It’s a damning indictment of a Government spin machine.

While it is one thing entirely to wish to ‘bury bad news’ by putting it in the public domain at a time of one’s choosing, it is another entirely to seek to suppress information about how we as taxpayers view the institutions for which we pay. It is akin to saying, “you (the public) have the right to an opinion, but you only have a right to know what your opinion is if it happens to agree with our (the Government’s) opinion AND the political interest of our (the Conservative) Party.

Oops.

We weren’t meant to find out, and if the Labour opposition plays its cards right the report in The Observer, 20 March 2011 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/mar/19/nhs-andrew-lansley-healthcare-reform) could be the start of something of which we should hear a great deal more.

You see experience bore out the notion – Labour, during its term of office drastically improved the NHS. On crucial measures that affect consumer satisfaction the health service had improved immeasurably. Getting to see a GP became quick and efficient where it was once slow and chaotic. Waiting lists and waiting times for treatment became shorter. There was a funding, bed availability or some such crisis in the NHS every winter, that became a thing of the past. New hospitals were built. Treatment outcomes were improved. Life expectancy increased.  That there would seem to be polling evidence of record public satisfaction should be no surprise.

The NHS was and is far from perfect. There are instances of malpractice that are badly handled or hardly addressed. There are instances of individuals being incompetently treated. There are mistakes by those responsible for care that could not be foreseen. There are real debates to be had about the future of health care and the role of personal responsibility. But in any organisation run by people it will ever be thus. There are many things the NHS does very well, something the public clearly recognises.

It was so clear that the NHS had been improved that the Conservatives made an election promise to ‘ring fence’ NHS funding from the broadly promised cuts. The ‘NHS is safe with us’ message was central to Cameron’s detoxification of the Tory band. And it went further – David Cameron promised that there were no plans for structural reform of the NHS. But as Michael Portillo famously said on the BBC’s This Week, “If they had said what they were going to do they wouldn’t have got elected”.

There are some on the dilatant left who argue that Mr Lansley’s experiment is simply a continuation of Labour’s approach to bringing private sector resources into the NHS. As usual their heads are inserted where the sun don’t shine. There is a massive difference between the NHS employing private resources to deliver NHS priorities and lifting the lid to wholesale pro-market agenda in a service with standards conveniently abolished.

So the notion that Labour’s approach was delivering the most satisfied set of NHS customers on record is a highly inconvenient truth. A truth which undermines the case for reforms that already lack any kind of mandate.  If a Secretary of State is complicit in seeking to suppress it should be a resigning matter. As ever in these things it is the cover up that is more damaging than the initial mis-deed. There is a strong case for an enquiry. Next stop MORIgate?

The crazy thing is that it is perfectly legitimate to ask, ‘why are 30%-35% still largely not satisfied with the NHS?’, perfectly legitimate to argue, ‘how can we make this better still?’. Ask it, argue it, move in that direction, but have the decency to seek another mandate before embarking on the reform. MPs on the Conservative-led Government benches who have a conscience and don’t believe in blatantly lying to the electorate would be perfectly within their rights to vote against their government on this one. And what on earth are the Liberal Democrats doing? They know that taking down the Lansley proposals could take down the coalition at a time when they are about as popular as the Black Death – so expect them to let it happen.

Meanwhile the real and necessary debates about the successes and failings of the NHS are buried.