Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition hypocrisy is seen in recent NHS news with Andrew Lansley saying “The government’s commitment to our NHS is strong and enduring. Labour would cut our NHS in spite of the increasing demands on the service. The damage this would be doing from [1 April] would be immense. They would leave ***our*** NHS in crisis.”



A few recent news articles concerning the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

‘Kids will die’ warning on Leeds heart unit closure – Latest News – Yorkshire Evening Post

CHILDREN will die if Leeds loses its heart surgery service, top doctors have warned.

Half the city’s intensive care beds for the sickest youngsters would also close.

And operations on adults with congenital heart problems would no longer be able to be carried out in Leeds.

The unit at Leeds General Infirmary is under threat because of a national review of children’s heart surgery which is suggesting that several of the 11 centres should close.

NHS reforms could worsen postcode lottery, managers warn – Telegraph

In some of its harshest criticisms to date, the NHS Confederation says there are “significant risks” in the Government’s plans as well as an “absence of detail” regarding how they will be implemented.

The umbrella group says the drive to improve local decisions will mean more “variability of access to services”, while competition based on price is “likely” despite ministers’ assurances.

It comes as a new survey of GPs finds that three-quarters want limits place on the involvement of the private sector in healthcare and more than half have no confidence in the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley.

‘Don’t fool about with NHS,’ say protest unions (From The Bolton News)

NHS staff will stage protests tomorrow outside the Royal Bolton Hospital and Lever Chambers Centre for Health in the town centre against Government cuts.

Nurses, midwives, porters and administration staff will be among those holding the demonstrations, which are a local follow-up to the huge national march in London.

Health staff were among more than 400 people from Bolton who joined an estimated 400,000 protesters fighting government cuts in the capital on Saturday.

Labour ”would have made £2.6bn NHS cut” – Public Service

Labour would have been making cuts to the NHS if it had remained in power, the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has said.

With David Cameron insisting at Prime Minister’s Questions that spending in real terms on the NHS will continue to rise under the coalition government – it will increase by more than the rate of inflation – Lansley wrote to Labour leader Ed Miliband to say that Labour would have cut England’s NHS budget by around £2.6bn in 2011.

Lansley said: “The government’s commitment to our NHS is strong and enduring. Labour would cut our NHS in spite of the increasing demands on the service. The damage this would be doing from [1 April] would be immense. They would leave our NHS in crisis.”

Andrew Lansley is promoting the role of ‘mutuals’ in providing services in his proposed NHS ‘reforms’. I understand ‘mutuals’ to mean different structures such as co-operative societies ‘co-ops’ or charities which are not profit making organisations. There are few details as yet but the proposal is not warmly received and may suggest desperation. See the linked Guardian article for more details.

Unions have called an ‘All Together for the NHS day’ on Friday.

A few recent news articles concerning the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

Cuts to mental health service ‘will put young people at risk’ | News

Hundreds of vulnerable children and teenagers could be hit by £500,000 of cuts to a London health service.

The move follows a squeeze on funding and desperate attempts by the local NHS trust and council to make government-imposed savings. The Unite union today said the proposed cutbacks at Lewisham Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services will be a “real blow” to the families who rely on it.

The savings are a result of funding cuts from a variety of sources including Lewisham Primary Care Trust and Lewisham council.

NHS cuts will lead to further neglect | Society | The Guardian

NHS reform dominates the news. Crowding in behind it are stories about cuts to health services. And, in third place, there are dark descriptions of patient neglect, as reported recently, for example, by the health service ombudsman. Yet it is the second and third of these news items that are the more important.

They affect patient care viscerally, while the reforms constitute a merely ideological and bureaucratic distraction. We read of a single NHS trust shedding hundreds of nurses and beds, but there are many trusts doing the same. Of course, if we believe what we are told, these are simply efficiency savings and patient care will not suffer.

But we know better. We have been here before. From 2005 onward, NHS trusts were cutting with gusto even though, in 2000, the government had stated that 7,000 more beds were required. Instead, by 2010, some 30,000 had gone, on the basis of wishfully thinking that older people, their main occupiers, did not need them.

NHS reforms: Mutuals will give staff ‘right to provide’ | Society | The Guardian

Health secretary Andrew Lansley will invite doctors, nurses and other healthcare staff to take what will be seen as another step towards privatisation, by forming “mutuals” which will contract with the NHS to provide care for patients.

Lansley will announce a “right to provide” for staff right across the NHS. Healthcare professionals in specialised areas, such as eating disorders, alcohol and drug detox, mental health and sexual health, could set up their own organisations with mutual ownership.

These would exist outside the NHS but be contracted to provide care. They will run their own budget, lease NHS equipment and the premises where they provide treatment and decide how to organise care without reference to trust managers.

Health reforms are ‘too far, too fast’ claims doc | Macclesfield Express – menmedia.co.uk

A top doctor has joined a chorus of disapproval over government reforms to the NHS. The proposed changes, which are still going through parliament, will see Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities abolished and responsibility for commissioning services passed on to new ‘GP consortia’.

The Express reported earlier this month that the Eastern Cheshire consortium has been named as a ‘pathfinder’, meaning they hope to begin operation well before the April 2013 deadline.

But Adrian Heald, a consultant physician at Macclesfield Hospital and Leighton hospital in Crewe, told a public meeting called to discuss the reforms that he feared it could be too far, too fast.

Milburn adds his voice to growing disquiet on NHS reforms | InPharm

Former Labour health secretary Alan Milburn has come out against the government’s health reforms, adding to the chorus of voices against the reorganisation of the NHS.

The reforms aim at putting GPs in charge of the NHS budget whilst abolishing the current management structure, but Milburn said this is shortsighted given the challenges of finding £20 billion in efficiency savings by 2015.

“There’s a chasm between the cost of making change and the cash available for it,” he said in an article for The Guardian.

All together for the NHS – PCS Comment – PCS

This Friday will see thousands of people unite in support for ‘All Together for the NHS day’ to raise awareness about what is happening to the NHS and to oppose the government’s controversial plans to shake up the system.

These plans – set out in the Health and Social Care Bill currently going through Parliament have already been criticised by NHS staff, economists, charities, and patients for being ill thought through, undemocratic, and likely to leave patients vulnerable and at risk.

Friday will see campaigners raising awareness of these changes by visiting MPs in constituencies, workplace meetings, open public meetings and other local activities.

UNISON Press | Press Releases Front Page

UNISON members are piling the pressure on local MPs over the disastrous consequences for the NHS, if the Government ploughs ahead with its Health and Social Care Bill.

On April 1, right across the country, members will be lobbying their local constituency offices and holding workplace demos/lunchtime meetings and rallies to make their opposition heard.

The Bill has attracted widespread resistance from doctors, nurses, health professionals and NHS staff. Patients, charities and unions are lining up against it and poll after poll shows that the public clearly thinks it is bad news for the health service. The Bill is also causing concern among Lib Dem MPs and even some Tories are starting to openly express doubts about it.

NHS news is dominated by the Trade Unions Congress (TUC) ‘March for an Alternative’ march and rally event on Saturday. It is estimated that some 500,000 people attended making it the biggest march since the anti-war protest of March 2003.

A few recent news articles concerning the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

Health workers voice fear for future of NHS / Britain / Home – Morning Star

A huge contingent of NHS workers joined the weekend’s march to highlight the serious threat to our health service posed by the government’s cuts and sell-off plans.

Midwives carried baby-shaped balloons, GPs came in their doctors’ garb while thousands of nurses and health workers snaked from London’s Embankment to Hyde Park in a sea of green and purple – the colours of their union Unison.

The demonstrators issued a stark warning to the Tory-led coalition to keep its “hands off our NHS.”

RCN marches against cuts – RCN

Over 1,000 Royal College of Nursing members marched through the streets of London last weekend to campaign against cuts threatening jobs and patient care across the NHS. The march, organised by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), took protestors through Parliament Square and past Downing Street, to a rally in Hyde Park. The march was arranged to show the combined strength of feeling against cuts to public services.

RCN Chief Executive Dr Peter Carter joined trade union leaders at the head of the march before returning to walk alongside members. He said: “The fact that so many nurses marched together for the first time since the days of Margaret Thatcher is testament to the depth of their anger about these cuts. Nurses are facing a two year pay freeze and widespread cuts to jobs and services. On the ground, nursing staff are stretched to breaking point and we know that slashing huge numbers of frontline jobs is jeopardising patient care.”

Although the RCN is not affiliated to the TUC, it participated in the march to help expel the myth that NHS funding is protected, while nursing jobs are being cut and £20 billion in savings are sought in England alone. The RCN’s Frontline First campaign has already identified that 27,000 NHS posts are earmarked to be lost across the UK.

UNISON News | The public service union | Michael Moore backs NHS

American film-maker Michael Moore has produced a message of support for UNISON and our NHS.

With characteristic flair, Mr Moore tells viewers that:

* the NHS is “so precious” and something “that you really invented and gave to the world”
* “For anyone to take that away now and put it in the hands of profit-hungry corporations would be the absolute worst thing to happen”
* In the US “the whole system is set up to motivate them [US health companies] to every day say ‘how can we make more money off the sick?’ “
* “you will rue the day that you allowed this to happen” to the NHS
* On Cameron – “you’re stuck with a guy now who’s got nice hair and rides a bike but, you know, he’s up to no good”
* Signing off: “hang in there, I’m with you”

Unite coffin protest marks ‘death’ of NHS | News | Nursing Times

A coffin will be paraded outside parliament today to symbolise the “death” of the NHS as part of a union protest against the government’s health reforms.

Unite has collected thousands of signatures against the Health and Social Welfare Bill which the union said will lead to the privatisation of large parts of the NHS.

The union will present a letter to the commons health select committee, which is scrutinising the Bill.

National officer Rachael Maskell said in the letter: “We are writing to urge you to protect the NHS from the savage and unnecessary reforms put forward in the Bill.

Coffin symbolises coalition addiction to NHS privatisation

A coffin to symbolise the death of the NHS due to a surfeit of privatisation will be paraded outside parliament tomorrow (Tuesday 29 March 2011).

Unite, the largest union in the country, has collected 13,000 signatures to a letter to the committee of MPs scrutinising the impact of the Health and Social Care bill, currently going through parliament.

The coffin marked with NHS in white letters will be held by health campaigners mourning the death of the NHS at 12.30pm Palace Yard (next to College Green), Westminster SW1.

Greater Manchester hospitals ‘could miss target to save £1bn’ | Manchester Evening News – menmedia.co.uk

Health bosses fear Greater Manchester’s NHS will not achieve the government target to save £1bn by 2015.

In 2009, the M.E.N. revealed the region had to cut costs by £950m but Department of Health officials have now rated its savings plan and progress so far as ‘red’ or high-risk.

They also say it is crucial the health service in Greater Manchester and London hit their targets in order for the NHS as a whole to make £20bn savings in the next four years.

Many are expected to participate in the TUC’s March for an Alternative demonstration against public spending cuts in London today. Protests in UK are not that different to recent protests in the Middle East. Protestors protest to demand changes in government policy & they are attacked by government agents overt and covert. In UK there is the difference that it is more hidden – oppression is done more through ideological control.

Andrew ‘McShit & Kentucky Fried Crap‘ Lansley is in denial that there is opposition to his plans to destroy the NHS.

A few recent news articles concerning the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

Thousands protest in London against spending cuts – Channel 4 News

Tens of thousands of people are in London demonstrating against government cuts to public spending. Around 4500 police are on duty to try to prevent trouble.

Up to a quarter of a million people are expected to join the march and rally against spending cuts.

It is the biggest union-organised event for over 20 years and the largest in the country since the anti-war march in 2003.

Public sector cuts: Brain injury unit to close | Society | The Guardian

More than 1 million people visit A&E every year with a head injury, of whom about 135,000 have a serious problem. Treating such patients, and nursing them back to as close to full health as possible, is one of the NHS’s biggest challenges. Patients can receive care for many months, and permanent disability, rather than a full recovery, can be the outcome.

An network of brain injury rehabilitation units undertakes this slow, delicate work. London has five of them – three in the south of the capital and two in the north – but only until tomorrow. That is when one, the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit (BIRU), based at Edgware community hospital in north London, closes its doors.

BIRU has 15 beds, and patients stay for up to 18 weeks. During that time they receive therapy and support from a multi-disciplinary team of neuro-psychiatrists, neuro-psychologists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, and specialist nurses.

Andrew Lansley sees no change in mood on NHS reforms | Healthcare Network | Guardian Professional

Health secretary Andrew Lansley said that he does not accept that there has been a change in mood among health professionals and government ministers over his plans to reorganise the NHS.

In an interview with medical professionals’ network Doctors.net.uk, he rejected claims that doctors’ voting for a halt to the health bill at an emergency meeting of British Medical Association earlier this month represented a deterioration in support of his plans.

Lansley also said that by and large Liberal Democrats support the bill, but delegates had voted against the plans at its party’s spring conference because they didn’t agree with certain aspects of it. The main opposition had come from trade unions and the Labour party, he added.

SOUTH LONDON PRESS TODAY | NEWS | ‘Patients will suffer if GPs run NHS budgets’ | 2011

A FAMILY doctor has joined protests over Government plans to give GPs the freedom to buy services for patients.

Lewisham GP Dr Brian Fisher spoke to more than 100 people from the Lewisham SOS group at Ladywell Leisure Centre in Lewisham High Street on Thursday.

He described the proposals as “reckless”.

Long-serving nurse among a thousand from region on TUC spending cuts protest (From The Northern Echo)

ONE of the region’s longest serving nurses says she is joining thousands protesting against the cuts today because of her fears for the future of the NHS.

Cate Woolley-Brown, from Billy Row, near Crook, County Durham, has worked as a nurse in the NHS for 44 years.

She says she is joining today’s TUC-organised march against spending cuts in London because of the impact the cuts are having on the health service.

“I can honestly say that I am more worried than I have ever been about the future of the health service,” said Mrs Woolley-Brown, who works at Sedgefield Community Hospital, County Durham.

MC NxtGen’s Andrew Lansley rap. Certainly heartfelt with ageist insults.

NHS news is dominated by a forecast reduction in real-term’s financing of the NHS. It is expected that coalition imposed cuts generally will start to be experienced soon with the start of the new financial year. It is unlikely that the rich will be affected. We are most definitely not all in this together as – heir to the Osborne baronetcy – Chancellor Osborne claimed yesterday while presenting his budget. He’s taking the piss.

A few recent news articles concerning the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

Public sector cuts – the truth | Society | The Guardian

A week today the cuts will start to bite. As the financial year ends, grants will run out, contracts will wind up, and charities and services will begin to shut their doors. After months of anxiety about the impact of the cuts, the consequences of the government’s rapid deficit reduction programme will begin to be real.

The Guardian gives a slice of what this will mean across the country, highlighting a cross-section of 50 services that will shrink or cease to exist from the end of this month. Most are unglamorous, obscure, unfeted projects, staffed by employees who are not very well paid, but hugely committed to what they do. All of these losses come as a result of the government’s decision to cut spending by £95bn over five years.

Their disappearance may not be noticed by anyone with a good income, in secure employment, in sound health, without caring responsibilities – anyone who does not look to the state for support with life’s problems. For the more vulnerable, the decision to close these bodies and cut these jobs will be sharply felt. They will be more acutely obvious beyond the south-east, in areas that are more dependent on government grants. Women, parents, carers, disabled people, teenagers and elderly people are likely to be the most affected.

Wiltshire NHS is forced to cut £34m (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Despite an increase in funding NHS Wiltshire has to make savings of £34.6m.

Its allocation of funding from the Government for 2011/12 is 2.2 per cent above the previous year but NHS Wiltshire is still paying off debt run up by its predecessor primary care trusts.

The PCT’s budget for 2011/12 is £656.2m. Inflation costs will amount to £17.2m.

New Statesman – Osborne set to break pledge to protect NHS spending

The oracle has spoken. The key finding from the IFS’s traditional lunchtime briefing on the Budget is that the coalition is at risk of breaking its pledge to protect real-terms spending on the NHS. At the Spending Review, George Osborne announced that health spending would rise by 0.1 per cent a year, or 0.4 per cent across the economic period. But as the IFS slide below shows, higher inflation means that real-terms spending will now fall by 0.1 per cent over the next four years.

Based on current trends, spending will be frozen in 2011-12 and will fall by 0.1 per cent in 2012-13. Had it not been for lower-than-expected spending in 2010-11, the IFS points out, there would have actually been a small real-terms cut in 2011-12.

The coalition’s pledge to ring-fence the £99.5bn health budget had everything to do with politics and nothing to do with economics. During the Labour leadership election, Andy Burnham, then shadow health secretary, persuasively argued that it was wrong to spare the NHS from cuts. He pointed out: “The effect is that he [George Osborne] is damaging, in a serious way, the ability of other public services to cope: he will visit real damage on other services that are intimately linked to the NHS.” But Cameron refused to abandon what was a prime piece of detoxification.

Budget 2011: coalition criticised as NHS spending power cut by £1bn | UK news | The Guardian

The coalition is embroiled in a row over its health pledges after it emerged that the budget contained a cut in the NHS’s spending power of almost £1bn.

Labour accused ministers of reneging on their repeated promise to increase the NHS’s budget in real terms every year throughout this parliament.

Revised upward predictions of inflation in the budget by the Office for Budget Responsibility show that the NHS in England will undergo a cut of £1bn in its spending power by 2015. It also reveals that its budget will be cut in each of the next two financial years, alleged shadow health secretary John Healey.

BBC News – Downing Street rejects £1bn NHS Budget cut claim

The NHS budget in England could be topped up to prevent a real terms cut in health spending, government sources have indicated.

Labour claim Wednesday’s Budget contained a £1bn cut in NHS funding – breaking a key coalition pledge.

But government sources told BBC News the Budget figures were “just an estimate”.

NHS news summary: There appears to be a growing acceptance that Lansley’s bill will destroy the NHS and transform UK health care to the US model i.e. health care only for the rich. UK Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg claims that he will “front up” the issue with the Conservatives. I wonder what that means and why he had to be directed by his party before starting his front-upping. Many GPs intend to retire early to protect their pensions and more cuts.

A few recent news articles concerning the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

BBC News – NHS satisfaction ‘at record high’

Public satisfaction with the NHS has reached record levels, according to a leading health economist.

Writing on the BMJ website, Professor John Appleby said 64% of people were either very or quite satisfied with the NHS.

Critics have questioned why the government is reorganising the NHS when the public is happy with it.

Lansley’s health Bill set to ‘break up NHS’ / Britain / Home – Morning Star

Experts published research today detailing why the coalition’s controversial Health Bill means the end of the NHS.

The paper, by Professor Allyson Pollock and David Price of the Centre for Health Sciences at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, shows how Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s NHS assault will amount to the break-up of a universal, comprehensive, publicly accountable, tax-funded service that is free at the point of use.

The researchers say that the government is going against its duty to provide comprehensive care by abolishing the structures and mechanisms needed to do this.

BBC News – Petition to stop Southampton heart unit closing

A mother from Jersey has launched a petition against the closure of the children’s heart unit at Southampton Hospital.

Children from the Channel Islands use it for specialist heart treatment.

The NHS could close it under plans to improve treatment by providing fewer and more specialised services.

Nick Clegg set to rein in NHS reforms | Politics | The Guardian

Nick Clegg told a meeting of his MPs in Westminster on Tuesday that he would now be “taking the lead” within government to rein in its programme of reform for the NHS.

The Liberal Democrat leader said he was determined to ensure changes were made to the health and social care bill, the clearest sign that he will personally negotiate with the health secretary, Andrew Lansley. A senior party source said that the Lib Dem leader had decided to “front up” the issue with the Conservatives.

Lansley’s reforms to the NHS – handing over a majority of the healthcare budget to GPs for commissioning, and scrapping primary care trusts – have been opposed by some Conservative MPs and the British Medical Association, and 10 days ago Lib Dems voted at their spring party conference to ensure modifications were made to the bill. Then it was suggested that even though the Lib Dems had registered their discontent, there was little their leader would be able to do within government.

One in three GPs threaten to quit before pensions change | Mail Online

One in three GPs is considering early retirement to avoid changes to their gold-plated NHS pension scheme, a poll has found.

Ministers want to increase family doctors’ retirement age from 60 to 65 – and eventually to 68 – in line with their patients.

But thousands of GPs are threatening to cut their losses and take early retirement before the changes come in, according to the survey.

BBC News – Lincolnshire mental health service cuts jobs

An NHS trust which provides mental health services in Lincolnshire has said it is looking to cut 15% of its staff to save £13m over three years.

The Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Trust said the move, which equates to about 300 posts, had been forced on it by tight limits on government funding.

Bosses said they were planning to save £750,000 in management costs alone.