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 protests: why we’re marching | World news | The Guardian

Nora Pearce, 62, midwife, Kingston upon Thames

I’m going to be there to defend the NHS. I’ll be with a very large group from Kingston hospital, where I work, and a couple of my grandchildren, and we’ll all be carrying two flipping heavy banners.

We feel the NHS is under attack. Before the last election, Nick Clegg and David Cameron used Kingston hospital as a backdrop to say that the NHS would be safe in their hands. But now the government has said the NHS must have £20bn worth of efficiency savings, despite maintaining that no frontline staff will be cut. And at Kingston we have been told that over the next four years we will be losing nearly 500 staff – 20% of whom are nurses and doctors. Now, if that ain’t frontline staff, then what is?

The hospital is saying that no services will be affected. Yeah, right. It is also saying there will be no redundancies. I half-believe that, because it could achieve staff reductions through people retiring. But it ain’t about redundancies: it’s about the service. You can’t run a hospital without the staff. At Kingston, we have 22 consultants, and 214 nurses and midwives. They’re not exactly sitting in the cupboard twiddling their thumbs.

Ambulance jobs axed as 999 calls hit record levels | News

About 100 frontline ambulance posts are to be axed in the capital, it was revealed today.

The positions will be lost as part of cuts affecting about 3,400 staff at the London Ambulance Service.

Tens of thousands of NHS jobs are to go as health trusts struggle with £20 billion of government cuts over the next four years.

Richard Webber, the LAS’s director of operations, expressed concern about losing the posts at a time when paramedics are busier than ever.

NHS satisfaction levels reach record high – Chemist + Druggist

NHS satisfaction levels have reached a record high among the public and employees, according to the latest British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey.

The latest BSA survey found that 64 per cent of the British public were either very or quite satisfied with the NHS – representing the highest levels since the survey began in 1983.

The results coincided with findings from the 2010 annual NHS staff survey, which reported record levels of job satisfaction in the NHS. Three quarters said they were satisfied by the quality of work and patient care they delivered, while 90 per cent were happy with the difference they made to patients.

Nurses feel the stress as cuts bite (From The Northern Echo)

A NURSES’ union has warned that North-East NHS staff are experiencing increasing levels of stress as Government cuts begin to bite.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Northern Region was responding to a national survey of NHS staff by the Care Quality Commission.

While staff still feel they can make a difference to patients, the RCN said cracks are beginning to show and stress levels are increasing.

Government’s skewed priorities on NHS pay, says Unite

The government has shown that when it comes to pay in the NHS its prefers the smart Saville Row suit of the bankers to the uniform of a hard-working nurse.

Unite, the largest union in the country, said it verged on the grotesque that the NHS Pay Review Body (PRB) was marginalised by the government’s public sector pay freeze policy, while on the other hand, ministers allowed bankers’ bonuses to let rip at the 83 per cent state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

Unite national officer Rachael Maskell said today (Monday 21 March): ”It is quite clear who wields the influence in the corridors of Whitehall – the well-suited investment banker – and not hardworking public sector staff, who are being made to pay, through higher taxes and reduced living standards, for the financial crisis the banking elite created in the first place.

Nutrition: NHS patients fed £1 meals as hospitals budget just HALF the amount spent on prisoner food | Mail Online

Patients in NHS hospitals are being fed cheaper food than prison inmates, it was revealed yesterday.

Spending on hospital food has been slashed by up to two-thirds over the last five years, according to official figures.

In some hospitals in England budgets have fallen by 62 per cent – with meals costing little more than £1. That’s just half the £2.10 spent on the average meal in jail.

23,000 sign letter to Chancellor before Budget – RCN

Three Royal College of Nursing members handed a letter co-signed by nearly 23,000 members to 11 Downing Street, to express concerns about cuts to NHS frontline services.

Salma Bilkis, Lee Thomas and Kevin Takooree were joined by Janet Davies, the RCN’s Director of Nursing and Service Delivery, when they handed in the letter at the official residence of Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.

The letter was handed in as Mr Osborne prepared to deliver his latest Budget. The UK is braced for massive cuts in public services, but the Coalition Government has said NHS spending is ring-fenced.

A Westcountry MP will today come face-to-face with Health Secretary Andrew Lansley in the wake of claims that his reforms risk destroying the NHS.

A Westcountry MP will today come face-to-face with Health Secretary Andrew Lansley in the wake of claims that his reforms risk destroying the NHS.

Sarah Wollaston, GP-turned-Tory MP for Totnes, has warned that the Government is in danger of creating a “Trojan horse” that could undermine the NHS from within.

In outspoken remarks, Dr Wollaston said the controversial re-organisation risked changing the NHS “beyond recognition” and was “doomed to fail”.

I find the second featured article interesting. The article recognises the importance that Lansley was formerly Cameron’s boss and suggests that Cameron was not interested or aware of the extent of Lansley’s ‘reforms’.

In a related exercise, I have been trying to nail down the origin of this movement to destroy the NHS. I suspect that it may be criticism of the National Health Service by American politicians in 2008 / 2009. These criticisms were made in response to Hillary Clinton’s manouvers concerning health care reform for the poor. Clinton’s proposals were only ever posturings – there was never any serious intentions.

It is disappointing that UK Neo-Cons suck up so much to their insane US masters. USUK.

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.

NHS rebel MP Pugh to receive 150,000 petition against reform Bill – Southport Visiter

CAMPAIGNERS will today hand over a petition signed by more than 150,000 people to MP John Pugh opposing plans to radically reform the NHS.

Members of campaign group 38 Degrees will tell the Lib Dem health spokesman of the dangers of the proposed Health and Social Bill.

The proposed Coalition legislation will hand 80% of the NHS budget to consortia of GPs, who will buy services from providers in the public, private and charity sectors.

But there are fears that NHS hospitals will go bust if private firms grab large chunks of their revenue by cherry-picking the easiest treatments.

Is Lansley’s NHS shock therapy a bolt from the blue? | Tom Clark | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

The great NHS storm that has beset politics was one that few saw coming. There were voices, and I hope a touch of self-congratulation on the part of the Guardian might be forgiven here, who warned before the election that Andrew Lansley was quietly drawing up plans that might explode the moment they met daylight. And so it has come to pass.

In part, of course, the calm before the storm arose because of what the Conservatives did not say. Lansley’s shock therapy was referred to in only the most oblique terms in the Tory manifesto, while the coalition agreement described an entirely different package, which involved democratising primary care trusts instead of abolishing them. In part, however, it has to do with the measured personal style of Lansley himself.

A former civil servant, who in the distant past worked for Norman Tebbit, he retains something of the mandarin’s technocratic manner. That is only reinforced by his extraordinary tenure over the health portfolio, which has been in his grasp since Iain Duncan Smith’s day, some seven years ago. Sure of his terrain, he avoided all the obvious elephant traps on the cusp of the 2010 election, and he made the shrewd choice to hug the doctors close, even querying Gordon Brown’s plans to extend GP opening hours, to ensure that the trusted voice of the profession would not rail against him in opposition.

…

The reaction against the health bill is rapidly moving from silent to violent, as the world wakes up to what it will mean. After those air-brushed election posters about “cutting the deficit, not the NHS” David Cameron’s personal reputation is very much at risk. Only when the memoirs are written will we discover whether he ever intended to allow the mild-mannered Lansley to gamble with a service that he once described as “a wonderful fact of British life”.

Oldham News | News Headlines | Wipe-out risk to NHS principles – Chronicle Online

The founding principles of the NHS are in danger of being wiped out by Government plans to overhaul the health service, an MP has warned.

Oldham East and Saddleworth MP Debbie Abrahams said the health reforms had no mandate from the British people and no support from health professionals nor the Lib-Dems who are in coalition with the Tories.

Mrs Abrahams said: “Not only are the founding principles of the NHS in danger of being wiped out, but its culture — the reason that most of its employees work for the NHS — will go as well.

“The whole ethos of the NHS will change. It will now be driven by competition and consumer interests.”

Experts warn cuts will savage NHS cashflow / Britain / Home – Morning Star

Health union Unison warned today against the government’s vicious local authority spending cuts following evidence that the NHS will be forced to pick up the pieces of a £1 billion gap in social care funding.

Health think tank the King’s Fund revealed that the NHS will come under increasing pressure from people whose needs are not met by local authority services.

The fund warned that local authority social care services face a funding gap in excess of at least £1.2bn by 2014-15.

Paul Blomfield MP attacks two-tier NHS privatisation plans

Paul Blomfield MP yesterday attacked the Tory/Lib Dem government’s plans to drastically restructure the NHS which he warned will create a two-tier health system, and encourage the privatisation of the NHS. Mr Blomfield urged the Government to abandon their NHS plans and listen to the British Medical Association who at an emergency conference on Tuesday urged the Government to think again.

Paul Blomfield MP said in his speech that: “The proposals reveal the ideological heart of the Government and their vision for public services: a two-tier health system, with the best available for those who can afford it, and the NHS becoming a safety net for those who cannot.”

Speaking after the debate Paul said: “I’m very disappointed that Lib Dem MPs failed to support Labour in defending the NHS from the Tory attack on it. The Lib Dem MPs have ignored the vote at their conference in Sheffield last weekend which rejected the NHS reforms and they’ve let down their voters.

Denham hits out as “NHS Frontline” campaign is launched

Earlier this week Labour launched a petition calling on David Cameron to protect frontline services in the NHS and keep his pre-General Election promise to put an end to big top down reorganisations. Labour secured an opposition day debate on Tory plans to reorganise the NHS after the plans were rejected by the Liberal Democrats at their Spring Conference and condemned by the British Medical Association at their extraordinary general meeting last week.

John Denham, Labour MP for Southampton Itchen, said: “GPs don’t want the Tories’ NHS reforms, Lib Dems don’t want the Tories and the public don’t want the Tories’ NHS reforms. We beat the Government on the forests and I know we can beat them on the NHS reforms if we all work together.”

John Healey, Shadow Health Secretary, added: “David Cameron has scrapped Labour’s waiting time guarantees for hospital treatments and GP appointments, and he’s cutting frontline staff while wasting £2billion on a reckless reorganisation.

‘Quality and safety’ at risk in NHS shake-up, officials warn – Telegraph

The guide to the “unprecedented” restructuring of the health service in England points out that previous reforms had a “negative effect” on services, staff morale and productivity.

It claims that “quality of care provided to patients” and “continuity of services” is in danger as tiers of management are removed and experience staff leave.

And the paper, signed by senior civil servants including the Chief Executive of the NHS, reminds staff that the Government’s reforms are taking place at the same time as £20billion in efficiency savings must be made.

Safe in their hands? Margaret Drabble on the threat facing the NHS | Society | The Guardian

The threatened NHS has been much in all our minds this week, and, pestered by online petitions and appeals for support, I’ve been going over my long relationship with it. Our experiences of the NHS are woven deeply into the fabric of our lives, and most of mine have been good. All my children were born and cared for on the NHS, and have been well served by it. And for those nearing the end of life, my GP used to bake and ice a cake for each of his patients who reached the age of 100.

It has been a recurrent theme in my fiction, as it has been an integral part of my life. The narrator of The Millstone (1966), a young unmarried mother, in a central confrontational scene, actually delivers herself of the line “I love the National Health Service”, while insisting on access to her sick baby in Great Ormond Street hospital. How things have changed since then, and sometimes for the better. When I went to visit my granddaughter a few years ago, as she recovered from minor surgery, the atmosphere was festive. Our generation of mothers had complained, we had made ourselves heard, and life on the wards had improved. That’s how it worked, and should work. It is for us, it is ours, and the professionals do listen.

And now we seem to be on the brink of losing all of this. It isn’t wholly unexpected. I predicted creeping privatisation in my 1996 satirical condition-of-England novel, The Witch of Exmoor, written at the somewhat ridiculous and squalid end of the failing Major government. We had already become wary about the selling off of public assets and services into private hands – gas, water, prisons, railways. One of the novel’s more sympathetic characters, an advertising man, works for a firm which is given the task of updating “the corporate image of the National Health Service”.

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.

Doctors fear private sector will damage NHS | Healthcare Network | Guardian Professional

Research involving 1,645 BMA members polled about the government’s health and social care bill has found that 89% think increased competition will lead to fragmentation of services, while 66% believe that the move for all NHS acute providers to reside within foundation trusts will damage NHS values.

The poll, conducted online in January by Ipsos Mori, also shows that nearly 60% of those surveyed think health secretary Andrew Lansley’s plans will have a negative impact on their personal role within the NHS, with 31% saying it will be a major one and 27% saying it will be minor. A specific concern, feared by a majority of those polled, is that the reforms will mean they spend less time with patients – something opposed by almost all those questioned.

Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of council at the BMA, said that the results show that the government “can no longer claim widespread support among doctors”.

38 Degrees | Blog | Over 175,000 of us say: save the NHS

In just six days, the petition to tell the government to Save The NHS has been signed by an incredible 175,000 members. We’ve only just finished voting on which campaigns to work on together over the next few weeks, and now we’ve already managed to build 38 Degrees’ fastest-ever growing petition!

While the petition is growing fast, 52,000 of us have shared it on Facebook, thousands more spread the petition on Twitter, hundreds of members organised local meetings and have spoken to their local MP, and the petition has only just been launched!

The media have noticed too. On Monday the Independent said, ”The campaign group 38 Degrees – which was instrumental in forcing the Government to drop its plans to sell off parts of Britain’s forests – collected more than 80,000 signatures against the plans over the weekend.”

If you haven’t already, please sign the petition and share with your friends and family.

‘Creeping privatisation’ of NHS will mean loss of expertise, say top doctors | Society | The Guardian

The “creeping privatisation” of the NHS will affect patient care, top doctors have warned, saying the government’s planned shakeup risks hospitals losing key services, critical research being jeopardised and public goodwill for blood donations disappearing as private firms are seen to profit from public funds.

Medical leaders fear the controversial switch to allow “any willing provider” – voluntary, public or private – to supply care services in the NHS will fragment the system. Driven by the need to save £20bn from NHS budgets, the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, plans to increase commercialisation and competition across the health service – with no part off limits.

Already, large elements of the health service are falling into private hands. Last September, Serco, the multinational services company with an empire stretching from railways to maintaining ballistic missiles, became the UK’s largest provider of pathology services, a market worth £2.5bn, with the takeover of King’s hospital laboratories in London.

The private sector is drooling over health privatisation plans | Ian Kirkpatrick | Politics | The Guardian

The government’s plans to outsource more NHS services have left many in the public sector with a bitter taste in their mouth and the private sector positively drooling. In the coming years, an array of health services is likely to be outsourced despite little evidence that it would improve efficiency and make savings. This will see a push to further privatise clinical services such as radiology and pathology – the latter worth £2.5bn per year. The government has recently been in talks about privatising part of the NHS blood service to make it more “commercially effective”.

Even NHS Direct is in the firing line with Capita – a company reported to the Office of Fair Trading two years ago for allegedly overcharging schools by £75m for IT contracts – lined up to manage the contract, according to reports. Major off-shoring is also on the agenda. John Neilson, head of NHS Shared Business Services, said recently that the NHS should outsource the administration of procurement to call centres in India to save £20bn over the next four years. For private companies eyeing a slice of the NHS pie, it gets better: NHS Trusts may ultimately come under private ownership with many of the services they manage also outsourced.

Areas such as estates management, worth about £7bn per year, and back-office functions such as HR and IT are also prime targets to be transferred to private owners.

Social care £1bn funding gap could undermine NHS | GP online

Unison says local authorities face budget cuts of up to 27% and cannot protect their adult care spending.

The King’s Fund has predicted that local authority care services will face a funding gap of at least £1bn by 2015.

Helga Pile, Unison’s national officer for social care, said demand for NHS services would escalate as social care users are left without care.

‘With stricter criteria to qualify for care and hiked-up charges, people are being priced out of the help they need,’ she said.

MP calls for cross party action against NHS proposals (From Falmouth Packet)

West Cornwall MP Andrew George is calling for cross-party support in an effort to block the Government’s Health and Social Care Bill.

Speaking during an initial debate on the bill in Parliament, Mr George said that the future of the NHS is more important than party political point scoring. He called for MPs to come together and to see if the Health Secretary and his fellow Ministers were really “listening” to concerns as they had claimed they were.

After the debate, Mr George said that he would be seeking a meeting of MPs and other stakeholders (including the BMA, Kings Fund, Royal Colleges, etc) before the Bill comes back to the main chamber of the House of Commons for its report stage after the Easter recess.

NHS reforms leave health ministers under attack from all sides | Politics | The Guardian

Simon Burns, the ebullient health minister and understudy to Andrew Lansley, has been sporting a new haircut this week in preparation for being made a privy counsellor. But his promotion as a confidant of the Queen hardly compensates for the terrible pounding he and Lansley, not to mention the Liberal Democrat health minister Paul Burstow, have been taking over the NHS proposals. One suspects the Queen might be quietly asking him what he thinks he is doing meddling with the health service.

Ministers certainly feel they are being hit from every side after they formally lost the support of the Lib Dems on Saturday, the British Medical Association on Tuesday and the former Blairite health secretary Alan Milburn on Wednesday.

For David Cameron it is now double or quits. He has a limited amount of political capital. Should he expend it on defending the plans as they stand or signal some big rethink? Half-measures are pointless. He has shown himself willing to compromise on school sport, forests and some welfare changes. But to delay the health shakeup, or change it at its core, would be a retreat of an entirely different order.

NHS red tape will increase by 600% under Andrew Lansley’s reforms – mirror.co.uk

Monitor, the taxpayer-funded body that regulates the health service, will have to spend millions more to keep the Health Secretary’s free-for-all in check.

The Government quango could see its budget jump from £20million a year to £130million to cope with the changes, it has emerged.

It makes a mockery of David Cameron’s claim that the Coalition plans, which hand 80% of the NHS budget for doctors to spend how they want, will “abolish” bureaucracy in the health service.