Just listen to this

Our new Health Secretary has begun his term in office by setting up a review and offering to listen to staff.

Fortunately his remarks during that brief period of candour known as the Deputy Leadership election allow us to discover who exactly he thinks we should be listening to:

Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, called for a “proper dialogue” with health workers, who still felt undervalued. He suggested that the Government “listened a bit too much to the BMA [British Medical Association] and not enough to unions like Unison. Maybe what we should be doing is bringing the unions in the health service much more closely into the social partnership”.

In return here are the words used by Unison to explain why they backed Mr Johnson in that contest:

He’s someone we can do business with.

Great.

Comments

[Robbie Goole]

What's wrong with this? Are you trying to imply that the BMA is anything other than a special interest group? Unison represents another side of the healthcare coin - nurses, orderlies, and even cleaners. If previous Health Secretaries had listened to them as much as the golf-playing consultants, MRSA would be a thing of the past.

[Andy]

Yeah! Let's do some class warfare!

[Mark]

Perhaps he should listen to this man: John Seddon http://www.lean-service.com/home.asp

[Justin]

Down with the workers!

[Matt]

Unison do not, and never have, put patients first, they will always seek first and foremost to increase the pay and perks of their members whatever the effect that might have on patient care might be. Unison have a long turbulent history of class warfare and industrial militancy and no record whatsoever of giving a toss about the results on NHS patients of their actions. They should be listened to less not more and the Doctors should be allowed to get on with running the NHS in the best interests of clinical care and the wellbeing of patients. If Johnson does anything else then we know just how easily he was bought by Unison and just how little ordinary people can trust him.

[Simon Stephenson]

Yes, mention of John Seddon reminds me of

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article674854.ece

from The Times of June 15th last year. It makes mention of a report, commissioned by the NHS confederation, entitled "Lean Thinking for the NHS".

Perhaps, 13 months on, Mr Johnson could find out the depth of paperwork under which this report has been buried, after the headlines it generated had been milked for all they were worth.

[Gabriel]

1) Who campainged against non-existent NHS cuts?
2) Who proclaimed themselves the "party of the public sector"?

Yes, Alan Johnston is left-wing. Yes, this is bad; but, no, it's not surprising and I'm not going to listen to criticism of him from one of the men most involved into turning the Conservative party into a something far worse.