Not much debate when it comes to healthcare issues it seems. Daniel Fletcher reflects on what the election's latest hot topic means for the charitable sector.

Healthcare entered the election fray today with the three party health representatives debating live at the Health Debate 2010, hosted by The King’s Fund, RCN, BMA and NHS Confederation on Thursday morning. It was a lively debate, in part due to BBC Radio 4’s Sarah Montague chairing, as well as the online streaming and tweeting on #Health2010.

Interesting topics for the voluntary sector included the NHS as preferred provider issue, which became a major campaign for ACEVO and others since Andy Burnham announced the ‘policy’ in September 2009. The LibDem’s Norman Lamb and Tories’ Andrew Lansley seemed to agree that use of independent sector providers was no problem, as long as quality and productivity were better than the NHS. Andy Burnham was more creative: he didn’t want to move directly to free market testing as the NHS wasn’t ready and needed more of a chance to compete. Interestingly this view may have resonated best with some of the host’s members judging by the discussion around a BMA poll stating that the public don’t want independent providers.

The biggest disagreements seemed to be around redesign of health services and social care reform. Should it be a local or central decision to close hospitals? Should it be down to opinions of the public, politicians or clinicians to change services? And on social care - all parties agreed a consensus would be good, but none could make their proposals mesh with the others. How social care is provided and funded will be a tough policy decision in the next government, and civil society still has a big role to play.

There seemed to be a lot of consensus. Full stop. Of particular interest for civil society is that mutuals and the ‘John Lewis’ approach to employee-led organisations seemed to resonate with all parties. Andy Burnham wanted to resist the mutual approach being imposed from above and Andrew Lansley wanted more support for bottom-up change by removal of barriers and bureaucracy. Norman Lamb was very passionate about mutuals in general.
So, a general consensus from a small sample of those attending - Norman was balanced, knowledgeable and a ‘nice guy’, Andy was at times passionate and authorative, but Andrew Lansley tended not to have much level of engagement or many real details to policies. Norman won 75% of questions, Andy won 25% and Andrew didn’t win any. The ‘Clegg’ effect continues…

Daniel Fletcher is head of partnerships and fundraising at The King's Fund