NHS

‘Where are those 40 hospitals?’: Tory Health Secretary in car crash interview over failed election pledge

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/where-are-those-40-hospitals-tory-health-secretary-in-car-crash-interview-over-failed-tory-election-pledge/. Many articles from LeftFootForward featured today.

Tory Health Secretary Victoria Atkins endured a car crash interview on LBC earlier today, after being grilled on yet another failed Tory pledge.

In the run-up to the last general election, the Tories had promised to build 40 new hospitals in their 2019 manifesto under Boris Johnson, yet no one in the government seems to know how much progress has been made towards the target.

On LBC earlier today, presenter Nick Ferrari asked Atkins: “I know it was a number of years ago and I know it was under a previous leadership, but where are those 40 hospitals?”

Atkins replied: “Well we are making progress and we will be opening, I think, four of these hospitals this year and there will be many other sites around the country.

“I’ve been to visit one or two of them that are not completed but very much rising out of the ground. Alongside that we have the programme of works to upgrade existing hospitals.”

Ferrari hit back: “Of the 40, how many will be built by the time we come to a general election?”

A clearly frustrated Atkins replied: “We’re opening four more this year, so depending on when the election is … we will have around four this year, we’ve already opened a few more.”

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/where-are-those-40-hospitals-tory-health-secretary-in-car-crash-interview-over-failed-tory-election-pledge/. Many articles from LeftFootForward featured today.

Continue Reading‘Where are those 40 hospitals?’: Tory Health Secretary in car crash interview over failed election pledge

Tory plans to update NHS Constitution ‘made in a parallel universe’ says nurses’ union 

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/tory-plans-to-update-nhs-constitution-made-in-a-parallel-universe-says-nurses-union/. Many articles from LeftFootForward featured today.

Part of the proposals include divisive plans to treat trans people in separate rooms

Proposals announced by the UK Government to adjust the NHS Constitution in England have been ‘made in a parallel universe’ to the realities of NHS workers, the UK’s leading nurses’ union has said. 

New government plans which could see transgender people treated in separate rooms in hospitals in England have been taken apart by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), as equality organisations raised concerns about how the proposals will impact trans patients and healthcare professionals and NHS bosses accused the government of dragging the NHS into “pre-election culture wars”.

Under the proposed NHS Constitution changes, trans people may be treated in single rooms if patients request single-sex wards. RCN Chief Nursing Officer and Deputy Chief Executive, Nicola Ranger, said patients are already able to request intimate care from staff of the same sex, however this is “nigh-on impossible to accommodate with any consistency” due to a staffing crisis seeing a shortfall in tens of thousands of nursing staff. 

“Much of this announcement sounds like it was made in a parallel universe to the everyday experience of nursing staff working in the NHS,” said Ranger. 

“Nursing staff are caring for people in corridors, doorways and even store cupboards. They will have little faith in ministers’ supposed commitment to the ‘privacy, dignity and safety’ of patients.  

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Amnesty UK said today: “No one’s health should suffer because of who they are or where they live. The government must strengthen the NHS constitution to ensure everyone’s right to healthcare.

“We need real solutions, not distractions from government failures that have left people waiting too long for care.” 

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/tory-plans-to-update-nhs-constitution-made-in-a-parallel-universe-says-nurses-union/. Many articles from LeftFootForward featured today.

Continue ReadingTory plans to update NHS Constitution ‘made in a parallel universe’ says nurses’ union 

Morning Star: The Tories have wrecked the NHS – but that doesn’t mean Labour will rescue it

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tories-have-wrecked-nhs-doesnt-mean-labour-will-rescue-it

The NHS overtook the economy as voters’ biggest concern in February, according to polling by Ipsos. Small wonder when waiting lists have hit 7.5 million: there can hardly be a person in the country who doesn’t have a friend or relative who has been affected.

And the Conservatives bear a heavy responsibility.

In the decade up to the pandemic, real-terms healthcare spending per head rose on average by just 0.4 per cent a year — in four years it actually fell, despite rising pressures on the service.

That compares very poorly to the record of the last Labour government, which raised spending by 5.7 per cent a year on average from 1997-2010. It even compares badly to that of the Thatcher and Major Conservative governments, which averaged a 2.1 per cent annual increase.

But we should be more cautious than Poulter about endorsing Keir Starmer’s solution.

Starmer and shadow health secretary Wes Streeting have pointedly refused to offer the increases in NHS budgets that the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown governments delivered. Streeting is emphatic that he will not “pour money into a 20th-century model,” instead demanding reforms which, in increasing reliance on the private sector, both mimic existing Conservative policy and are unlikely to make a difference to waiting lists (because private healthcare in Britain recruits from the NHS, so overall capacity will not grow).

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Britain’s public services are collapsing under the strain of decades of neoliberal policy. In the NHS, hospitals have been undermined through outsourcing services to the private sector as well as by the cost of PFI debt — both issues with their origins in the Blair years.

To restore our NHS to health, we need a reversal of privatisation and outsourcing and a forced end to all PFI contracts, as well as a significant increase in overall funding to bring us closer to healthcare spending levels in France or Germany.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tories-have-wrecked-nhs-doesnt-mean-labour-will-rescue-it

Continue ReadingMorning Star: The Tories have wrecked the NHS – but that doesn’t mean Labour will rescue it

Government failure to tackle NHS dentistry crisis has left morale at all-time low

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/government-failure-tackle-nhs-dentistry-crisis-has-left-morale-all-time-low

A dentist at work, May 19, 2011

THE government’s failure to tackle the growing exodus from the NHS workforce has left morale among dentists at an all-time low, official data shows.

Figures reveal that 64 per cent of dentists in England are thinking of leaving the NHS.

The British Dental Association (BDA) has described the government’s recent recovery plan as “unworthy of the title” and hit out at the “non-stop spin from ministers attempting to defend their unambitious and unfunded policies.”

It also slammed the Tories for rejecting the health and social care committee’s key recommendation to break with the discredited NHS contract, “which is fuelling this exodus.”

Any progress will “hinge on real reform and sustainable funding,” it said.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/government-failure-tackle-nhs-dentistry-crisis-has-left-morale-all-time-low

Continue ReadingGovernment failure to tackle NHS dentistry crisis has left morale at all-time low

Just Stop Oil doctor suspended for five months

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pygw71w3go

Dr Sarah Benn said that as a doctor, she had a moral duty to take action to protect life and health

A doctor, arrested and jailed for her involvement in Just Stop Oil protests, has had her medical licence suspended for five months.

Dr Sarah Benn, formerly a GP in Birmingham, was arrested after taking part in peaceful demonstrations at the Kingsbury oil terminal in Warwickshire.

Dr Benn, who had already given up practising in August 2022, said that as a doctor, she had a moral duty to take action to protect life and health.

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) imposed the suspension on Tuesday after ruling last week that Dr Benn’s fitness to practise was impaired.

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pygw71w3go

Continue ReadingJust Stop Oil doctor suspended for five months