As Guido revealed yesterday, hard-left Tory-bashing think tank New Economics Foundation have curiously been the recipient of over £500,000 of funding from NHS England over the past three years. Now Guido can shed some more light how a load of funding ended up with a bunch of strident lefties rather than needful patients…

It turns out the New Economics Foundation were one of three organisations which awarded funding as part of the NHS England’s “Health as a Social Movement” programme which began in 2016, along with the RSA and Nesta. It just so happens that the CEOs of all three organisations at the time had something in common…

• Matthew Taylor, CEO of the RSA. Head of No.10 Policy Unit under Tony Blair
• Geoff Mulgan, CEO of Nesta. Director of Policy under Tony Blair
• Marc Stears, CEO of the NEF until 2017. Former speechwriter (and university flatmate) of Ed Miliband
  

Small world!

NHS England say:

“Following an open competitive process five years ago, three organisations were commissioned to help the NHS and its partners find ways to bring communities together to improve the health of local people through projects which tackled loneliness, improved cancer care and the quality of life of dementia patients, amongst others.”

The NHS insist that they were not simply giving the money to the NEF, it was as part of work they outsourced following a competitive tendering process. Which sounds a lot like NHS privatisation, funny how the NEF don’t seem to have such a problem with it when they’re the beneficiaries…

The NHS didn’t respond to Guido’s question of whether they foresaw any potential issues with appointing a highly politicised and partisan think tank with economics views well outside the mainstream. No doubt they’ll be evening out the balance by picking the IEA or the TPA for their next ‘social health’ privatisation partnership programme…