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Hello to all my regular readers. Connectivity problems are easing / getting resolved and I hope to start regularly posting again soon.

 

XXX

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Conservative election poster 2010

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

 

Connectivity problems continue …

The Health and Social Care / Destroy the NHS Bill is drawing to an end. There are two last-minute attempts to derail progress of the bill. Lord David Owen is trying to postpone the Lords’ third reading of the bill tonight until after publication of the risk register. The Labour party have succeeded in tabling an emergency debate tomorrow again about the government’s refusal to publish the risk registers.

 

NHS bill: Labour force emergency debate on risk register

 

Labour have forced a Commons debate on whether Parliament can consider planned NHS changes for a final time before an assessment of the potential risks to the health service is published.

It will take place on Tuesday after being granted by Speaker John Bercow.

Critics are attempting to scupper the Health and Social Care Bill – currently in its final stages in the Lords.

An unhealthy business: major healthcare companies use tax havens to avoid millions in UK tax

While in public they have been presenting themselves as the future of the NHS, a Corporate Watch investigation into the accounts and finances of five of the major private healthcare companies has found widespread use of tax havens,* including the British Virgin Islands, Luxembourg, Jersey, Guernsey and the Cayman Islands, and tax avoidance schemes Barclays or Vodafone accountants would be proud of.

 

To download the pdf click here

 

  • Spire Healthcare, the UK’s second largest private healthcare company, is channelling £65m a year through a Luxembourg subsidiary of Cinven, its private equity owner, almost wiping out its taxable UK earnings.
  • Care UK, which operates NHS treatment centres, walk-in centres and mental health services across England, is reducing its tax liability by routing £8m a year in interest payments on loan notes issued in the Channel Islands.
  • Circle Health, the self-styled “social enterprise” that became the first private company to take over the management of an NHS hospital, is owned by companies and investment funds registered in the British Virgin Islands, Jersey and the Cayman Islands.
  • Ramsay Health Care, the company with the greatest number of healthcare provision contracts in the NHS, has used a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands to finance the purchase of a French health company for its Australian parent company.
  • General Healthcare Group, the biggest private hospital group in the UK, has registered the ownership of its hospitals through subsidiaries in the British Virgin Islands, potentially avoiding stamp duty when its owners come to sell. Its corporate structure may also mean its owners will not pay UK capital gains tax.

 

Spire, Care UK, General Healthcare Group and Ramsay** are all carrying significant levels of debt after their owners financed their acquisitions through borrowing. The interest being paid to banks and bondholders – which is far higher than the government would be paying for equivalent sums – is also serving to reduce taxable profits.

 

All of the companies investigated have been lobbying in support of the government’s health reforms, which they hope will increase their share of NHS work and the amount of patients paying for private healthcare.[2]

 

If accused of tax avoidance the companies will reply that everything they do is legal. As the accounts of their offshore subsidiaries are not publicly available – and the companies have not responded to Corporate Watch’s requests to see them – it is impossible to dispute that. But being legal is not the same thing as being right, and the government’s promises that companies can be regulated into doing a good job for the NHS are further undermined with evidence of how easily they are getting round the tax obligations that should help pay for it.

Doctors opposed to NHS reforms to stand against coalition MPs in election

Group of 240 healthcare professionals warn that health and social care bill is ’embarrassment to democracy’

 

NHS doctors opposed to the government’s health reforms have said they will stand against high-profile coalition MPs at the next general election.

As the legislation faces its final hurdle in parliament on Monday, a group of 240 healthcare professionals, including 30 professors, said in a letter to the Independent on Sunday that the health and social care bill was an “embarrassment to democracy” and pledged to stand as candidates against MPs who backed it.

The health secretary, Andrew Lansley, is expected to be among the MPs targeted, as well as the Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg.

The letter was organised by Dr Clive Peedell, a cancer specialist and the co-chair of the NHS Consultants Association, who said the intention was to field as many candidates as possible at the election, with other supporters acting in administrative and fundraising roles.

The letter said: “It is our view that coalition MPs and peers have placed the political survival of the coalition government above professional opinion, patient safety and the will of the citizens of this country.

“We are shocked by the failure of the democratic process and the facilitating role played by the Liberal Democrats in the passage of this bill.”

Richard Taylor, the retired consultant who was elected as an independent MP for Wyre Forest in 2001 in protest at the downgrading of his local hospital, said he was advising the doctors.

NHS reforms: seven in 10 hospital doctors reject bill

Royal College of Physicians poll shows widespread opposition to shakeup, with abundant fears about privatisation of servicesBritain’s hospital doctors want the coalition’s controversial NHS shakeup to be scrapped, with many fearing it will lead to health services being privatised, a poll has revealed.

Almost seven in 10 members of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), which represents hospital doctors, want the health and social care bill withdrawn.

The findings of the RCP’s poll of its members’ views on the bill are another blow to ministers’ efforts to convince doctors their plans are right, and are a significant addition to the medical community’s almost unanimous opposition to it.

The RCP polled its 25,417 fellows and members. Of those, 8,878 responded (35%). The survey followed the college’s recent extraordinary general meeting to decide its stance on the bill, after some members said it was not being robust enough in its opposition.

When asked for their personal views of the bill, 69% (6,092) said they rejected it as it stood; only 6% (525) accepted it; 22% (1,971) said they “neither completely accept nor completely reject it”; and the other 3% (290) did not offer an opinion.

How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems


What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-knownOrange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.

 

 

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.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

 

Continue ReadingNHS news review

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Conservative election poster 2010

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

 

Apologies for the delay – huge connectivity problems. (Hi reader Rich;)

Con-Dems drag heels on NHS risk

 

 MPs launched a fresh attack on the government on Wednesday for dragging its heels over publication of the potential risks of NHS reforms almost a week after a legal ruling ordered it to do so.

An information rights tribunal ordered the government to publish the national risk register last Friday.

Doing so would make public the known consequences for NHS patients and services if the Health and Social Care Bill is to become law.

Last week’s ruling was the second demanding that the register be published.

The Information Commissioner found in favour of its publication in November 2010.

But as the Health Bill nears its final stage the government is still refusing to publish the register.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “We are still awaiting the detailed reasoning behind this decision.

“Once we have been able to examine the judgement we will work with colleagues across government and decide next steps.”

Labour MPs believe the government is intentionally dragging its feet on publishing the register to ensure the Bill goes through before its full implications are clear.

NHS – Last Chance?

On Monday afternoon, the House of Lords starts the final voting on the NHS changes. An influential crossbench Lord, Lord David Owen, has agreed to deliver the Save Our NHS petition. He will take it into the House of Lords chamber, just before the debate starts.

The petition bears the names of over half a million of us. It speaks of our fears for the future of our NHS: services broken up, creeping privatisation, money diverted from patient care. These are the kinds of risks which could be in the government’s risk report. But the government still won’t publish that report, despite legal orders to do so.

During Monday’s debate, Lord Owen will call a vote blocking the NHS changes until the risk report is published. Our petition will remind Lords that the public care about these risks to the future of our health service. It could persuade some wavering Lords to vote the right way.

It’s quite a long shot, to be honest. The government seems determined to ignore everyone’s concerns and force things through. But incredible things can happen even this late in the day – it’s definitely worth a try.

There’s already 500,000 names on the petition. But the bigger it is, the more powerful our message to the Lords on Monday when the petition is delivered. So please can you sign the petition and forward it to your friends, family and colleagues too.

 

100 NHS voices: what happens if the NHS bill passes?

Even professionals find the health and social care bill confusing. Below, as an introduction to this special series of interviews, Denis Campbell, the Guardian’s health correspondent, explains what will happen if it goes through

Explore what 100 people who work in or with the NHS think of the reforms in our interactive

• Tell us how concerned you are about the reforms and what the NHS means to you

 

Med students demand halt to NHS attacks

 Nearly 2,000 medical students called on the PM on Thursday to ditch the coalition’s hated attack on the NHS that could leave them without jobs.

An open letter signed by thousands of trainee doctors was handed in to No 10 and expressed concern what state the NHS will be in when they qualify if Health and Social Care Bill is passed next week.

The four students who wrote it – Vita Sinclair, Anya Gopfert, Joy Clarke and Cameron Stocks – asked David Cameron not to “gamble with our shared right to comprehensive health care” and told him it is “not too late to drop the Bill.”

Ms Sinclair said: “The health Bill is dangerous because it is so complicated that people struggle to understand what is happening to their NHS.

“If the Bill is passed we will see gradual changes leaving vulnerable populations like the homeless or simply those with a complicated medical history at high risk of being treated unfairly or not treated at all.”

 

NHS reforms: seven in 10 hospital doctors reject bill

 

Royal College of Physicians poll shows widespread opposition to shakeup, with abundant fears about privatisation of services

Britain’s hospital doctors want the coalition’s controversial NHS shakeup to be scrapped, with many fearing it will lead to health services being privatised, a poll has revealed.

Almost seven in 10 members of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), which represents hospital doctors, want the health and social care bill withdrawn.

The findings of the RCP’s poll of its members’ views on the bill are another blow to ministers’ efforts to convince doctors their plans are right, and are a significant addition to the medical community’s almost unanimous opposition to it.

How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems


What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-knownOrange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.

 

Continue ReadingNHS news review

NHS news review

Spread the love

Conservative election poster 2010

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

 

  • National No Smoking Day today.
  • Bids to abolish the  Health and Social Care / Destroy the NHS Bill with the support of a handful of Lib-Dem MPs fails.
  • Dr Kailash Chand OBE – who started the epetition – suggests that the BMA should ballot on strike action to oppose the Destroy the NHS Bill

 

Commons revolt against NHS reforms defeated

Government survives two votes of no confidence in health and social care bill but faces at least two further major challenges

 

Two votes of no confidence in the government’s NHS reforms have been comfortably defeated but other developments mean that ministers face at least two further major challenges to the legislation in the final week before the bill is due to be passed.

MPs voted twice on Tuesday on motions to drop the health and social care bill after Labour held a three-hour opposition day debate inspired by a public e-petition signed by more than 174,000 people calling for the government to abandon the legislation.

The first vote was on a Liberal Democrat motion calling for the bill to be dropped in its current form and urging health professionals and critics to work with the coalition government on further reform of the NHS. Despite earlier hopes of a bigger cross-party uprising, the motion was defeated by 260 votes to 314 in support of the government – a majority of 54, compared with the government’s overall majority of 84. A second vote on a simpler motion by Labour to simply drop the bill was defeated by 258 to 314.

Ministers are reported to want the bill passed into law on 20 March, a day before the budget. Some critics of the bill have vowed to keep fighting until then.

The BMA is picking the wrong fight [registration needed to view article]

 

As the health bill gains more and more momentum in Parliament, we need to put our energy into the big issue rather than letting political pressure divide us. In any event, the question of ‘pensions or politics’ is not an either/or problem – we can still go back to the table to renegotiate pensions without losing credibility on the bigger picture of health reform.

I intend to stand for BMA Council again this year so I can contribute to this debate. I don’t want the medical profession to become fragmented under pressure, and we need to protect ourselves from those on the outside with a vested interest.

But I can’t do it by myself. The union needs the support of all its members during the hard times ahead.

Why would the BMA not ballot its members for industrial action to save the NHS? If the union knows we would disrupt our work to protect our finances, it must also show the public that we would be willing to do the same to save the NHS.

 

How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems


What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-knownOrange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.

Continue ReadingNHS news review

NHS news review

Spread the love

Conservative election poster 2010

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

 

Apologies that the NHS news review is so late today.

In today’s news:

  • Labour uses its opposition day debate to discuss the NHS. The debate is framed in terms of the epetition which was not to be discussed by parliament despite receiving over 170 thousand signatures. There is a rebel amendment by 5 Lib-Dem MPs which calls for changes according to the Coalition Agreement. I thought that there was no mention of NHS reforms in the Coalition Agreement.
  • Andrew Lansley argues that the NHS would have collapsed without his ‘reforms’. I find his argument rather strange. The NHS was performing well. The argument that doing nothing is not an option does not mean that a huge top-down restructuring – exactly as promised otherwise – combined with huge cuts is necesssary. It is certainly clear to me that Lansley, Cameron, Clegg & Co are intent on destroying the NHS.
  • A second hospital trust is looking to be privately managed.
  • GPs ask for talks with government on implementing reforms while maintaining their opposition.

NHS bill: Lords and MPs debating healthcare shake-up

 

Controversial plans to overhaul the way the NHS is run in England are again being debated in the Lords, as Labour says the bill can still be stopped.

Peers are examining the Health and Social Care Bill and there will be a Labour-led NHS debate in the Commons.

Labour says it will support a motion by rebel Lib Dem MPs calling for the bill to be dropped.

But health minister Simon Burns told the BBC he was “very confident” it would become law by the spring.

The legislation is now coming to the end of its report stage in the Lords and is expected to become law within weeks.

While peers debate the legislation, MPs will be asked to vote on Labour’s motion: “That this House: notes the e-petition signed by 170,000 people calling on the government to drop the health and social care bill; and declines to support the bill in its current form.”

 

 

Rebel amendment

Five Lib Dem backbenchers, Andrew George, John Pugh, Adrian Sanders, Greg Mulholland and David Ward have put forward their own amendment which “declines to support the Bill in its current form” and calls for an “urgent summit” of government, health and patients’ groups to plan reforms “based on the coalition agreement”.

Labour sources have told the BBC the party will back the amendment, to try to bolster Lib Dem opposition and build a cross-party alliance to defeat the Bill, ahead of its final reading in the Commons next week.

 

Related: NHS reforms: Lib Dem divisions resurface as bill returns to parliament

NHS will collapse without reforms, Andrew Lansley warns

Health secretary says he doesn’t care about ‘attacks’ by health professionals, the NHS must change to avert crisis

Andrew Lansley has mounted a defiant defence of his unpopular NHS reforms, claiming that the changes will stop the service from collapsing.

In a strongly worded article in the British Journal of Nursing (BJN), the health secretary lambasts Labour’s “hypocritical” opposition to his plans to extend competition in the NHS and shrugs off the sometimes vitriolic criticism he inspires.

“Some people say we should not have embarked on this programme of NHS reform. To those people who doubt what we are doing I would say, because of the pressures we are facing, we cannot afford not to reform the NHS. To take the approach advocated by Labour of simply sitting on our hands would be storing up a crisis for the future”, Lansley writes.

 

Second NHS trust faces privatisation

 

 Shadows of privateers circling the NHS grew darker today when a health trust in Warwickshire said it was open to a takeover.

George Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton said it’s in talks with a clutch of potential partners, including Serco and Circle, and tender documents may be published next month.

In February, Hinchingbrooke Health Care Trust in Cambridgeshire became the first all-purpose general hospital to be managed by a private company when Circle took control.

Former Labour health minister Mike O’Brien (pictured), who lost his local Warwickshire seat in 2010, has accused the government of forcing the hospital board into the merger.

He told the Coventry Telegraph that the idea should be dropped, adding: “I think this is about the values of the NHS. It is the National Health Service, not the National Health Business.”

 

 

NHS bill: GPs offer to help with health changes

 

The Royal College of GPs has indicated it is willing to work again with the government on implementing changes to the NHS in England, it has emerged.

The body had been omitted from talks since declaring its opposition to the Health and Social Care Bill last month.

Its head, Clare Gerada, said members had not changed opinion but were willing to help “find a way forward”.

She said the royal college still wanted the bill withdrawn but it was time to “stop polarising” the debate.

 

 

How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems


What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-knownOrange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.

 

Continue ReadingNHS news review

NHS news review

Spread the love

Conservative election poster 2010

Recent events in the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat (Conservative) coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

 

Apart from the SNP’s Sturgeon claiming that the only way to protect the Scottish health service is through independence, all the news is about the vote at the Liberal-Democrat Spring conference.

Liberal-Democrats resisted appeals from Nick Clegg and Shirley Williams to support the Destroy the NHS / Health and Social Care Bill.

 

How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems


What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-knownOrange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.

Continue ReadingNHS news review

NHS news review: Lib-Dem Neo-Con Conference

Spread the love

Conservative election poster 2010

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

The Guardian’s Politics Live Blog has the latest on Lib-Dem support for destroying the NHS. They’ve voted to neither support nor oppose it.

Yesterday’s Guardian Politics blog was correct in identifying that the Lib-Dem debate on health had been framed well as Shirley Williams vs. Andy Burnham.

This framing was extended by Williams attacking twitter and the media generally on the basis of one article by Parrot Tonee. It is wholly unfair to tarnish all media as inaccurate on the basis of one article.

The vast majority of media articles are factally correct: the overwhelming opposition to the Destroy the NHS / Health and Social Care Bill amoung health workers, Lansley censoring the media and getting chased down hospital corridors on hospital visits, Nick Clegg wanting to destroy the NHS since 2005.

The Neo-Liberal ‘Liberal-Democrat’ party supports the destruction of the NHS despite overwhelming opposition from the medical professions. It is huge arrogance from Williams, Clegg, Cammoron and Lansley to promote such a wrecking bill disregarding so much opposition from medical professionals. They are the people who really understand.

How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems


What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-known Orange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.

 

Continue ReadingNHS news review: Lib-Dem Neo-Con Conference

NHS news review

Spread the love

Conservative election poster 2010

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

Legal experts warn of NHS charges and rationing

The Health and Social Care Bill creates a legal basis for withholding or charging for health services, according to medico-legal experts.

In an article in the British Medical Journal, it is argued that the Bill will drive a transition to a US-style model where private health insurance is the norm for medical reimbursement.

The authors argue that by removing the legal obligation to provide free healthcare and creating a legal right to charge for it, the Bill amounts to “the legal destruction of the founding principles of the NHS”.

Allyson M. Pollock, David Price and Peter Roderick list the following legal consequences of the new legislation:

• The duty of the Health Secretary to secure free healthcare for the population of England and the duty of PCTs to secure health services for everyone living in a defined geographical area are both abolished.

• The new CCGs will determine the scope of services independently of the Health Secretary, and may delegate these decisions to commercial companies.

• Some health services will be arranged by local authorities, who will have new charging powers.

• The Health Secretary will have an extraordinary power to exclude people from the NHS.

Taken in combination, the authors argue, this is a sufficient legal framework for a transition from a free NHS to one that charges many people for many of the services they receive.

The recent amendment stating that the Health Secretary “retains ministerial responsibility to Parliament for the provision of the health service in England” does not restore any duty to ensure the provision of comprehensive services, the authors say.

They also note that unlike PCTs, CCGs will not have a duty to provide health services for everyone within a defined geographical area. They will also have fewer obligations in terms of what government-funded services they provide, being required only to provide ambulance services and ‘emergency care’.

CCGs will now have the power to determine whether provision of the following to individuals is “appropriate”: disease prevention, care of pregnant women and new mothers, care of young children, care of people who are ill, aftercare of those who have received treatment.

These decisions need not be made by NHS clinicians and can be delegated to the private sector. In addition, private providers of healthcare will draw up their own criteria for patient selection, and will not need to notify local authorities of any risk to patients through termination of a service.

An open-ended relationship is created between CCGs and local authorities, which can pass service responsibilities back and forth between them, thus deregulating the provision of integrated care. Charging powers are created for the protection and improvement of public health, including vaccination and screening services as well as preventative healthcare and health information.

Many areas of healthcare will cease to be mandated and therefore may no longer be provided free of charge.

The authors conclude: “Legal analysis shows that the Bill would allow reductions in government funded health services as a consequence of decisions made independently of the Secretary of State by a range of bodies.

“The Bill signals the basis for a shift from a mainly tax financed health service to one in which patients may have to pay for services currently free at point of delivery.”

GPs Call For Health Bill Withdrawal

In the week that David Cameron said he “does not care” how unpopular his NHS reforms have become, the Royal College of GPs has reiterated its staunch opposition to the Health and Social Care Bill.

Dr Clare Gerada, Chair of the RCGP, today clarified the view of the college after critics claimed she had “weakened” her position against the Health Bill. These accusations followed a letter to the prime minister from Dr Gerada, asking him to work with GPs to find “a stable way forward” in light of the NHS reforms.

You can read the letter to the PM here.

The 34,000 GPs currently working in the UK will face huge challenges if the proposed reforms become reality. It will be their responsibility to enact the changes mapped out in the Health Bill, which places £60 billion of public money in the hands of doctors with little experience of financial management. It also forces GPs to directly ration treatment, a move that undermines a key principle of healthcare: that doctors have their patients’ best interests at heart.

The RCGP remains opposed to the Health Bill, but recognises that the NHS must prepare for these changes to maintain the best possible care. Dr Gerada is calling for co-operation for the good of her patients, rather than for political point-scoring. This is in sharp contrast to the Prime Minister, who snubbed the RCGP and the British Medical Association during a recent Downing Street meeting on NHS reform.

Dr Gerada has issued a further statement, this time addressed to Nick Clegg, reaffirming the RCGP’s concerns. She asked the deputy prime minister to use his influence to withdraw the Health and Social Care Bill, and outlined her firm belief that “the reform the NHS needs could happen without this complex and confusing wholesale restructure.”

Cameron cannot hide the risks of his NHS reforms

The PM should now respect the law, accept the court verdict and order the immediate release of the NHS transition risk register

[John Healey is former Shadow Health Secretary]

The government has dragged out its refusal to release this information for 15 months, while parliament has been legislating for the NHS changes and pressed ahead with implementation at the same time. It’s now near the end of the 11th hour for the NHS bill, with the legislation set to pass in the next fortnight. Next Tuesday is the final day for amending the health bill in the House of Lords. They are set to pass the bill on Monday 19 March, with the Commons expected to do the same the following day before the bill is sent to the Queen for royal assent.

 

This legal judgment must put an end to the government’s efforts to keep secret the risks to the NHS and the action it is taking to manage or minimise them. Parliament rightly expects this information before it takes the final irrevocable steps to pass the health bill. Ministers’ first reaction to the tribunal’s judgment is to stonewall, delaying any decision to accept or appeal against the verdict until after the end of the bill. This is wrong. The government has now lost twice in law. This is a legal and constitutional argument, not a political argument. It isn’t a matter of whether you are for or against the reforms. It’s about people’s right to know the government’s own assessment of the nature and scale of the risks it is running with the quality, safety and efficiency of our NHS.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg have both made a strong commitment to open government. They should now respect the law, accept this court verdict and order the immediate release of the NHS transition risk register.

 

Liberal Democrat MPs ‘insult’ man with HIV who raised concerns over the ‘privatisation’ health bill

More than half of swing voters don’t trust Nick Clegg on NHS, finds poll

How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems


What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-knownOrange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.

 

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Conservative election poster 2010

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

The UK Conservative – Liberal-Democrat (Conservative) coalition government has lost its appeal against publishing the NHS risk register. There is a further appeal available to the government. It is expected that the government will make that further appeal – it is desperate to both prevent and delay publication of the risk register.

Royal College of Surgeons condemns NHS reforms

Surgeons stop short of calling for health and social care bill to be scrapped, offering small crumb of comfort to Andrew Lansley

Surgeons have condemned the coalition’s NHS shakeup but stopped short of demanding the scrapping of the health and social care bill.

An extraordinary general meeting of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) passed a highly critical motion on Thursday night saying the bill would damage the NHS.

But the college bucked the recent trend within the medical community by rejecting a call for it to move to a position of outright opposition to the bill by seeking its withdrawal.

The move will bring a small amount of comfort for the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, as he steers the troubled legislation through what he hopes are its final stages this month. Other major medical organisations, such as the British Medical Association and royal colleges representing nurses, midwives and other health professionals, have called for the government to abandon its plans and devise new policies for the NHS in England.

The RCS’s decision means that opponents of the bill cannot claim the entire medical establishment is united in its plea for the government to abandon its plans. A total of 176 surgeons attended the meeting at the college’s London headquarters.

By a majority of 101 to 70 they agreed that the bill would “damage the NHS and widen healthcare inequalities, with detrimental effects on education, training and patient care in England”.

But members held back from the dramatic step of backing its withdrawal. While 76 agreed that the college should “publicly call for withdrawal of the health and social care bill”, 99 disagreed.

 

How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems


What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-known Orange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.

Continue ReadingNHS news review