Wollaston: Competition economists could ‘destroy’ NHS

Dr Sarah Wollaston, a former GP, has been a vocal Tory critic of the health bill. In March she wrote in the Daily Telegraph:
“It is one thing to rapidly dismantle the entire middle layer of NHS management but it is completely unrealistic to assume that this vast organisation can be managed by a commissioning board in London with nothing in between it and several hundred inexperienced commissioning consortia.
“In reality the reforms manage to be both ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom up’ but we could end up with the worst of both worlds. Stripping out primary care trusts (PCTs) and strategic health authorities is as top down as it comes. But at a recent hearing of the health select committee we heard of the confusion that still exists about their replacement.
“Commissioning consortia will be overwhelmed trying to adapt to their new roles. Someone needs to get a grip or we will continue to haemorrhage the best staff as a result of intolerable uncertainty and pointless morale-sapping denigration. It all risks going ‘belly up’ rather than ‘bottom up’.
“It is not Greeks that could destroy the NHS, but if Monitor, the new economic regulator, is filled with competition economists with a zeal for imposing competition at every opportunity, then the NHS could be changed beyond recognition.
“It is no use ‘liberating’ the NHS from top down political control only to shackle it to an unelected economic regulator.”