HE’S CANNY, that David Cameron. Reflecting on his attempts to win over the workers, Health Service Journal (Jan 12) carries a headline saying “NHS managers to play key role, says new Tory leader”, while Nursing Standard (Jan 11) boasts that “Cameron turns to nurses for help on policies”.
The Conservative Party is striving to build bridges with health service staff because, as HSJ puts it, Cameron’s “charm offensive” follows a series of attacks by the Tories on the number of managers employed by the NHS.
In a speech at the King’s Fund, Cameron said that NHS managers will help to shape his party’s reworked health policy — which, says HSJ, represents a different approach from that adopted by the Shadow Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley. In November last year, Lansley blamed a £1 billion black hole in NHS finances on an “army of administrators”.
Nigel Edwards, the policy director at the NHS Confederation, says that the changed tone stems from the Tories’ belief that they might be elected.
“If you have spent the last four years being rude about managers you will have to do a lot of bridge building when you get into power,” Edwards says.
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But nurses are also feeling the full force of the Cameron charm offensive, according to Nursing Standard. It says that the Royal College of Nursing is among the “non-partisan voices” being invited to review the Tories’ policies.