Skip to content

Policy Archives

April 2011

  1. Reshuffle or not to reshuffle?

    Posted by Jamie Holyer on 13 April 2011  |  Government

    With almost one year since the General Election and a Health Bill that has hit stormy seas a whole lot faster than Ministers expected, the rumour mill in Westminster is now getting into swing over a possible reshuffle.  Rumour and gossip of an impending reshuffle can be damaging for Prime Ministers as the more talk there is of one the more indecisive a PM looks if they don’t act despite not actually needing one.

    A reshuffle of Ministers after they have been in the job less than a year may also seem a little unfair as they have had little chance to turn around the supertanker of a government department before being moved on.  In the real world it would take a CEO of especially poor calibre to last less than a year in the job. However, politics being politics and the need to be seen to be doing something outweighing common sense, a reshuffle is likely sooner rather than later. 

    The seemingly obvious fall guy is Andrew Lansley MP who has managed to split the coalition, fall out with Downing Street and ignite significant public opposition to a policy all at the same time.  However, moving Lansley at this time would be a clear sign that the PM does not support the health reforms and nothing less than a complete re-working of the NHS reform programme would do to satisfy a blooded opposition.   For a PM who said that the ‘NHS is safe in our hands’ it would be a humiliating public acceptance of a policy gone wrong. 

    The answer is therefore to tweak the Bill through the ‘listen, learn and engage’ exercise whilst simultaneously trying to convince interest groups that the reform programme really is the right thing to do.  First up was former nurse and Health Minister Anne Milton MP who addressed the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) annual conference today (12 April).  A brave and bold move indeed.  Even Labour Ministers were jeered by the RCN conference during the years when they were trebling the NHS budget.

  2. The Budget and Industry

    Posted by Nick Hoile on 1 April 2011  |  Government, Health

    George Osborne’s statement on the Budget last week made just one reference to the NHS, but there was good news for the life-sciences industry buried deep in the accompanying documents. 

     The Government’s “Plan for Growth” made 16 policy commitments aimed at rejuvenating the industry, building on the pro-industry policies introduced by the Office of Life Sciences under the previous administration, with an emphasis on cutting red tape and increasing transparency.  The aim, in the Chancellors’ words, is to “radically reduce the time it takes to get approval for clinical trials”.

     The industry is not alone in welcoming these proposals.  Many patient groups, particularly those representing patients with rare or very rare diseases, are consistently frustrated by how long it takes new medicines to be available in the UK.  They will welcome any new policies that will enable them to access medicines earlier, either through a clinical trial or on an unlicensed basis while the medicine is still in the trials stage. 

     If the reforms are to succeed the Minister responsible for the life-sciences industry (David Willetts MP) will need to be tough with his civil servants, who the Prime Minister recently attacked as “enemies of enterprise”.  He might want to start by spurring the MHRA into action over its plans to improve the regulation of unlicensed medicines and introduce an earlier access scheme, which have lain dormant since mid-2010 despite calls for action by backbench MPs. 

     Backbench MPs and Peers will have a key role to play in ensuring that the coalition’s policies are not lost in the civil service quagmire and monitor the extent of their impact on the industry.  Policy and public affairs agencies can play a vital role in supporting clients to work with parliamentarians to ensure the policies yield the best result for the industry, most importantly, to patients.