NHS news review

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Cathy Warwick, General Secretary of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) suggests abandoning the controversial Destroy the NHS / Health and Social Care Bill.

Falling ill at the weekend could literally cost you your life, according to a report on London hospitals.

The NHS and the Liberal Democrats may be heading for a “catastrophic train crash” by pressing ahead with the coalition Government’s controversial health reforms, an MP has warned.

£12.7bn computer scheme to create patient record system is to be scrapped after years of delays

22 trusts struggling to cope with growing burden of PFI contracts.

dizzy: The spin is turning towards the Labour Party causing the collapse of the NHS by bankrupting it through PFI ( & the IT initiative).

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.

Is the only future for NHS reforms to scrap the bill? – Royal College of Midwives

The general secretary of the RCM has questioned whether the only way forward for NHS reforms is to pull the controversial health bill.

Cathy Warwick told Midwives that all changes which the government wants could be achieved without the bill.

She added that it is hard to believe the bill isn’t just a move towards privatisation.

‘We are close to feeling that the only way forward for the bill is for it to be withdrawn,’ she said.

‘My feeling is quite strong that everything we are being told the government wants to achieve would be possible without this bill.

‘So it is hard to believe that the bill is about anything other than ideology and privatisation.’

NHS London report says being ill at weekend could kill you – Health – London 24

Falling ill at the weekend could literally cost you your life, according to a report on London hospitals.

More than 500 people needlessly die every year in hospital because of too few doctors.

Patients are not seen promptly enough by a consultant on Saturdays and Sundays in accident and emergency, found NHS London.

“Reduced service provision at weekends is associated with this higher mortality rate,” it stated.

That lack of availability puts patients at risk of death.

“Stark” differences exist in the number of hours worked by consultants during weekends at hospitals in London, it found in Acute medicine and emergency general surgery – case for change.

Lib Dem warns of NHS ‘train crash’ – UK Politics, UK – The Independent

The NHS and the Liberal Democrats may be heading for a “catastrophic train crash” by pressing ahead with the coalition Government’s controversial health reforms, an MP has warned.

Lib Dem MP Andrew George, a vocal opponent of the Health and Social Care Bill, told members at the party’s autumn conference in Birmingham that the plans represented the “biggest upheaval” in the NHS’s history at precisely the time when it needed stability and certainty.

The St Ives MP said: “I want to do my best to save the NHS from what I believe may be a catastrophic train crash, which I fear may take the party with it.”

Mr George, who is a member of the Commons Health Select Committee, said the proposals raised the “very real risk” of producing an NHS driven more by private profit than concern with patient care.

He claimed the reforms represented “a major missed opportunity” to produce a service which was more accountable to communities and patients.

He said: “I think the future fate of both this party and this coalition Government needs to take heed of the concept that, actually,’it’s the NHS, stupid’.”

Charles West, from Shrewsbury and Atcham, who has been a prominent figure in the Lib Dem grassroots opposition to the reforms, compared the Bill to a “leaky ship”.

“If it sails at all it will go in the wrong direction,” he said. “I’m more worried that the ship will sink and that the NHS will sink with it, and if our name is on that ship we will go down as well.

“And, friends, we deserve to.”

NHS told to abandon delayed IT project | Society | The Guardian

£12.7bn computer scheme to create patient record system is to be scrapped after years of delays

An ambitious multibillion pound programme to create a computerised patient record system across the entire NHS is being scrapped, ministers have decided.

The £12.7bn National Programme for IT is being ended after years of delays, technical difficulties, contractual disputes and rising costs.

Health secretary Andrew Lansley, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude and NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson have decided it is better to discontinue the programme rather than put even more money into it. The axe may be wielded , with ministers likely to criticise the last Labour government for initiating the project but doing too little to ensure it delivered its objectives.

PFI schemes ‘taking NHS trusts to brink of financial collapse’ | Politics | guardian.co.uk

Health secretary says he has been contacted by 22 trusts struggling to cope with growing burden of private finance contracts

The rising costs of paying for hospitals under private finance initiative schemes is bringing NHS trusts to the “brink of financial collapse” and putting patient care at risk, the health secretary has warned.

Andrew Lansley said he had been contacted by 22 trusts that are struggling to cope with the growing burden of the PFI contracts, a policy of the former Labour government under which private capital is used to build hospitals and the NHS is left with an annual fee or “mortgage”. Between them, the trusts run more than 60 hospitals.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Lansley said: “We’re not going to let hospitals collapse financially.

“But if we were simply to carry on as the Labour party did in government, we would be seeing hundreds of millions of pounds every year being taken from what could provide improving services for patients in order to pay for PFI projects that roll forward for decades.”

He added that patient care could be jeopardised in the areas covered by the 22 trusts, saying: “We’re looking at a risk to services in their areas.”

Buckinghamshire, Oxford Radcliffe, North Bristol and Portsmouth are understood to be among the trusts in difficulty.

 

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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