CONservative Prime Minister David Cameron claimed, last Thursday, in a factually incorrect, untrue and misleading way that “the whole health profession is on board for what is now being done”.
http://www.thisisdevon.co.uk/story-13207410-detail/story.html
The Prime Minister yesterday issued a passionate broadside in response to St Ives Liberal Democrat MP and Health Select Committee member Andrew George, who this week called on opponents to dig their heels in and derail service changes over concerns the NHS would become a profit-making machine at the expense of patient care.
And this is what St Ives Liberal Democrat MP and Health Select Committee member Andrew George has to say
BBC News – St Ives MP Andrew George rejects government health bill
St Ives Liberal Democrat MP Andrew George said he was concerned about the “potential risks” surrounding government policy on the NHS.
Mr George said he feared the health service would be “driven more by profit than by concern about patient care”.
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Mr George said he would refuse to support the bill.
“This is a view not just of my own but of the British Medical Association, the Royal College of GPs, Royal College of Nursing and many others,” he said.
- Conservative election poster 2010
A few recent news articles about the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.
BBC News – St Ives MP Andrew George rejects government health bill
An MP from Cornwall has called on fellow MPs and the public to speak out over government health reform plans.
St Ives Liberal Democrat MP Andrew George said he was concerned about the “potential risks” surrounding government policy on the NHS.
Mr George said he feared the health service would be “driven more by profit than by concern about patient care”.
Related: Lib Dems hint at rebellion on health bill vote | Politics | guardian.co.uk
Trust is ‘fined’ £400k after missing treatment targets | Wilmslow Express – menmedia.co.uk
[Part of the NHS is fined for not having enough money …]
Macclesfield’s NHS Trust has lost out on £400,000 for missing targets and treating readmitted patients and its chairman has admitted that there is ‘serious work to be done’.
East Cheshire NHS Trust, which runs Macclesfield’s hospital, must spend less money than it gets every year.
The trust has £167m to spend and planned a small surplus of £250,000 for this financial year.
But at the end of June the trust reported a surplus of only £7,000 – which it had hoped to be £283,000 for this quarter.
The trust is off-target because it was penalised for failing to treat enough patients within 18 weeks of referral.
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Taxpayers losing out on PFI – MPs « Shropshire Star
Investors in firms providing public services could be making “excessive profits” by selling on shares in the schemes, a critical report by MPs has revealed.
The powerful cross-party Public Accounts Committee, which scrutinises Government spending, said taxpayers should get a “much better deal” from private finance initiative (PFI) schemes than they currently do.
The MPs found PFI investors were using off-shore arrangements to minimise tax, adding further cost to the projects. Almost three-quarters of the shares in Innisfree, one of the leading PFI investment firms, are held off-shore, the committee heard.
The report said: “Tax planning and the use of tax havens as a way of avoiding UK tax are not uncommon. We heard that 72% of Innisfree’s shares are held by shareholders based in Guernsey.”
The UK has 700 PFI contracts, with a further 61 in procurement and many more being considered. But the MPs said: “Some of Government’s case for using PFI has not been based on robust analysis, but on ill founded comparisons and invalid assumptions.”
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