… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Category: NHS

  • Campaigners warn of PFI 2.0 as government backs private funding for neighbourhood health centres

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/campaigners-warn-pfi-20-government-backs-private-funding-neighbourhood-health-centres

    A registration form and a stethoscope at the Temple Fortune Health Centre GP Practice near Golders Green, London

    A “PFI 2.0” will divert money away from patients and into shareholders’ pockets, campaigners warned today as the government announced plans to use private finance to fund new neighbourhood health centres.

    The government has pledged to open 250 centres as part of an effort to shift outpatient care away from hospitals.

    Officials say they will serve as “one-stop shops,” bringing together GPs, nurses, dentists and pharmacists under one roof.

    Announcing the plans, Health Minister Karin Smyth warned that government funding “will only get us so far,” citing a £40 billion black hole in the NHS’s finances.

    “We need to use every measure available to us, which is why we’re leveraging in private investment to construct some of these centres, making the most of all expertise and every tool at our disposal,” she said.

    But campaigners have warned that the use of public-private partnerships could repeat the mistakes of disastrous PFI (private finance initiative) schemes, in which private firms financed the construction of hospitals, leaving taxpayers lumbered with high-interest repayments over the long term.

    …

    Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/campaigners-warn-pfi-20-government-backs-private-funding-neighbourhood-health-centres

    Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the "hard times".
    Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the “hard times”.

  • NHS failing to cut waiting times as promised in recovery plan, report warns

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    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/19/nhs-failing-waiting-times-recovery-plan-pac-report

    More patients than promised in NHS England’s recovery plan are still waiting more than six weeks for an X-ray or scan. Photograph: Lankowsky/Alamy

    Public accounts committee finds Labour’s progress ‘appears to have stalled’ despite billions of pounds in investment

    The NHS has failed to cut waiting times as promised in its recovery plan despite billions of pounds in investment, the public accounts committee (PAC) has warned.

    The influential parliamentary committee’s verdict raises serious doubts over whether Labour can fulfil its key pledge to voters to “fix the NHS” by ensuring that patients can once again get hospital care within 18 weeks by 2029.

    In a scathing report, the cross-party PAC warns that improvements in providing faster tests and treatment have “stalled”. And it criticises Keir Starmer and the health secretary, Wes Streeting, for ordering a costly, unplanned reorganisation of the NHS in England. It said this could damage care and was reminiscent of the shambles surrounding the HS2 rail project.

    Far more patients than promised still have to wait more than 18 weeks for non-urgent hospital care – sometimes for more than a year – and more than six weeks for an X-ray or scan, it found. “Progress in reducing waiting times appears to have stalled, with the total elective care waiting list standing at 7.4m clinical pathways,” the report says – about 220,000 fewer than when Labour took power in July 2024.

    The PAC’s conclusions will alarm ministers, who are keenly aware that the public’s top priority is to see NHS waiting times fall, and that Reform UK has recently supplanted Labour as the party that voters see as having the best policies on healthcare.

    Its gloomy verdict contrasts sharply with the upbeat picture of progress in the NHS during Labour’s 16 months in power that Streeting painted last week.

    …

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/19/nhs-failing-waiting-times-recovery-plan-pac-report

    … Reform UK has recently supplanted Labour as the party that voters see as having the best policies on healthcare. …

    ??? It’s remarkable that the electorate is so poorly informed …

    Keir Starmer confirms that he's proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
    Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
    Nigel Farage attacks the NHS
    Nigel Farage attacks the NHS
    Nigel Farage reminds you that he's the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.
    Nigel Farage reminds you that he’s the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.

  • Wes Streeting calls doctor’s union ‘reprehensible’

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  • Drop ‘dangerous and damaging’ private finance plans for NHS, Chancellor warned

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/drop-dangerous-and-damaging-private-finance-plans-nhs-chancellor-warned

    Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivers a speech in the media briefing room of 9 Downing Street in central London, ahead of the Budget later this month, November 4, 2025

    ACADEMICS and campaigners have called on Chancellor Rachel Reeves to drop “dangerous and damaging” NHS private finance plans ahead of the autumn Budget next week.

    The government is considering new PFI-style deals to build “neighbourhood health centres” under plans to move care from hospitals into community settings.

    In their 10-year NHS plan, ministers set out the possibility of relying on public-private partnerships (PPP) to fund the centres, fuelling concerns that taxpayers could be left footing the bill for high borrowing costs.

    Campaigners gathered outside the Department of Health and Social Care yesterday in a protest organised by We Own It to demand a halt to the plans.

    The anti-privatisation group has also co-ordinated a letter, signed by 50 academics, which calls on Ms Reeves to “abandon this dangerous and damaging proposal and fund public services through direct taxation or borrowing.”

    Signed by figures such as Lord Sikka, the letter calls the arguments for private finance “bogus” and warns Ms Reeves that “using private capital in the NHS is no different from a family buying their home using a payday loan.”

    Campaigners have warned about the dangers of risking a repeat of disastrous PFI (private finance initiative) schemes, in which private firms funded the building of hospitals, while high-interest repayments were made over the long term.

    Research by the Institute for Public Policy Research found that for just £13 billion of investment, the NHS was landed with an £80bn bill.

    …

    Continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/drop-dangerous-and-damaging-private-finance-plans-nhs-chancellor-warned

    Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the "hard times".
    Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the “hard times”.

  • Corridor care ‘new normal’ in England for one in five NHS inpatients

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    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/sep/09/one-in-five-inpatients-hospital-corridors-england-cqc-survey

    The proportion of patients who said there were always enough nurses on duty improved from 55.7% in 2023 to 57.9% in 2024. Photograph: Jeff Moore/PA

    Findings of CQC survey from November 2024 lead experts to say waiting in such settings has become normalised

    Corridor care has become the new normal in England, experts have said, as a national survey found that one in five patients admitted to hospital had to wait in such settings.

    The report by the Care Quality Commission also found that nearly 10% of patients waited more than 24 hours to be admitted to hospital and 17.5% waited 12 to 24 hours.More than half of all patients waited more than six hours.

    Nearly half waited in a treatment bay, but 18% had to wait in a corridor, 31% in a waiting room and 1%, or 361 patients, said they had to wait in a storage room or cupboard in November last year.

    The CQC’s chief inspector of hospitals, Dr Toli Onon, said trolley waits were regrettable and must not become the norm. She said it was great to see improvements since but that reports of lengthy waits and patients whose health had deteriorated was a real concern.

    …

    Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/sep/09/one-in-five-inpatients-hospital-corridors-england-cqc-survey

    Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves - the very poorest and most vulnerable.
    Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves – the very poorest and most vulnerable.