How austerity caused the NHS crisis

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The A&E delays can be traced back to Cameron – and have been worsened by successive health secretaries

Original article republished from Open Democracy under  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

NHS sign

Danny Dorling

4 January 2023, 1.19pm

When the coalition government first introduced its landmark Health and Social Care Act in 2010, health secretary Andrew Lansley claimed the NHS would never again need to undergo such huge organisational change.

But even at the time, one widely respected commentator warned that – far from being the final fix that Lansley had advertised – the act “could become this government’s ‘poll tax’”.

In the event, it has been a slow-burn poll tax. Only now, ten years after it came into law, are we seeing its full effects, with publications from The Times to the Morning Star reporting that “A&E delays are ‘killing up to 500 people a week’”.

This figure – 5% above the normal number of people who die each week, though that baseline is also rising – can surely be traced back to the act, which ushered in a greater wave of privatisation than ever before. It compelled NHS management to behave as if they were in the private sector, competing to win business, and led to an increase in the proportion of contracts won and the use of contracts overall.

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At the time, the damage caused was little noticed because government cuts in the first round of austerity targeted local authorities and adult social care. The first group of people to see their life expectancy fall were elderly women who most often lived on their own. It was in 2014 that this connection became apparent.

Back then, the government was still confident, with the Department for Health and Social Care rebutting any suggestion that austerity and privatisation might be linked to mortality. The privatisation figures were also opaque. In 2015, halfway through Jeremy Hunt’s tenure as health secretary, it was reported that ministers were misleading the public. By that point, private firms were winning 40% of new contracts – far higher than the 6% spend share claimed by the government and almost identical to the 41% won by NHS bodies.

The first great increase in mortality was recorded in that same year, a 5% rise that the government tried to attribute to influenza. The problem with that explanation was that the stalling and falls in life expectancy were not seen to the same extent anywhere else in Europe.

Last year it was claimed that austerity since 2010 had led to a third of a million excess deaths

By 2019, life expectancy for women had fallen in almost a fifth of all neighbourhoods and in over a tenth for men. Poorer people, both old and young, in poorer areas suffered most, with infant mortality among babies born to the poorest parents rising. Later there was a rise in deaths of women who were pregnant.

As NHS waiting lists spiralled, a tenth of all adults, most of those who could, were resorting to accessing private health care in 2021. But, in doing so, they lengthened the lists further by jumping the queues and thus diverting resources.

By April 2022, the number of vacant beds in hospitals was at an all-time low. Estimates of the damage done kept rising. Less than six months later, it was claimed that austerity since 2010 had led to a third of a million excess deaths, twice as many as from the pandemic.

Now, A&E departments are stretched to capacity, unable to clear patients to other beds in our hospitals as they could in the past. Those other beds cannot be cleared as they were before because adult social care has been repeatedly decimated, with what is left being tendered out to private companies.

All of this was foretold. In the four years after 2015, the value of one group of private sector contracts in the NHS rose by 89%. These figures were released just before the 2019 general election, partly in response to Matt Hancock, then the health secretary, claiming that “there is no privatisation of the NHS on my watch.”

Again, the damage was not so much through the extent of covert privatisation, but through the wider ethos that had been promoted. Take the USA: most of the enormous amount of money spent on healthcare there has little impact on improving health, because the ethos is wrong.

Related content: No one voted for Rishi Sunak to return the UK to crippling austerity

24 October 2022 | Adam Ramsay

OPINION: Sunak wants yet another round of cuts to public spending. And just like in 2010, we didn’t vote for it

It is sometimes said – wrongly, that is – that the NHS has not been further privatised because the share of its spending that went to the private sector remained roughly the same between 2012 and 2020. By 2020 that share was about 7%, or just under £10bn a year. It rose to over £12bn during the pandemic when the government paid private hospitals to treat patients, but because overall health spending rose, the proportion remained roughly the same, still around 7%.

But the number of private companies involved did increase greatly, particularly in areas where there was already more private healthcare. By last year, private firms were delivering a quarter of all planned NHS hospital treatment in the least deprived areas of England, and 11% in the most deprived areas. Those shares – which have risen since 2020 – are higher than the overall 7% because it is in planned hospital treatment where the private sector has most infiltrated the NHS.

Last year, the Health and Care Act of 2022 put paid to Lansley’s claim that he had fixed the NHS ‘once and for all’. The act reduces the compulsion of the NHS from having to tender so many services to private sector bidding in future, but it was not designed to stop the rot. It will not solve the service’s problems, though there is hope that it could be the beginning of an actual change in ethos.

The pandemic made the effects of privatisation clear: Britons now have the worst access to healthcare in Europe and some of the worst post-pandemic outcomes. But the successive health secretaries who inflicted this tragedy are unrepentant.

The pandemic made the effects of privatisation clear: Britons now have the worst access to healthcare in Europe and some of the worst post-pandemic outcomes. But the successive health secretaries who inflicted this tragedy are unrepentant.

In 2018, Lansley criticised Hunt’s cuts in screening services, blaming them for delaying the detection of his bowel cancer. Hunt, meanwhile, went on to become foreign secretary and then chancellor of the exchequer. His legacy, as openDemocracy’s Caroline Molloy wrote last year, is “one of missed targets, lengthening waits, crumbling hospitals, missed opportunities, false solutions, funding boosts that vanished under scrutiny, and blaming everyone but himself.” Hancock is now most remembered for eating a camel penis and cow anus on live TV for money.

Belligerence, bravado and buffoonery. We got here because too many of us believed the words of fools.

Original article republished from Open Democracy under  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Continue ReadingHow austerity caused the NHS crisis

Our NHS can’t afford privatisation – why MPs must back the NHS Bill this Friday

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Continue ReadingOur NHS can’t afford privatisation – why MPs must back the NHS Bill this Friday

NHS in crisis :: review

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Image of George Osborne asking where is the money to be made in the NHS

The short NHS in crisis series of the past week or so went fairly well. We’ve learned

There are plenty of resources for further research e.g. there’s plenty on what junior doctors are and do at youtube.

I’ll be watching and reporting NHS news. Current NHS news is that the BMA have cancelled an intended 48 hour strike by junior doctors next Tuesday. I’m sure that everyone welcomes that news. Kent CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group) has also signed a deal with a hospital in Calais to treat NHS patients. Far from ideal? barking?

 

Continue ReadingNHS in crisis :: review

Politics news allsorts

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Image of reams of paper on a palletThe ConDem coalition government has published the HS2 bill. At 49,910 pages long it evades democracy by preventing representations. 891 pages would need to be read every day to simply read it in the 8 weeks for representations. It presents a wonderful opportunity for protestors although it will waste a lot of paper and ink. No MPs were seen under the bill in parliament as it was passed almost unanimously last night.

A source close to the government said “That was a good wheeze – it was one of Lansley’s again. Drowning the NHS in bureaucracy, castrating 38degrees, charities and the unions with the lobbying bill and now this. We’ve decided to ruthlessly pursue our narrow class interests now that it’s accepted that we have no chance to win the general election. HS2 should sustain us for a decade or two if we take it easy on the port.”

The Guardian asks what it would take to regain Labour voters. The comments are clearly calling for nationalisation of utilities and trains and to abandon Neo-Liberalism. No chance of that with this ‘Labour’ party.

I must confess that even I was taken in by Miliband pretending to be a Socialist at the conference this year. It only lasted about two days. It’s very clear what the Labour party needs to do to attract voters. I’m effectively disenfranchised without a choice between the three main Neo-Liberal parties. It’s clear that there are many that feel exactly the same.

Shadow Home Office Minister Diana Johnson makes a valid point about Theresa May supporting migrant domestic slavery by tying their visas to one employer.

Unfortunately she also accepts uncritically the current case of “invisible handcuffs” slavery saying “The Labour party would deal with this case proportionately. We would try the ‘invisible handcuffs’ factional splitter Maoist squatters case in the special Court of Make-believe and convict to ten years in the pretend prison at the back of the wardrobe.”

No mention of Cameron’s plans for web censorship. Let’s hope it’s quietly forgotten.

Continue ReadingPolitics news allsorts

Cabinet minister ‘misled’ Parliament over welfare reform

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10465480/Cabinet-minister-misled-Parliament-over-welfare-reform.html

Andrew Lansley, a Tory Cabinet minister, is facing claims that he misled Parliament after doubts were cast on his denial that ministers attempted to influence a report by MPs into the Universal Credit fiasco

Image of Andrew Lansley

Andrew Lansley, the Leader of the House, earlier this month told the Commons that there was “no truth” to allegations that ministers had approached Tory MPs on the public accounts committee to ask that its report name and shame his department’s permanent secretary, Robert Devereux.

The PAC report said that £140million had been squandered on the flagship welfare reform and accused the Government of “alarmingly weak” management.

Mr Duncan Smith denied allegations that he had attempted to have anyone blamed in the report.

However, Margaret Hodge, the committee’s chairman, has now cast doubt on those claims and said that senior figures in the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) had sought to influence her report.

In comments to students on November 11 – four days after the publication of he committee’s report – Mrs Hodge said: “I can’t tell you how much inappropriate talking there was to me and other members of the committee, by both ministers and civil servants, either to get me to blame the permanent secretary in the DWP and therefore transfer blame away from Iain Duncan Smith or to put the blame on Mr Devereux and to ensure ministers escaped blame.”

Continue ReadingCabinet minister ‘misled’ Parliament over welfare reform

NHS news review

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There is a great deal of NHS news today so I’ve tried to impose some order out of chaos™.

  • There are many articles about the 63rd birthday of the NHS yesterday.
  • Health Secretary Andrew Lansley was evasive while appearing before the Health Select Committee hearing yesterday. Lansley reveals that the bill does not address competition law which is left to be decided by the courts.
  • Waiting times and cuts are to increase despite Prime Minister David Cameron’s commitments that they would not.
  • Massive increase in NHS bureaucracy as a result of NHS reforms despite the claimed intention of the reforms to reduce bureaucracy.

Conservative election poster 2010

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 63rd Birthday

Happy birthday NHS / Britain / Home – Morning Star


TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “Despite some amendments to the controversial NHS reforms, many of the most damaging aspects of the Health and Social Care Bill remain. The changes presented to us by the government after its recent listening exercise amount to little more than smoke and mirrors.

“The government’s proposals go against the very principle of our NHS, in which care is based on need not ability to pay.

“They mean private providers will be able to increase their role in the NHS, simply cherry-picking the most lucrative parts for their own private profit to the detriment of the overwhelming majority of patients.”

Happy 63rd Brithday NHS

Rehana Azam GMB National officer for NHS said “GMB wishes the NHS a happy 63rd birthday today.

The Tory plan is to get the guts of the measures on the statute book and then by stealth break up the National Health Service.

The NHS was designed to be a cradle to the grave health and care service free at the point of use until the Tories in 1990 changed it to be a cradle to nursing home service. That is what people want and that is what politicians should respect and deliver.”

Campaigners celebrate 63 years of NHS – Local news – Worksop Guardian


Spokesperson for Bassetlaw Protecting our People and Services group Ann Donlan said: “Before the NHS they had to pay for medicine, pay for doctors and pay for treatment.”

“Since the NHS came in we have had first class service and an excellent hospital. We are here to remind people of its importance, we do not want to see it privatised again.”

Spokesperson for Bassetlaw Protecting our People and Services group Ann Donlan said: “Before the NHS they had to pay for medicine, pay for doctors and pay for treatment.”

“Since the NHS came in we have had first class service and an excellent hospital. We are here to remind people of its importance, we do not want to see it privatised again.”

Birthday cake and banners at NHS protest over reforms – Health – The Star


Campaign member Andy Turner said: “It is clear that the Department of Health is planning for the Health Bill to go through largely unchanged. It has clearly been a cynical exercise to take the heat out of the situation.

“We are gravely worried that the proposed changes will favour private healthcare providers accountable to shareholders and not patients, promote competition and not co-operation, and lead to drastic reductions in quality of patient care.”

Increased Bureaucracy

Leaked paper says new NHS board with £20bn budget will direct health reforms | Society | The Guardian

A new NHS commissioning board employing 3,500 staff and with a £20bn commissioning budget will oversee the government’s reforms to the health service, according to a leaked Department of Health document.

Labour said the document showed the government was planning to create a new layer of NHS bureaucracy, raising questions about the health secretary Andrew Lansley’s claim to be streamlining the management of the health service.

The document, which carries a warning “confidential draft – not for circulation” – was drawn up by the NHS chief executive, Sir David Nicholson, as he outlined the duties of an independent NHS commissioning board.

Nicholson said the new board will:

• Employ about 3,500 staff. It will have a chair and five non-executive directors. A chief executive will head a team of five executive directors – the four others will be a nursing director, a medical director, a director of commissioning development and a director of finance, performance and operations

• Directly commission £20bn of services and hold about 33,000 contracts for primary care services

• Oversee the new clinical commissioning groups across the country that will take responsibility for £80bn of the NHS budget.

England will be split into four “commissioning sectors” – with London as one of the “distinct” areas, raising questions about whether strategic health authorities are being reconfigured.

Nicholson proposed that the new board should be called NHS England, though he admitted that this might be a step too far.

The chief executive added in his report that his proposals would lead to savings because the board’s 3,500 staff would take over the duties currently performed by 8,000 workers.

Liz Kendall, the shadow health minister, said: “The government is wasting precious NHS resources on its huge re-organisation.

“Their original plan was going to cost at least £2bn. Their new plan will cost even more as the number of NHS organisations balloons from 160 to more than 500.”

Kendall also criticised Simon Burns, the health minister, who told the Commons committee examining the health and social care bill that it was premature to comment on staffing levels.

She added: “Today the minister Simon Burns told me it was ‘premature’ to say how much their new super quango, the NHS commissioning board, will cost and how many staff it will employ.

“Yet we now know from this leaked document it will employ at least 3,500 staff. The government must now come clean and spell out the true costs of their chaotic NHS plans.”

“Massive bureaucracy” increase due to Health Bill » Hospital Dr

The government’s NHS reforms are set to treble the number of statutory NHS organisations, the Royal College of GPs’ chair Dr Clare Gerada warned MPs.

Giving evidence to the Parliamentary Health and Social Care Committee last week, Dr Gerada warned the reforms will send the number of statutory NHS organisations soaring from 163 to 521.

Gerada complained that NHS bureaucracy was being “massively increased”, while the revised bill had become “very incoherent”.

“It is neither liberating nor controlling. It neither allows for GPs to be innovative, nor does it give them tight restraints.”

The RCGP’s tally of new quangos includes 300 commissioning groups, 150 health and wellbeing boards, 50 PCT clusters, 15 clinical senates, four SHA clusters, the National Commissioning Board and the Department of Health.

Gerada said: “We are deeply concerned that commissioning consortia are going to be so bound up in bureaucracy that they will simply not be able to deliver the system leadership required.”

Cuts and related Increased Waiting Times

Managers warn of worsening access to NHS care – Main Section – Yorkshire Post

PATIENT access to NHS care will worsen in coming years as the health service faces “unprecedented” financial pressures, health bosses warn today.

In a survey of nearly 300 chief executives and chairmen, four in 10 say the financial situation facing their organisations is the “worst they had ever experienced” and another 47 per cent say it is “very serious”.

More than two thirds fear the pressures will intensify over the next three years, partly due to the impact of cuts by local councils, and that waiting times will worsen.

In a stark message, NHS Confederation chief executive Mike Farrar will today tell the annual conference of managers in Manchester that key decisions taken in the next 18 months over future health service reforms would determine “if the NHS is a going concern for future organisations to inherit”.

related: BBC News – NHS chiefs warn of rising hospital waiting times Pledges on NHS waiting times in doubt | Society | guardian.co.uk Spending cuts will mean longer waiting times, say NHS managers – UK Politics, UK – The Independent

Lansley

Irritated MPs interrogate Lansley over NHS Bill / Britain / Home – Morning Star

Frazzled MPs spent a frustrating two hours today trying to cajole Health Secretary Andrew Lansley into revealing how much competition will be unleashed in the NHS.

Mr Lansley went round in circles before grudgingly admitting to Lib Dem MP Andrew George that many of the amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill were cosmetic.

Some amendments were introduced to address “misplaced concerns,” while others were to “reflect more accurately” the principles proposed in the Bill, explained the minister.

“Some of them are genuine changes,” he added chirpily in an appearance before the health select committee.

Parrying questions on the changes, he insisted: “It was not recommended to us by the NHS Future Forum that we should depart from the principles of the Bill.”

The forum had said that there was “widespread support” for the measure, he crowed.

Labour MP Valerie Vaz joined West Cornwall Lib Dem Mr George in trying to smoke out the minister over his latest emphasis on giving wide powers to a NHS National Commissioning Board, charged with promoting “integration” and improving quality.

NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson confessed that the enhanced National Commissioning Board did not actually have any members yet.

“It’s just me at the moment,” he said.

There was a lot of “preparatory work” to do and adverts for a chair and a non-executive director would appear after the summer break.

Playing with words, Mr Lansley declared that NHS regulator Monitor would in future be using competition “as a means to an end” rather than the earlier intention of promoting competition as “an end in itself.”

HealthInvestor – Article: NHS competition rules ‘still open to debate’, admits Lansley

There remains a lack of clarity about how competition law will be applied in the reformed NHS, the health secretary has admitted.

Speaking at a Health Select Committee hearing, Andrew Lansley said the full application of competition law in the health service would be determined gradually by the courts, rather than by his amended Heath and Social Care Bill.

“If you’re trying to establish with certainty what the boundary of the application of competition law is, then it’s a matter of debate and it will be something that will only be determined over time as there are cases brought before the courts,” he said.

At present, EU competition rules only apply to ‘undertakings’, meaning enterprises engaged in ‘economic activities’. This means that while it applies to private providers in the NHS, it tends not to cover public sector bodies. There remains considerable legal debate about what constitutes an ‘economic activity’ in public healthcare provision, especially amid efforts to introduce a genuine internal market within the NHS.

The health minister, giving evidence on the government’s response to the NHS Future Forum report, said clarity on competition law was not contained within his amended Health Bill and would only emerge as providers challenged decisions in the courts.

 

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.

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Ed Miliband highlights the huge increase in quangos and costs associated with the ConDems’ destruction of the NHS – quangos are to increase from 163 to 521. The RNIB reports that operations are not being performed because of cuts. Tower Hamlets GPs support striking public sector workers.

Conservative election poster 2010

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 redundancies to cost public £852m – UK Politics, UK – The Independent

Taxpayers face an £852m bill for redundancies as a result of the Government’s shake-up of the National Health Service.

The Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, who challenged David Cameron over the figure at Prime Minister’s Questions, warned that many of the staff being sacked by strategic health authorities and primary care trusts (PCTs) would be re-employed by the GP commissioning consortiums replacing PCTs.

Mr Miliband said the U-turn over the original reforms would increase the number of statutory organisations in the NHS from 163 to 521, instead of cutting bureaucracy as the Government suggested. “Is this what you meant by a bonfire of the quangos?” Mr Miliband asked.

The Prime Minister insisted the shake-up would save £5bn by cutting bureaucracy. He told Mr Miliband: “What we inherited was a situation where the number of managers was going up four times as fast as the number of nurses. What’s happened since we took over? The number of doctors has gone up, the number of bureaucrats has gone down.”

Patients denied sight-saving ops as NHS tries to save cash, RNIB warns – mirror.co.uk

PATIENTS are being denied sight-saving operations in an effort to save money, a charity claimed yesterday.

More than half of primary care trusts have introduced arbitrary tests for those who want cataracts removed, research by the RNIB found.

It said: “Patients are being forced to live with unnecessary sight loss. It is pretty clear this is cost-cutting.”

The RNIB found 70 of 133 PCTs that responded applied their own rules and ignored surgery guidelines. It said hip, teeth and knee operations are also under threat.

Pulse – GPs take to the streets to support public sector pension strikes

Dozens of GPs and practice staff in east London are to publicly protest in support of teachers, civil servants and other public sector colleagues striking over pension cuts.

Around 600,000 public sector workers are expected to walk out tomorrow over the Government’s proposed changes to pensions. It comes as the BMA’s annual representative meeting in Cardiff prepares to debate a motion calling for a ballot on ‘all forms of industrial action’ if consultants’ final-salary pensions are replaced by a career average scheme.

GPs and staff from practices across Tower Hamlets are planning two protests in high-visibility spots in the borough: one outside the council offices on Roman Road, the other on a traffic island in the middle of the A13.

Dr Anna Livingstone, a GP in Tower Hamlets and member of City and East London LMC, told Pulse: ‘We in Tower Hamlets feel very strongly against the [health] bill and in support of public service workers.’

‘GPs normally work through their lunch break, but tomorrow we won’t be doing so. Tomorrow we’ll use the time to make a statement in solidarity with those on strike.’

She added that the stark inequalities between rich and poor communities in the borough, which ranked in the top ten areas listed in the 2010 Indices of Deprivation, compelled herself and her colleagues to act.

 

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.

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Conservative election poster 2010

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 call for end to NHS postcode ‘injustice’ – Health News, Health & Families – The Independent

Doctors call for end to NHS postcode ‘injustice’

By Terri Judd

The injustice of a postcode lottery for medical treatment must end, doctors said yesterday as they began their annual conference.

In a series of heated debates they decried the financial constraints that were affecting patient care. To a standing ovation, British Medical Association (BMA) chairman Dr Hamish Meldrum said the NHS was facing the most difficult financial situation of its 63 year history and urged health chiefs not to “slash and burn” to save money.

London GP Chaand Nagpaul said he found it “shameful” that some seriously ill patients had to consider moving home to get treatment unavailable in their area, adding there were were huge variations “entirely dictated by where they live”.

His own Primary Care Trust, he explained, had a list of 85 low priority treatments. He could only refer hernia patients for operations if they were in significant pain, people with cataracts if their vision was impaired enough or those needing hip or knee replacements according to how much their mobility was affected.

“No patient should ever have to endure the injustice of having their treatment denied simply based on their post code,” he said. “The criteria for these are often subjective, adding to the lottery effect.” Doctors in his surgery, were trying to “find a way around” the restrictions so they could continue to refer patients strictly on clinical judgment, he explained.

“For knee and hip replacements, these are people who have significantly impaired mobility. They are elderly and it could make a difference between going to the shops or being housebound. It is hard to argue that anyone who has a clinical need for a hip replacement should be restricted,” said Dr Napaul.

Surgeon, Ian McNab added that there were too many examples of patients being deemed low priority because of incorrectly interpreted evidence and a danger some could suffer permanent damage if they were not referred swiftly enough. “We must ensure that PCTs and their successors understand the consequences of their decisions and take responsibility,” said Mr McNab.

£600m cuts hit to elderly care / Britain / Home – Morning Star

Spending on social care for the elderly has been cut by more than £600 million this year, potentially putting lives at risk, charity Age UK said today.

Research by Age UK suggested older people’s care budgets had been slashed by a “devastating” 8.4 per cent as the government’s spending cuts bite.

This is despite a government pledge that more money would be invested in social care.

The figures were based on data obtained from councils under the Freedom of Information Act.

After 139 authorities responded, Age UK calculated that net expenditure on older people’s social care was falling by £610m in 2011/12 compared with 2010/11.

The charity also found that at least 61 councils were raising charges for services like home help and day care centres.

Age UK charity director Michelle Mitchell said: “Funding for social care is already inadequate and the system today is failing many older people at the time when they really need help.

“The consequences of cutting expenditure further to 8.4 per cent, indicated by our research, could be devastating.

“We are fearful that even more vulnerable older people will be left to struggle alone and in some cases lives will be put at risk.”

 

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

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There has been a noticable reduction in NHS articles in the corporate media since the acceptance of the Future Forum’s recommendations following it’s ‘Listening Exercise’. The corporate press and indeed many stupid MPs have accepted that the Con-Dems’ evil plans to destroy and abolish the NHS have been defeated. Nothing could be further than the truth. If your intention is to abolish and destroy the NHS then that is achievable through creating an unwieldly, unworkable system.


There remains in the reformed NHS ‘reforms’ an increased role for private companies. Private companies are concerned with making profit for their shareholders not providing quality care. Why then is Andrew Lansley repeating the patients mantra? What a huge heap of bullshit.

Conservative election poster 2010

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.

New Statesman – The hidden cost of NHS reform


Whatever the sophistry of its proponents, a scheme in which of the provision of clinical care is outsourced to “any willing provider’ can, in reality, mean only one thing: that the potential provider of that care will primarily be judged not on how good that care will be but on how cheaply it will be given. Even leaving aside the additional pressures on costs which apply uniquely to private healthcare organisations (the generation of profit and the payment of dividends to its shareholders), the need to undercut its competitors in the NHS will inevitably impact on their primary item of expenditure: their staff. Fewer doctors and fewer nurses will have to work longer shifts: in other words, the very environment in which mistakes are most likely to happen. Good news for the lawyers: less so for the patients and for the taxpayer who has to foot the bill when a claim is made.

If it were necessary to test that theory against experience, one would need to look no further than the provision of out of hours GP care. Until April 2004, this service was provided in-house by Primary Care Trusts and/or GP practices. Since then, it has been possible for this to be out-sourced to independent commercial providers (a concept which should sound familiar to those examining the current NHS proposals).

In the event, such concern was generated by the succession of adverse events which followed that change that in June 2009 — and prompted by the tragic death of a patient in February 2008 after he was administered a gross overdose of diamorphine by a locum doctor from Germany — the Care Quality Commission began an investigation into the provision of out-of-hours primary care services. Its interim statement on this investigation, in turn, prompted the Department of Health to commission its own inquiry. That report, published in June 2010, should have made uncomfortable reading for the evangelical proponents of the Coalition’s plans. There is no indication, however, that anyone, from Mr. Lansley down, has ever read it — or, indeed, seen any of the countless stories in the media about the failures of out of hours care in the years since 2004.

NHS services in Merseyside to be outsourced to the private sector – Southport Visiter

SOME hospital services in Merseyside are set to be run a private firm in a seven-year £27m contract.

Payroll, recruitment and human resources functions for 12 healthcare organisations could be carried out by international company Crapita Symonds.

The deal, due to be signed off by each individual trust board at hospitals including Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen, will involve the transfer of up to 150 staff and the setting up of a shared service centre in Merseyside.

Trade union Unison today opposed the “privatisation” bid, voicing concerns Crapita would look to make redundancies.

Regional organiser Paul Summers said he anticipated the loss of around 30 posts and had yet to assured job losses would be averted.

He said: “Crapita is not going to run this service out of any goodwill to the NHS – it will run it to make money. We fear the way it will do that is by cutting staff levels.

“Why would you employ 13 payroll managers to run one service? It stands to reason there will be potential compulsory redundancies.

Con-Dems accused of ‘railroading’ NHS proposals / Britain / Home – Morning Star

Labour shadow health secretary John Healey accused panicky Con-Dem ministers of railroading their revamped attack on the NHS through Parliament at “breakneck speed” today.

Mr Healey had led an unsuccessful attempt on Tuesday night to secure more time for MPs to consider 160 amendments to the government’s Health Bill, which will be tabled by ministers following PM David Cameron’s latest zig-zag.

The shadow minister said the government’s hasty scheme to rush the Bill through the Commons by July 14 would “deny this elected House its proper role in scrutinising the legislation.”

He warned that the revamped Bill would retain “the essential elements of the Tories’ long-term plan to see the NHS broken up as a national service and set-up as a full-scale market.”

Derisive laughter broke out during a debate on the Bill’s new timetable when Health Minister Simon Burns proclaimed: “Although the pause may have ended, we will never stop listening.”

Leading health campaigner and Labour MP Grahame Morris protested that crafty Tory ministers were “cherry-picking” which aspects of the Bill they would allow to be debated at the committee stage.

Surgeon who interrupted PM’s hospital visit takes indefinite leave | Politics | The Guardian

A bow-tied surgeon who interrupted a hospital visit by David Cameron and Nick Clegg last week has gone on leave, according to an NHS trust which issued instructions to staff to say nothing to the media.

David Nunn, who burst in as the prime minister and his deputy were talking to a patient at Guy’s Hospital in London, has gone on indefinite leave.

Cameron and Clegg looked briefly startled as the surgeon marched into the ward on 14 June and said: “Sorry. Just a minute. Excuse me, I’m the senior orthopaedic surgeon in this department. Why is it that we’re all told to walk around like this and these people …”

His words were then drowned out as an official from the NHS trust ushered him away. Nunn was objecting to the presence of a television crew and Downing Street officials who had not followed the example of Cameron and Clegg, who had taken off their jackets and ties and had cleaned their hands with sterilising gel.

As he walked out Nunn said: “I still mean it. I’m not having it. Now out.”

Ushering out the TV crew Cameron said: “Why don’t you disappear. Out. We have all taken our ties off.”

Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust said Nunn had requested the period of leave. It is not yet known when he will return to work.


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