NHS ‘watchdog’ will be a “bloated monster”


by Newswire    
8:50 am - September 13th 2011

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Monitor – the government’s revamped organisation to regulate competition in the NHS – is set to become ‘a bloated bureaucratic monster’, Unite, the largest union in the country, has warned.

Unite said that Monitor’s running costs were set to soar from £72 million-a-year to £82 million – with a 600-strong staff being paid twice the national average wage of £26,000.

Unite said that ministers were creating a bloated, old fashioned bureaucracy which would be responsible for handing over lucrative NHS contracts to the ‘government’s friends’ in the private healthcare sector.

Monitor was expecting to spend a further £14 million-a-year on consultants and £4 million in legal fees, according to the Department of Health’s own Impact Assessment report.

Monitor is a lynchpin of the government’s Health and Social Care Bill, currently before Parliament, with the remit of promoting choice, competition and collaboration – which Unite says are contradictory and confusing aims.

Unite national officer for health, Rachael Maskell said:

It is equally disgraceful that the Impact Assessment team have been unable “to develop a robust monetary estimate of the benefits of changes to the regulatory regime”.

All this indicates that a revamped Monitor is not being geared for the benefit of patients, but as a conduit to channel lucrative NHS contracts to private healthcare companies, many of whom have bankrolled the Tory party since David Cameron became leader.

A bloated bureaucratic monster is being created – so much for all the ministerial chatter about efficiency savings. This is being paid for by cuts to frontline services, as well as staff pay and terms and conditions.

Unite will be lobbying the members of the House of Lords who will be scrutinising the bill over the next couple of months – Rachael Maskell described the peers as ‘the last thin line defending that great British institution – the NHS – from rampant privatisation’.

The TUC is running an ‘Adopt a Peer’ campaign to lobby the House of Lords
From a press release

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Reader comments


1. Flowerpower

I’m not sure a quango with a budget of only £82million quite qualifies as a “bloated bureaucracy”.

Do you remember the PSP, the quango to promote Web 2 and all that rubbish? That was intended to be launched with a budget of £100m before the outcry against giving public money to Nathan Barley led the scheme to be ditched.

2. Mr Eugenides

That sentence works equally well if you take out the word ‘watchdog’.

Funny how the brothers only object to massive, bloated bureaucracies when they’re being set up to police the massive, bloated bureaucracies they want to protect.

3. pagar

Funny how the brothers only object to massive, bloated bureaucracies when they’re being set up to police the massive, bloated bureaucracies they want to protect.

Like the obese patient, who eats and expands until he can no longer walk and needs a motorised wheelchair to move at all, the beast will continue to expand.

It needs slaying, not policing.

4. So Much For Subtlety

What do people expect? You can have an NHS that is kept efficient and competent by competition. Or you can go the Soviet route and try to insert watchdogs, official inspectors and eventually the Cheka, over everyone at work.

Everyone rejects the former, so the latter is what we are going to get. With a bit of luck it will be a while before we get to the Cheka.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
  1. Liberal Conspiracy

    NHS 'watchdog' will be a "bloated monster" http://t.co/kpk2nSC

  2. Ben Leto

    NHS 'watchdog' will be a "bloated monster" http://t.co/kpk2nSC

  3. Herbert Pimlott

    NHS 'watchdog' will be a "bloated monster" http://t.co/kpk2nSC

  4. Andy S

    NHS 'watchdog' will be a "bloated monster" http://t.co/kpk2nSC

  5. malcolm

    NHS 'watchdog' will be a "bloated monster" http://t.co/kpk2nSC

  6. Pucci D

    'Cutting red tape'? RT @libcon: #NHS 'watchdog' will be a "bloated monster" http://t.co/CHpHJQt .@nick_clegg .@johnprescott .@RichardJMurphy

  7. Pabs

    @libcon NHS 'watchdog' will be a "bloated monster" http://t.co/yQsGdLR | Or a bit like the Financial Services Authority watchdog

  8. David Davies

    NHS ‘watchdog’ will be a “bloated monster” ~ http://t.co/5ZjA271f





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