NHS news review

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David Cameron
David Cameron

Heir to Bleir David Cameron is confirmed as being divorced from reality and full of shit.

It’s official: Cameron and the ConDem coalition government is cutting spending on the NHS. The Independent on Sunday reports that UK Prime Minister David Cameron breaks promise to increase spending on the NHS in real terms.

‘The official analysis from the House of Commons Library – which is independent of political parties – shows that in real terms, when inflation is taken into account, NHS spending fell by £800m in 2010-11.

The Prime Minister, whose party manifesto at the last election pledged to “increase health spending every year”, has gone out of his way to say the coalition government would protect frontline health cash.

In June Mr Cameron launched five NHS “guarantees you can hold me to and that I will be personally accountable for” – including “not to cut spending on the NHS, but to increase it”.

Yet Labour has claimed that the Treasury’s own figures reveal a cut in real terms in NHS spending from £102.8bn in 2009-10 to £102bn. Mr Cameron and the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, reject the claims, based on the Treasury’s July 2011 Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA).

The shadow Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, asked the Commons library to analyse the data and received the following information: “NHS total expenditure [fell] from £102.8bn in 2009-10 to £102.0bn in 2010-11 (in 2010-11 prices, rounded to nearest £0.1bn) – a real terms fall of 0.7 per cent.”

Mr Burnham said that another ministerial claim – that the PESA figures had not been adjusted according to the GDP deflator – rang hollow since the Treasury document made clear they were adjusted.

Mr Burnham has called on Simon Burns, the health services minister, to correct a statement to the Commons last week in which he said: “We gave a commitment in our election manifesto to provide a real-terms increase in funding in every year of the Parliament while we are in government – the lifetime of this Parliament. We have honoured that, and we will continue to do so in subsequent years.”

Mr Burnham told The Independent on Sunday: “It is official: David Cameron cut the NHS budget in his first year as Prime Minister despite promising he wouldn’t.

“He has inflicted the first real-terms cut in NHS spending for 14 years – the last being in the final year of the Major government.

“David Cameron stands at the dispatch box week after week claiming to have increased NHS spending. His hollow rhetoric will grate with NHS staff facing the reality of redundancies and patients who are being told they must wait longer for treatment. He is hopelessly out of touch.

“Cameron ruthlessly used the NHS to detoxify the Tory brand. But, one by one, he is breaking all the promises he made. He promised no top-down reorganisation, but launched the biggest since 1948.

“He promised a moratorium on hospital changes but is closing A&E and maternity departments up and down the land. He promised not to cut the NHS, but has done just that in his first year in office.”‘

 

27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Actually, this post in the public interest as a record.

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dizzy

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