Published: 21/02/2002, Volume II2, No. 5792 Page 25
Professor Alyson Pollock says foundation hospitals being run as mutuals or public interest companies are not about 'putting the public first' but 'putting needs of small entrepreneurs first (news, 31 January. She compounds the error by suggesting that such organisations must turn into privatised bodies.
This is nonsense. The mutual sector includes consumer co-operatives, credit unions, friendly societies and building societies. They are based on the idea of ordinary people getting together to run a range of activities, all of which are democratically answerable to their members, their users.
Far from being run by small entrepreneurs, many - such as consumer co-operatives - are large organisations (bigger than many trusts, for instance).
Consumer co-ops date from 1844 - without having been sold to private investors. Friendly societies go back even further.
The whole point of the government considering mutual options is to try to remove much of the heavy-handed, topdown and unaccountable micromanagement which is inefficient, succeeds in demotivating hundreds of thousands of NHS employees and does not produce services that best 'put the public first'.
Members of mutuals elect and dismiss boards of directors. Not a single NHS organisation has even a modicum of democratic accountability to its users.
The recently successful second reading of Gareth Thomas MP's Industrial and Provident Societies Bill in the Commons should provide hope that 'community mutuals' overseeing public services without the possibility of being sold on will come about in the NHS.
Geraint Day Chair Oxford, Swindon and Gloucester Co-operative Society Co-operative Party
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