Peter Hoskin

Lansley’s headache becomes a migraine

Now that the three party leaders have each pronounced on capitalism, domestic politics is returning to its familiar battlegrounds. And there are few more familiar battlegrounds, for this government, than the NHS. Earlier this week a couple of unions came out completely against Andrew Lansley’s health reforms, despite his previous efforts to accommodate their concerns. And now we learn that the Commons health select committee, chaired by the former Tory Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell, is set to criticise those reforms as well. According to the Observer, a report that they’re publishing this week will raise a common complaint: that it’s tricky for the NHS to both reorganise and find efficiencies at the same time.

When the health select committee last made a prominent intervention in the debate, and called for Lansley’s local ‘GP consortia’ to include people other than GPs, the government basically acquiesced to their demands.

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