Revealed: Government Secretly Uses Doctors to Spin Tribal War for NHS Hearts and Minds (oh! And £80 Billion) PDF Print E-mail
9 March, 2011

On the day when health secretary Andrew Lansley addresses a major conference on his NHS reforms, SpinWatch reveals his secret campaign to use pro-privatisation GPs to convince a sceptical public and health professionals.

By Michael Gillard, Andy Rowell, Tamasin Cave

An outsourcing company that hopes to make millions of pounds from the most radical shake up of the NHS is secretly providing the government with apparently independent GPs to help ministers sell their controversial reform to patients and staff.

Internal emails obtained by SpinWatch show that the arrangement was agreed just before Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, launched his bill last month to scrap primary care trusts and hand £80bn of the NHS budget to GPs and private health companies.

Tribal, the outsourcing firm with £150m worth of government contracts, supplied a list of friendly GPs to Bill Morgan, Lansley’s special adviser. Morgan is a former lobbyist for private health companies and Tribal confirms that it was in discussions with some of the GPs on the list about future lucrative contracts.

Pro-reform GPs are a key front in the public relations offensive behind Lansley’s health and social care bill, which is currently going through parliament.

Kingsley Manning, executive chairman of Tribal and former adviser to a parliamentary committee on health, wrote to Morgan in December. The email said: “Further to our conversation, please find attached a list of GPs you may want to contact with respect to the launch of Consortia Pathfinders; we haven’t briefed them so somebody would need to talk to them before they were exposed to the press.”

David Cameron and the health secretary recently hosted a Downing Street reception for 141 Pathfinder GP consortia who have been piloting the proposed reforms to allow doctors to commission services. The prime minister said the Pathfinder consortia represent a “groundswell of support” from GPs for his reforms.

However, the email disclosures comes as the British Medical Association (BMA), which represents 140,000 members, is stepping up its campaign on the government’s reform package.

Dr Clive Peedell, a member of the BMA council and its political board, said of the Tribal email: “This is classic political tactics to use well-positioned medics, who don’t represent the majority of doctors, to promote unpopular reforms.

“The Council of the BMA, which does represent the majority of doctors, voted in January to hold an emergency meeting to debate Lansley’s bill. The BMA’s position has changed from critical engagement to opposition to many of the key policies within the bill.”

Manning initially claimed that Tribal had “no discussions” with Lansley or his department about helping the government sell its bill. He admitted having dealings with Morgan but denied supplying tame GPs for the government’s spin campaign.

 “We certainly wouldn’t do that, we are not in the business of acting as a voice piece for the government. There is significant merit in these reforms. But it is not Tribal’s policy to promote [them] on behalf of the government,” he said.

However, when told his email to Morgan had been released under freedom of information legislation, Manning claimed the special adviser had requested the list, which he admitted may contain the names of GP pathfinder consortia with whom Tribal is in commercial discussions.

Manning also conceded that the government’s campaign had so far failed to persuade most patients, NHS staff and suppliers of the case for reform.

By 2013, GPs are expected to begin commissioning services and to manage huge budgets and staff. Outsourcing firms, such as Tribal, are hoping to sign multi-million pound contracts for providing a range of management services.

The government refuses to disclose Tribal’s list of GPs. A health department spokesman said: “There is, and will be, absolutely no preferential treatment for the independent sector.”

However, a complex web of private companies, lobbyists and front groups is trying to shape the reforms through a revolving door between those targeting the £80bn pot and the politicians and civil servants responsible for doling it out.

Behind the various pro-reform media campaigns are the very companies involved in bidding for GP commissioning and other contracts and free market think tanks with impeccable links to Cameron, Lansley and the Tory party.

Tribal has funded the influential think tank Policy Exchange, which was co-founded by Francis Maude MP, who is now Cabinet Office minister, and Nick Boles, who is now a Tory MP for Grantham and worked with Maude to ready Cameron’s policies for government.

The revelations come as Lansley was earlier this month forced to give public assurances that GPs would not be allowed to profit from his reforms. The denial followed leaked documents that showed under Lansley’s reforms GPs could refer patients to private health companies in which they had a financial interest.

Citing exemptions in the Freedom of Information  Act, the government refuses to disclose correspondence between Tribal executives and Ian Dalton, a senior health official responsible for ‘provider development. However, disclosed emails show that last October, Tribal wrote to Dame Barbara Hakin, national managing director for commissioning development, about the level of staff to be provided by the private sector to GP consortia.

Weeks later, Hakin told a conference: "There are some big companies waiting in the wings hoping to get it all. They need huge critical mass to make that work but there are those of them who are optimistic they will get 70 or 80 consortia."

The Department of Health spokesperson said: "Our proposals are about improving services for patients. That's why health officials engage consistently with all providers of NHS services: public, voluntary and independent. Our NHS Bill sets proper rules, meaning that any provider must compete on grounds of quality and value for taxpayer's money."
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