Unions furious over Blair's new health
adviser
Kevin Maguire
Friday May 21, 2004
The Guardian
Tony Blair's new Downing Street health
adviser was criticised by trade union
leaders yesterday who also turned on
his predecessor for taking a job with a
US company looking to cash in on NHS
reforms. The head of one of Labour's
largest affiliated organisations, the
GMB's general secretary, Kevin Curran,
was scathing about the appointment of
Julian Le Grand to replace Simon
Stevens.
Mr Curran said Professor Le Grand, who
angered unions last year by labelling
public service workers opposed to
reform as "knaves" motivated by "plain
self-interest", was unsuitable for the
Downing Street health post.
"Julian Le Grand does not share our
ethos," Mr Curran said. "His background
suggests he identifies more with profit
than public service.
"We are disappointed that, instead of
utilising the huge pool of talent
currently working in the NHS, Le Grand
is the best the prime minister can come
up with."
Leaders of unions with strong ties to
the Labour party were contemptuous of
the move by No 10's previous health
adviser, Simon Stevens, to the United
Health Group, a US company which is
hoping to win NHS contracts.
The move follows the acceptance by the
former health secretary Alan Milburn, a
prominent Blairite, of a £30,000-a-year
post advising a private group which is
also seeking to profit from the NHS.
Another union leader, who wished to
remain anonymous, said "modernisation"
had been exposed as "privatisation". He
said the five-year health plan Mr
Stevens had helped to write should be
pulped.
"He knows what is in it and knows where
the profits will be," he said.
Dave Prentis, the general secretary of
Unison, said Mr Stevens' move to the
United Health Group underlined the
private sector's influence on
government policy. He denied assertions
by Lois Quam, a United executive, that
it had explained its NHS plans to what
is Britain's biggest union.
"We would question the propriety of the
Downing Street special adviser on
health going to a private company to
make money out of the health service,"
a Unison spokesman said. "There has
been no meeting between Lois Quam and
Unison to discuss these plans. She has
not explained the plans to us."
The prime minister's official spokesman
yesterday confirmed the appointment of
the new health adviser, a professor of
social policy at the London School of
Economics, who has been on attachment
to No 10's policy unit since last year.
The spokesman added that Mr Blair
valued Mr Stevens highly, and the NHS
modernisation board's report
under-lined progress made to deliver
real improvements in care to people up
and down the country. "Many people made
a contribution to that, not least Simon
Stevens, who brought his knowledge of
the NHS and his intellectual energy to
his work in helping to shape those
improvements."
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,11032,1221412,00.html
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