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THE Tory break-up of the National Health Service steamed ahead yesterday with control of Greater Manchester’s £6 billion NHS budget handed to a new regional board of managers.
The plan was revealed in documents leaked to the Manchester Evening News and is due for implementation in April next year.
The board will have control of public health, social care, general practice services, mental health and acute and community care — the whole of the region’s health and social care system.
Labour immediately attacked the Tories’ record on the NHS, including the broken pledge of “no top-down re-organisation” of the NHS.
“After the failure of their top-down reorganisation of the NHS nobody will trust the Tories on the NHS,” said a spokesperson.
“The Tories have taken the NHS backwards with waiting lists going up, more people waiting longer to see their GP, and accident and emergency in crisis. This announcement will do nothing to address those failures.
“Only Labour has committed to the extra £2.5bn year a year that the NHS needs to employ 20,000 nurses and 8,000 more GPs. Without a real plan for the NHS like Labour’s and a plan for the proper integration of health and social care there is a real danger that the government will be devolving a funding crisis.
“We have yet to see the full details of this proposal, and people working in the NHS will want to be persuaded of the case for a new layer of management. The government also ought to get the message that change is needed for the whole of England and not just Greater Manchester.”
A spokesperson for union Unite said: “We echo the view of shadow health secretary Andy Burnham that we would like to see more detail on this proposal before commenting more fully.”
As reported in the Morning Star, Greater Manchester has also been selected by the coalition government for devolution, with the handing of powers to a mayor.
The first mayoral election is planned for next year, but pending that election the government is expected to appoint one. Campaigners are demanding a referendum on devolution.
