Labour activists still favoured in NHS postings
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Your support makes all the difference.Labour activists continue to be disproportionately favoured in NHS appointments, despite a new independent commission set up to tackle allegations of political "cronyism" in the health service.
Figures from the Department of Health showed 66.7 per cent of political appointments to NHS bodies between July 2001 to November 2002 were from the Labour Party.
The statistics emerged in a recent written parliamentary answer outlining appointments by the NHS Appointments Commission to hospital trusts, primary care trusts and health authorities.
While the bulk of the 2,732 appointments were non-political, of the remainder, Labour activists outnumbered Tories by more than four to one.
Some 599 – or 21.9 per cent of all appointees – were Labour, while 143 or 5.3 per cent were Tories, and 111 or 4.1 per cent were Liberal Democrats.
Liam Fox, the shadow Health Secretary, said there was still a "blatant bias" in favour of Labour. "It is everything to do with subservience to the party first, with a sense of duty to the local community a very distant second," he said.
Department of Health sources said that because the system was in the hands of an independent body, accusations of bias were unfounded.
The figure for Labour appointees had also dropped from the 25 per cent under the old system. More Labour political activists than Tory activists apply, so more are appointed, one source said.
Alan Milburn, the Health Secretary, set up the Appointments Commission in 2001 – following criticism of the previous procedure whereby ministers made the appointments themselves.
Dame Rennie Fritchie, the Commissioner for Public Appointments, issued a scathing report that described NHS appointments as "politicised in a systemic way".
She said political allegiance had been the "decisive factor" in the selection of a number of candidates as Frank Dobson, the former health secretary, sought to counter years of perceived Tory "cronyism" on trust boards. Between January 1998 and March 1999, the number of councillors on trust boards more than doubled, with 80 per cent being awarded to Labour supporters.
Members of primary care trusts (PCT) are paid £5,140 for about five days work a month, and chairmen of PCTs get £12,500 for two daysa week. Chairmen of health authorities get about £19,000 a year.
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