Short-term memory

Many a wry dental smile will have been precipitated by the appearance of ‘dentistry’ Minister Lord Howe on the media recently over the NHS 111 affair. He was keen to point out that a pilot programme had been put in place in 2010 to test the system in advance of a roll-out in April 2013 – nearly three years. However, it seems that local primary care trusts were not really on the ball to evaluate the ability of the services they commissioned before they went ahead.

So, piloting is not really an absolute answer to anything, it seems, and Price-Competitive Tendering (PCT – yes really) which saw the cost of the new service fall from around £20 per call to NHS Direct, to between £7.50 to £8.50 did not deliver the desired quality. Quelle surprise, as they say.

PCT also reared its head recently in the débacle (sorry, very French this month) that has been the review of commissioning for criminal legal aid services. Here, the fee reduction proposed was so severe, that apparently only the largest legal chains with ‘economies of scale’ would be able to survive, while small practitioners with an excellent track record, would be left out in the cold. Another interesting parallel there you might think.