The NHS is sixty-odd years old but Scotland's health minister says that:
'I have no control'HEALTH Minister Malcolm Chisholm has admitted to astonished Labour MSPs that he has ‘no control’ over NHS bureaucrats who are planning to slash hospital services across Scotland.
This is an extraordinary state of affairs, and Labour MSPs are not amused:
According to insiders, Chisholm admitted that he could do little to influence the deeply controversial decisions being made by health boards about hospital closures. One source said: "He doesn’t have the levers of power to do anything about it. The NHS nationally can’t control what is happening at a local level. He was saying: ‘I don’t have the control.’ The MSPs were saying: ‘Well, why don’t you?’"
Chisholm has always seemed to be out of his depth as a minister but the problem isn't limited to the incompetence of one man. It's typical that state-owned enterprises end up being controlled by their employees rather than by the politicians who are supposedly in charge. There is no real "solution" to this problem other than that of eliminating almost all examples of state ownership. Hospitals need shareholders, not politicians.
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Title: 4e4c9c59e685af75a468
Excerpt: 4e4c9c59e685af75a4681f13ee2bf4214e4c9c59e685
Blog name: 4e4c9c59e685af75a4681f13ee2bf421
24 February 2007, 20:10:53 GMT
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Andrew Duffin
It would be obvious and easy to make the point that this kind of anti-democratic outcome is inevitable when an important service is delivered by state monopoly and run by and for the benefit of beaureacrats.
But in fact this time around I believe the problem is caused by the implementation of a European directive on junior doctors' working hours.
A directive which, needless to say, is being ignored by France, Germany, Spain, etc.
Out now!!
7 September 2004, 13:02:08 GMT+01:00
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Neil
I would have thought most here would have prefered control vested purely in local boards with the minister's role limited to ensuring that each region receives cash in proportion only to it's demographic needs & to making public which ones perform worst.
There is much to be said for ministers who do nothing.
7 September 2004, 00:32:58 GMT+01:00
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