2020health says that for healthcare competition to be real, there has to be a chance of failure

By Paul Goodman
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Julia Manning, Chief Executive of 2020health, (and ConservativeHome contributor) is telling it as she sees it on the Government's health bill, in a submission published today.

Its headline recommendations are as follows:

• Don’t hamper competition
• Admit choice has its limits
• Don’t undermine NICE
• Put safety ahead of sentimentality – allow failure
• Merge CQC and Monitor and stop self-assessment
• Introduce payment-by-results for patients
• Increase chances for co-payments

Julia Manning says:

“Whilst supporting much of the direction of travel the Health Bill makes some key omissions that would drive improved health benefits and stimulate economic growth: the adoption of technology to transform long-term condition management, extension of co-payments and incentivising personal responsibility in healthcare.”

“Competition has to be real, there has to be the chance of failure – otherwise we will repeat the mistakes of the banking crisis where high risks were taken on the assumption that the bank would not be allowed to fail – only in this case it means poor hospitals survive while patients die due to inadequate care.”

The think-tank's recommendations come under three headings:

• Smarter spending 
• Improving the quality
• Re-defining the caring experience 

- and they can be read in full by downloading the pdf.