Letters From A Tory Daily views on British politics and the Conservative Party from a centre-right thinker who writes letters on his blog to politicians, journalists and many others.

Dear Alan Johnson,

How stupid do you think we are, seriously?  I was considering being constructive in this letter to you about the future of the NHS, but after your speech yesterday I have no choice but to be extremely blunt about my feelings on the issue.

The policies you outlined in your speech are the most insulting suggestions you could have come up with, as they all fall under the one of the following two categories:

1. ’Why the hell haven’t you done this already?’

Apparently you are now keen to move away from “top-down structural change”.  Well, congratulations.  Everyone in the NHS could have told you how damaging government targets and interventions are in providing health services, but Labour blindly crashed on with their plans regardless of how destructive they were.  Of course the NHS should be “clinically driven and locally led” – that goes for any health service in an industrialised country.  Honestly, just pathetic. 

2. ‘It’s Labour’s fault this happened in the first place!’

The reason GP surgeries will NOT open “at times and in locations that suit the patient, not the practice” is because your negotiations over GP contracts were so poor that they now work fewer hours for more pay than they did under the last Conservative government, so don’t you dare lecture the public about how you will improve GP services when Labour have created the problem in the first place.  For you to then say you didn’t want a confrontational approach with the GPs is unbelievable, seeing as you are still struggling to control their pay demands (which have swallowed most of the new investment in the NHS that Labour have been so “proud” of) and are completely at their mercy thanks to your poor management.  I’d love to see you try and force them to put more GP surgeries in deprived areas as well.   The fact that you want a regulator to oversee cleanliness in hospital wards is yet another example of top-down control!  If you squeeze NHS budgets, cleaning services are always going to be hit because hospitals will find the cheapest contractor available, which completely undermines any attempt by matrons and nurses to combat infection.

For you to suggest that the Conservatives are a “major risk” to the NHS when they want to remove the government from the running of services and scrap your stupid government targets shows how desperate you are to make an impact.  The sooner Labour are removed the sooner, the sooner the Conservatives can get on with saving it.

Yours in disgust.

A.Tory