care Act 2012. A new executive agency of the Department of Health, Public Health England, was established under the act on 1 April 2013.

The proposals are primarily the result of policies of the then Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley.

Clive Peedell (co-chairman of the NHS Consultants Assoc. & a clinical oncologist) compared the policies with academic analyses of privatisation & found "evidence that privatisation is an inevitable consequence of many of the policies contained in the Health and Social Care Bill".

Lansley said that claims that the government is attempting to privatise the NHS are "ludicrous scaremongering". And so, in 2013, after enormous arguments about Primary Care Trusts, the 28 SHAs were replaced by new, shiny Clinical Commissioning Groups.

From 2021 the CCGs are to be merged into Integrated Care Systems and formally abolished in 2022 if the government's proposed NHS legislation goes through.

Ends ... 😁

#NHS #NHSReinstatementBill

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@threadreaderapp unroll, please.

6,000 impressions, so far ... 😁😁😁

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100 Retweets in 8 hours. Not bad for a part-timer ... 😊😊😊

#NHS #NHSReinstatementBill

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