According to the FT, Andrew Lansley, the Conservative Party health spokesman, has called on he Office of Fair Trading to investigate Government policy that NHS organisations should be the "preferred provider" of NHS care.
This follows the collapse of a complaint to the Department of Health’s co-operation and competition panel by private and voluntary sector vested interests (stalking horses for the public services industrial complex). The procurement test case was cancelled leaving the panel with no case to examine.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7751f448-27f6-11df-9598-00144feabdc0.html
Lansley accused Andy Burnham, the health secretary, of being "a puppet of the health trade unions. Mr Burnham is trying to constrain opportunities for the voluntary and independent sector to offer their services to NHS patients."
A pundit writing on the blog of the right wing Spectator magazine gives the game away on Tory plans to break up the NHS and fully marketise health care: ‘there's a simple, clear lesson for the Tories here. If they really want their decentralising agenda – from social enterprises to free schools – to get off the ground, then they've generally got to avoid backing any one provider with too much gusto.’
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5819388/avoiding-the-burnham-disincentive.thtml
