Update
Hello to all my regular readers. Connectivity problems are easing / getting resolved and I hope to start regularly posting again soon.
XXX
NHS news review
- 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.
The UK Conservative – Liberal-Democrat (Conservative) coalition government has lost its appeal against publishing the NHS risk register. There is a further appeal available to the government. It is expected that the government will make that further appeal – it is desperate to both prevent and delay publication of the risk register.
Royal College of Surgeons condemns NHS reforms
Surgeons stop short of calling for health and social care bill to be scrapped, offering small crumb of comfort to Andrew Lansley
Surgeons have condemned the coalition’s NHS shakeup but stopped short of demanding the scrapping of the health and social care bill.
An extraordinary general meeting of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) passed a highly critical motion on Thursday night saying the bill would damage the NHS.
But the college bucked the recent trend within the medical community by rejecting a call for it to move to a position of outright opposition to the bill by seeking its withdrawal.
The move will bring a small amount of comfort for the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, as he steers the troubled legislation through what he hopes are its final stages this month. Other major medical organisations, such as the British Medical Association and royal colleges representing nurses, midwives and other health professionals, have called for the government to abandon its plans and devise new policies for the NHS in England.
The RCS’s decision means that opponents of the bill cannot claim the entire medical establishment is united in its plea for the government to abandon its plans. A total of 176 surgeons attended the meeting at the college’s London headquarters.
By a majority of 101 to 70 they agreed that the bill would “damage the NHS and widen healthcare inequalities, with detrimental effects on education, training and patient care in England”.
But members held back from the dramatic step of backing its withdrawal. While 76 agreed that the college should “publicly call for withdrawal of the health and social care bill”, 99 disagreed.
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How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems
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What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-known Orange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.
Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.
Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.
The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.
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For the Trotsky(S) ~ I raise my glass ~ Ching Ching!
The Trotsky(s) and the Socialist Workers Party have had some credit for opposing workfare recently.
I raise my glass ~ ching ching!
edit: I didn’t mean to be partial but they certainly did get the credit for it. I salute all who oppose workfare.
NHS news review
- 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.
There’s a warning that the illegitimate ConDem coalition government intends to lie in the coming week in an attempt to bolster support for the Health and Social Care / Destroy the NHS Bill.
Despicable ConDem scum intend to employ the lie that medical unions are using opposition to the bill to fight their seperate battle on pay and pensions.
ConDem scum also intend to push the lie that the bill will decrease health service bureaucracy.
The Standard has obtained a copy of a five-page briefing note for MPs, prepared by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley and No 10, on how to sell the shake-up which is being fiercely opposed by many doctors, nurses and health professionals.
In the briefing document, ministers accused unions of using the health reforms to fight their battle against pay and pension changes.
MPs were told to stress that the reforms, which will hand GPs more control over the £60 billion budget to commission health services, scrap primary care trusts and allow the private sector to play a greater role in the NHS, would mean:
More power to doctors and patients.
Competition to get better treatment.
Slashing bureaucracy to transfer money to the front line.
Tomorrow, grassroots members of the 26,000-strong Royal College of Physicians will attend their extraordinary general meeting where they will urge leaders to “kill the Bill”.
On March 8 the 25,000-member Royal College of Surgeons will hold its EGM. Members will decide whether to come out in opposition to the plans. On March 9 the 15,000-strong Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists will gather to consider whether they should do the same.
If all three vote to oppose the Bill it will mean that all the hugely respected royal colleges are lined up against Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s plans. Privately officials from each group say that among their rank-and-file, opposition to the reforms are growing. They say they have listened to the Government’s arguments but it has failed to win them over. Opposition to the shake-up is growing as key parliamentary votes on the issue loom.
Labour Leader Ed Milliband calls for support from the Libe Dems
This week the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords must join with Labour to hole David Cameron’s health plans below the water line.
The House of Lords has the chance to puncture the arrogance of an out-of-touch Prime Minister who thinks he knows better than patients, nurses and doctors and persuade him to drop this Bill.
If they do not the betrayal by the Lib Dems in allowing this Bill through will be bigger than the row over university tuition fees.
They will betray not only the people who rely on today’s NHS, but also generations to come.
It will strike at the heart of Britain’s proudest institution.
Liberal Democrat president Tim Farron says that the bill should have been dropped.
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Mr Farron said the legislation to implement Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s reforms should have been scrapped or “massively changed” at an earlier stage before it progressed this far and it would be “stupid” to ignore medics’ concerns over the proposals.
He demanded that all elements of new competition in the NHS should be stripped from the bill in order for Lib Dems to support it.
Lib Dem peers have tabled a number of amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill, which resumes its difficult passage through Parliament next week in the Lords.
Speaking on ITV Granada’s Party People Mr Farron, said: “Lots of us are guilty for allowing it to get as far as it has done now.
“Basically this should have been dealt with far earlier in the cycle.”
Asked whether that meant it should have been dropped, he said: “Dropped, massively changed.”
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British Medical Association to ballot doctors on strike action over pensions
Ballot on strike over NHS pension changes will be first time doctors have voted on industrial action since 1975
The British Medical Association has decided to ballot doctors for industrial action over the government’s reform of the NHS pension scheme.
The ballot will be the first time that doctors have voted on such action since 1975.
The decision followed an overwhelming rejection by doctors and medical students of the “final” offer on pensions.
The BMA said the changes would see younger doctors paying more than £200,000 extra over their lifetime in pension contributions and working eight years longer, to 68. The highest earning doctors’ contributions would rise to 14.5%.
Officials have urged the government to reopen talks with the health unions, but said neither the Treasury nor the Department of Health had signalled any change to their position.
The health secretary, Andrew Lansley, has said the NHS pension scheme is “amongst the best available anywhere”.
But a survey of 130,000 BMA members in January found almost two-thirds of the 46,000 who responded said they would be prepared to take some form of industrial action if the government did not change its offer.
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.
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dizzy