The NHS ISN’T safe in our hands

Today the government has proved to us all that despite the claims that the “NHS is safe in Conservative hands”, in reality, it isn't.

For the past 19 months the Labour MP, John Healey, has campaigned for the NHS risk register to be made public. The risk register is the government’s own report into the damages its reforms would do to the NHS. Today the cabinet exercised its rare right to veto freedom of information act requests and said that the risk register would not be made public. This has infuriated many groups opposed to the Health and Social Care Bill, in a statement today the British Medical Association said “We are disappointed that the government has decided not to publish the risk register in full. As we said well before the bill became an act, it’s vital that everyone involved knows what the potential risks might be so decisions can be made based on a full understanding of what the impact might be.”

Not only has the government vetoed the request but it has lost two court rulings on this, both times the courts have ruled in favour of making the risk register public. First time it was the information commissioner and the second time it was the first tier tribunal. Rather than take it to the upper tier tribunal, the government has simply vetoed the request. When asked about the veto, Mr Healey said “The government lost twice in law, yet still won’t accept that patients and NHS staff have the right to know the risks ministers are running with the biggest ever NHS reorganisation”.

But why would the government want to hide the risk register? Surely if their reforms were going to be as great as they have said they will be there would be not need to hide the risk register as it would prove them right. Most likely the risk register has highlighted the damages that it will do to the NHS and the government doesn’t want that to be made public.  If the public ever needed proof that this government has incompetently handled the NHS then this is it.