Peers from both versions of the Tory party come together to see off Green peer’s attempt to maintain distinction between medically qualified NHS doctors and ‘associates’
The Tories and Labour combined in the House of Lords on Monday night to crush Green peer Natalie Bennett’s attempt to kill off the government’s bill to blur the distinction between properly-qualified doctors and cheaper ‘associate’ roles that are not medically qualified but which are allowed to diagnose and prescribe and – now – will be regulated, like doctors, by the General Medical Council, against the objections of the British Medical Association, Doctors’ Association UK and other medic and patient groups. A majority of ‘GP’ appointments already do not involve seeing an actual doctor and this is expected to soar even higher now.
Keir Starmer and his ‘health’ sidekick Wes Streeting both back the plan and want to push even further to ‘modernise’ – ie privatise – the NHS, as they are unwilling to reverse the privatisation and fragmentation that have pushed the NHS to the brink of catastrophe – and indeed want more of the same.
And both Tory and Labour peers tonight spoke up in favour of the government’s dangerous bill and to pretend Bennett’s motion was about criticising ‘physician associates’ and ‘anaesthetist associates, instead of simply keeping their roles clear and within safe bounds. As a result, the ‘fatal motion’ expired without a proper vote being taken, to the disgust of doctors and pro-NHS campaign groups:
The use of PAs, which is considered by ninety percent of doctors to be dangerous to patients and confuses many patients, who do not realise that they have not been seen and treated by a fully-qualified medic, is being pushed by the government as a way of ‘downskilling’ the NHS, reducing costs and allowing increased profits for private providers, under the guise of the so-called ‘NHS Workforce Plan’ as part of the ‘Integrated Care Systems’ (ICS) project.
ICS, formerly called ‘Accountable Care Organisations’ (ACOs) after the US system it copied, were renamed after awareness began to spread that ACOs were a system for withholding care from patients and that care providers were incentivised to cut care because they receive a share of the ‘savings’. The system remained the same, but the rebranding disguised the reality.
Both Labour and the Tories are now demonstrably enemies of the NHS and of the millions who need it and work in it.
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