Healthy Business
28/03/2007

On Monday, Patricia Hewitt launched a report called 'Healthy Business' published by the Social Enterprise Coalition and legal specialists Hempsons.Is this good news for all. This report on is how the social enterprise model can "empower health workers and patients to tackle issues such as NHS bureaucracy, reaching the poorest in the community and low staff morale". It makes thought provoking reading, but there is one case study that is particularly interesting on page 24 which details how one social enterprise company has combed Eastern European countries for it's staff. These include newly qualified dentists, who are being set up in new surgeries and is an example of one way in which the Governement has successfully alienated British Dentists. As independent contractors who own their practices, Dentists have always lived with competition. However this approach raises questions, both about inexperienced, newly qualified dentists being set up in practice by PCTs, and the message it sends to our UK workforce. We are not against Social Enterprise, but if these schemes have raising NHS workforce morale as central to their ethos, then how are they held to account when they acheive the opposite?

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