Monthly Archives: January 2012

NHS 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.

Corporate media is looking at the price of hospital meals instead of their quality. Some hospital trusts are clearly getting much better value than others.

In other news, the hacker group Anonymous has hacked Stratfor and released many details.

Latest Anonymous Hack of Security Company Proves How Serious Cyber-Activists Have Gotten | | AlterNet

Over Christmas a busy, secretive group were at work, with their own views on who had been naughty and nice. However it was not Santa’s elves, but the amorphous “Anonymous” collective making the decisions. This group of hackers released a vast trove of email addresses, passwords and credit card information belonging to subscribers of the US intelligence company Stratfor – and the hangover has carried on into the new year, with the release of MoD and Nato officials’ details.

Stratfor, an authority on strategic and tactical intelligence issues, is considered by some to be a “shadow CIA”, and provides intelligence analysis and both private and public briefings on all manner of issues. The release by Anonymous kicked off discussion about how such a breach was possible at a high-profile company specialising in all things security, as well as why it had attracted the attention of Anonymous.

Many of the thousands of email addresses and personal details belonged to people in sensitive posts within the defence and intelligence communities. Although the publication of email addresses (hardly state secrets) is not a threat in itself, their disclosure can only be extremely embarrassing for a company selling itself as an expert on security, while the release of passwords adds to the alarm.
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Continue ReadingNHS news review

NHS 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.

Run to London from Bevan’s statue in Cardiff will highlight ‘threats to the NHS’ – Health News – News – WalesOnline

A 160-mile protest run will start in Cardiff tomorrow to highlight doctors’ fears about plans for NHS England. Leading Welsh doctor Stefan Coghlan explains why he’s taking part in Bevan’s Run

BEVAN’S Run, which starts from the statue of Aneurin Bevan, the founder of the National Helath Service, in Queen Street, Cardiff, tomorrow, is the idea of Dr Clive Peedell, a clinical oncologist from Middlesbrough.

He plans to run 160 miles to the Department of Health in a protest about the Health and Social Care Bill, which will transform the NHS in England.

Dr Peedell, like many other doctors, believes the proposals will undermine Bevan’s founding principles.

Dr Stefan Coghlan, the British Medical Association’s Welsh Council chairman, will be running alongside Dr Peedell when he starts his cross-country protest.

Here he explains why:

“I THINK what Clive is doing is fantastic – it’s a big feat to run 160 miles in five days. I’m only going to make a relatively small contribution compared to that by seeing him off and running 10k myself.

“The Health and Social Care Bill poses such a great threat to a publicly- owned and publicly-funded NHS in England that every citizen should be concerned about it.

“The impact isn’t confined to England, as it will also affect Wales because a proportion of NHS services, like specialist care, are provided in England.

“We have to be concerned about ensuring these services are of the same quality as we have now.

“The Health and Social Care Bill is about the privatisation of the NHS – it’s not just about providers of care looking to make profits but there’s also the potential for commissioners to be making money from their patients.

“The only way they will be able to do this is by trimming services; rationing services and by providing lower quality services and that will affect our patients, more so in England.
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Overseas nurse numbers rise by 40% | News | Nursing Times

The number of nurses coming to work in the UK from overseas rose by 40% last year, new figures show.

According to the Sunday Mirror, there were 3,197 nurses from the EU registered in the NHS between November 2010 and November 2011. This was compared with 2,256 during the previous 12 months.

NHS leaders say they are increasingly looking to recruit more nurses from Europe due to senior staff members retiring and the falling number of trainee nurses in the UK.

Of the 660,000 nurses working in the NHS, around 87,000 are from overseas. The majority of these hail from the Philippines, Australia, India and South Africa.

The trend has seen many hospitals running language classes to help their staff understand commonly used English phrases.

Royal College of Nursing general secretary Peter Carter told the Sunday Mirror: “We fully support nurses’ rights to work in other countries around the world. But patient safety must remain the top priority and staff must have the skills for the job.

“Britain should plan ahead and train enough staff to meet our needs.”
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NHS Pensions, BMA Launches Final Survey Of Its Members, UK

About 130,000 BMA Doctors and medical students across the UK will be questioned regarding the government’s final offer in negotiations on the future of the NHS pension scheme in a major survey that has been launched by the BMA (British Medical Association).

The BMA intends to learn whether the participants’ views on the offer are acceptable or not. If they are not acceptable, they want to know what action the participants are prepared to take, which could potentially lead to a formal ballot on industrial action.

Even though improvements have been negotiated on the original offer, all doctors still remain to be hard hit. The deductible amount for their pension will be increased from their pay this April, with further increases to follow in 2013 and 2014. For those at the beginning of their career this means they possibly pay more than £200,000 in additional lifetime contributions, whilst the normal pension age would increase, with many doctors having to work until the age of 68 years before they are able to receive a full pension. In addition, the current final salary scheme would be changed to a new career average scheme, which would leave the majority of doctors with worse overall benefits.

Dr Hamish Meldrum, Chairman of Council at the BMA, declared:

“We want doctors and medical students to be fully aware of what’s coming their way, and to have their say on what happens. Everyone will be affected, and it’s up to the whole medical profession to influence what we do next. Either way, the implications are huge. We face either major, damaging changes to our pensions, or the first ballot of doctors on industrial action since the seventies.

The BMA, along with the other unions, has not accepted the offer. That, quite rightly, is for our members to help decide. Throughout intensive negotiations, we repeatedly pointed out that the NHS pension was radically overhauled only three years ago, and is actually delivering a positive cash flow to the Treasury.” …

Unite rejects “pernicious” NHS pension proposals | PJ Online

Unite, the parent trade union of the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists, has officially rejected the latest Government proposals on NHS pension reforms.

The union’s Health Sector National Industrial Committee unanimously threw out the Government’s recommendations, as outlined in the “Heads of agreement” document published last month (20 December 2011).

The proposals were described as pernicious by Unite’s general secretary Len McCluskey. He said they are an attempt to force NHS staff to work longer until reaching retirement, as well as pay higher pension contributions for a lower payout.

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BBC News – Ministers back call to quiz patients on lifestyles

NHS staff in England must adapt their roles to ensure they promote good health under plans being published.

An independent panel of government advisers says health professionals should take every opportunity to discuss diet, exercise, smoking and drinking habits.

Ministers have backed the proposal from the NHS Future Forum to “make every contact count”.

But the Royal College of GPs says the move could drive some patients away.

The recommendation is part of a series of papers from the panel of independent experts. Their first report last year outlined changes to the Health and Social Care Bill.

They are now setting out their conclusions on four other areas – public health, information, improving links between services and education and training.
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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.

Public sector pensions offer rejected by Unite health workers | Society | guardian.co.uk

Health workers at Britain’s largest trade union, Unite, have rejected the government’s “final offer” on NHS pensions reform.

The move comes at the start of a crunch week of union meetings that will help decide whether there is a third wave of the industrial action that caused widespread disruption on 30 June and 30 November last year.

Len McCluskey, the general secretary of Unite, which represents around 100,000 health workers including pharmacists and laboratory assistants, said: “Our NHS executive unanimously reject the government’s pernicious attempts to make hard working and dedicated NHS staff pay more, work longer and get less when they retire.

“The government’s attacks on public sector pensions are politically motivated, as part of an overall design to privatise the NHS, cut public services, break-up the national pay agreements, and disrupt legitimate trade union activities and organisation.”

McCluskey said Unite would continue to campaign against the reforms proposals, which include increasing contributions, pegging the NHS pension age to the state pension age and the uprating of benefits from the RPI rate of inflation to the less buoyant CPI.
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PM orders regular ward rounds, nurse leadership and reduced bureaucracy | News | Nursing Times

David Cameron today called for wider uptake of intentional nursing rounds and reduced bureaucracy, and established a nurse review group to address concerns about NHS care standards.

The Prime Minister praised nurses but said he had concerns about standards of care being provided in some areas. He called for several nursing initiatives to be taken up and extended (see box).

He said: “We need an NHS which ensures that every patient is cared for with compassion and dignity in a clean environment.

“If we want dignity and respect, we need to focus on nurses and the care they deliver. Somewhere in the last decade the health system has conspired to undermine one of this country’s greatest professions. It’s not one problem in particular. It’s the stifling bureaucracy.”

As revealed by Nursing Times yesterday, Mr Cameron announced the creation of a Nurse Quality Forum group to lead the uptake of good practice and recommend ways of improving care standards.

It will be composed nurses, nursing leaders and patients and be “charged with taking a national leadership role in promoting excellent care and ensuring good practice is adopted across the NHS”.
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UNISON Press | Press Releases Front Page

UNISON, the UK’s largest health union, today urged the government not to waste time going over old ground, and take the recent Nursing and Midwifery Commission findings as the starting point for boosting care in the NHS.

The union warned that, as high quality care depends on well-resourced and well-staffed hospital wards, job losses and post freezes for NHS staff across the board will be real barriers to boosting standards.

Gail Adams, UNISON Head of Nursing, said:

“We are calling on the government not to waste time going over old ground, and use the recent Nursing and Midwifery Commission’s findings as its starting point.

“All the research points to higher nurse to patient ratios delivering higher outcomes. Yet all over the country, nursing posts are being frozen, or even lost. And job losses elsewhere in the health service have a huge knock on effect on frontline care. As admin workers lose their jobs, it’s clinical staff such as nurses who have to pick up the pieces, filling in forms rather than being on the wards.

“It is a sad fact that only a quarter of nurses would now recommend joining their profession. This collapse in morale – together with the loss of jobs and dedicated NHS staff – will be a real barrier to delivering high quality patient care.”

People will take Cameron’s pronouncements on the NHS with a pinch of salt – Burnham | The Labour Party

Andy Burnham MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, said in response to David Cameron’s announcement on hospital care:

“People have learnt from bitter experience to take David Cameron’s pronouncements on the NHS with more than a pinch of salt.

“This is the man who promised no top-down re-organisation of the NHS but then brought forward the biggest in its history. This is the man who is wasting £3.45bn on back-office restructuring whilst axeing 48,000 nursing posts.

“If David Cameron really wants to help nurses focus on patient care, he should listen to what they are saying and drop his unnecessary Health Bill. His reckless decision to re-organise the NHS at this time of financial challenge not only proves he is out of touch but also threatens to throw the entire system into chaos.”

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.

David Cameron orders merging of health and social care | Politics | The Guardian

David Cameron has ordered health and social care services to be brought together in order to benefit patients in a move which government advisers are calling the NHS’s most urgent overhaul.

At the moment, health and social care – the help given mainly to old or disabled patients to help them continue to live at home rather than in hospital or nursing homes – are different systems in England. NHS medical treatment and domiciliary support, which is provided mainly by local councils, are usually not joined-up.

But Cameron has told the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, to drive through changes that health policy experts claim will make life more convenient for patients, improve care and save the NHS money.

The changes will lead to some hospitals closing, warned the pro-integration NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals and other major NHS employers.
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Andrew Lansley plays down breast implant rupture fears | Politics | guardian.co.uk

Health secretary cites figures pointing to ‘acceptable’ risk and holds out hope for greater assurance by the end of the week

Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, has said he hopes the government’s expert working group will be able to give “definitive advice” on substandard breast implants by the end of the week as he criticised private cosmetic surgery providers for giving “inconsistent and poor quality” data to the review into the risk of rupture.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Lansley sought to play down the health risks posed by the French implants, citing figures from the Independent Healthcare Advisory Service, which the service says indicate an acceptably low rupture rate. But he acknowleded that the official advice could change once the review had the complete picture.

“From my point of view I want to give women a degree of reassurance,” he said. He hoped the expert group, chaired by the NHS medical director, Sir Bruce Keogh, give greater assurance about the official advice by the end of the week.
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Doctor in Aneurin Bevan protest run over NHS changes – Health News – News – WalesOnline

Dr Clive Peedell is planning to run from Bevan’s statue in Cardiff to the Department of Health, in London, in just six days in a symbolic act opposing the UK Government’s Health and Social Care Bill to reform the NHS in England.

The clinical oncologist, who is based in Middlesbrough, will be joined by anaesthetist Stefan Coghlan, who is the chair of the British Medical Association’s Welsh Council, on the opening miles of the first Cardiff to Chepstow leg of the Bevan’s Run.

Dr Peedell told the Western Mail: “The Health and Social Care Bill does mainly affect England but the knock-on effect for Wales and Scotland could be significant for years to come.

“Bevan was the founder of the NHS and I think he would be appalled at this Bill as it undermines the founding principles of a comprehensive service, free at the point of use whatever people’s medical condition so the most vulnerable have just as good care as anyone else.

“This Bill will undermine that because of the high privatisation element it contains – it will legislate for the external market to bring in more private sector and bankrupt the system.

“The number of core NHS services will shrink. We’re already seeing cutbacks on people who smoke and are obese. As the pot of money shrinks further we will see less and less NHS delivered free at the point of care and a drive towards more insurance.”
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Labour should beware of criticising GPs for being double paid | From the Editors | GPonline.com Blogs

Continue ReadingNHS news review

NHS 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.

NHS waiting list penalties delayed « Shropshire Star

NHS waiting list penalties delayed

Penalties due to be enforced against NHS bodies who fail to treat patients within 18 weeks of being referred by their GP have been delayed

A Government plan to tackle hidden NHS waiting lists has been delayed – just two months after being announced by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.

Mr Lansley said in November that hospitals would face a clampdown from this year on the number of people languishing on waiting lists for treatment. But according to the Department of Health, although hospitals are expected to make progress towards that goal, penalties will not now be introduced until 2013/14.

Under NHS rules, patients should be treated within 18 weeks of being referred by their GP, but when that deadline is breached there is often no incentive for hospitals to see them.

To tackle this, NHS managers were told in November they had to reduce the number of long waiters from this year – and by about 50,000 by April.

However, according to the Department of Health, penalties will now only be introduced “once progress has been made on validating the backlog data and the NHS has had time to adjust to working to the new standard.”
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Strike option on table in doctors’ NHS pensions dispute

Planned changes to NHS pensions could lead to an exodus of doctors retiring early and potential strike action, the British Medical Association warns.

[It is already established that many GPs are retiring early because of NHS ‘reforms’.]

The professional body warned the government against underestimating the animosity caused by planned changes to the NHS scheme – saying it was preparing to poll members on the issue.

BMA Scotland chairman Dr Brian Keighley said there was likely to be an exodus of doctors retiring early and added the BMA had not ruled out a ballot for strike action over pension reforms.

In a New Years message, he said doctors had been under attack on several fronts over the last year.

He said: “Their contracts are being devalued and undermined by NHS employers and now politicians are attacking the NHS pension scheme. It would appear that our political leaders perceive these to be the solution to the country’s national deficit.”
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The coalition’s Dickensian take on disability allowance | Society | The Guardian

… keen as I am to celebrate the bicentenary, it is possible to take a tribute too far. The coalition government appears to have embarked upon a wholesale reconstruction of Dickensian society. Housing, education, health, social welfare; everything we have put together since, in order to protect the most vulnerable, is in the process of being dismantled to be replaced by a system that seeks to protect the rich at the expense of … well, everyone else. One cannot fault the scale of the government’s ambition, but as a tribute it is somewhat misguided. It is hard to read the details of the welfare reform bill, for example, being debated in parliament, without picturing Dickens rolling his eyes in dismay.

I recently read an impact assessment compiled by the Department for Work and Pensions on the proposed “reform” of disability living allowance – in other words, getting rid of it. DLA is a benefit designed to help people with the additional costs of living with a severe disability. Applicants must fill in a 50-page form, spelling out the most intimate details of their care and mobility needs. Doctors’ details must be provided together with a statement from someone who knows you well, an occupational therapist or social worker, for example. There are different levels of benefit according to the degree of assistance required, and a large proportion of claims are rejected altogether.

DLA is far from perfect. In particular, it struggles to respond to fluctuating conditions and the assessment form is strongly geared towards physical rather than mental health problems. But because DLA is payable regardless of employment status, it is a highly enabling benefit. A great many people are able to work precisely because their DLA pays for the additional help they need in order to do so.

For a government committed to getting people working, abolishing DLA presents a PR challenge with which the impact assessment grapples heroically. Replacing DLA with a personal independence payment, and slicing 20% off the bill, will “provide an opportunity to … communicate that support is available both in and out of work” it states. A “more objective assessment” (designed to reduce the bill by 20%) will create “a more active and enabling benefit” and – get this – the fact that “those on low incomes have higher rates of ill health” does not mean that “a change in income has an effect on health”. What the dickens?

BBC News – Newsnight – Republican Rick Santorum: ‘NHS devastated Britain’

Rick Santorum has lost the first battle in the fight to be the Republican candidate for the White House, the Iowa caucuses, to Mitt Romney by just eight votes.

Mr Santorum has been an outspoken critic of President Barack Obama’s healthcare programme and has said that similar policies brought about the collapse of the British Empire.

Here Newsnight’s Peter Marshall challenges Mr Santorum on what he meant by that statement.

Related (including Pop twat Bono is Sanatorium’s mate): New Statesman – 10 things you didn’t know about Rick Santorum…

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