Wes Streeting

Labour’s plans to sell GP data to private sector ‘make no sense’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-plans-to-sell-gp-data-to-private-sector-make-no-sense

Health Secretary Wes Streeting meeting staff during a visit to London Ambulance Service headquarters in south London, December 9, 2024

Campaigners warn Labour’s ‘pro-business approach to data’ has ‘potential for further loss of public trust’ in the NHS

HEALTH Secretary Wes Streeting’s plans to sell GP data to the private sector “make no sense,” warned experts raising fresh privacy concerns yesterday.

Campaigners also warned Labour’s “pro-business approach to data” had the potential for further loss of public trust in the health service.

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Mr Streeting in October said that data “is the future of the NHS” and Britain “could lead the world in medical research.”

He plans to create a “single access system” for information from GP surgeries, hospitals and other care settings after NHS England awarded a controversial £330 million contract to US spy tech giant Palantir in 2023 to develop a new platform.

Today Keep Our NHS Public co-chair Dr John Puntis said: “The Data Use and Access Bill currently going through Parliament illustrates Labour’s pro-business approach to data as a valuable resource, and highlights the potential for further loss of public trust.

“It aims to make data, including our personal heath data, widely available to public authorities and the private sector.

“The Secretary of State will be given power to erode safeguards over use of personal data for research.

“Labour intends to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses at the expense of safeguards for citizens.

“An alternative vision would include investment in a publicly owned national digital infrastructure aimed at storing and managing NHS data currently being processed through cloud computing services that are owned by large technology companies.

“There must be safeguards against the private sector gaining access to data for profit, and the public should be fully informed about the use of people’s health data and the right to protection and privacy.”

A spokesman for Momentum said: “Selling off patients’ data is no way to fix the NHS.

“We must fully renationalise our healthcare system and defend it from corporate interests, not welcome them.”

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-plans-to-sell-gp-data-to-private-sector-make-no-sense

Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Continue ReadingLabour’s plans to sell GP data to private sector ‘make no sense’

Sweet like chocolate: Alan Milburn’s new deal

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Alan Milburn speaks at the first national conference of the Social Enterprise Coalition, January 25, 2005

Behind a facade of flimsy restrictions, the man who was Tony Blair’s privatisation champion is back in an advisory role, despite the fact he already works for firms that will profit from the selling off of the NHS, writes SOLOMON HUGHES

HEALTH Secretary Wes Streeting says he put Alan Milburn, who was health secretary under Tony Blair, onto the board of the Department of Health “to help government fix health and care.”

But Milburn can’t talk about anything relating “to nutrition, diet, and food, including any work related to the department’s sponsorship of the Food Standards Agency” on that board because he has a part-time job working for Mars Inc.

Appointing someone who works for the firm making Mars Bars to the Department of Health board in the middle of an obesity crisis shows how Streeting values corporate interests above public services.

Milburn was health secretary under Blair from 1999 to 2003. He oversaw the wide-scale privatisation of the NHS. He continued the Margaret Thatcher and John Major governments’ plans to privatise NHS “support services” like cleaning, catering and building management, with the disastrous PFI scheme expanding on his watch.

Milburn also broke new ground by privatising “clinical” services by buying in private operations or giving NHS money to set up privately run clinics. Milburn then cashed in his experience by leaving government and taking on lucrative corporate jobs.

Milburn and his family get around £1-2 million a year from his “advisory” firm, AM Strategy, where all the funds for his “advisory” jobs are collected. Streeting clearly admires both Milburn’s record of privatisation when he was a minister and his highly paid post post-ministerial corporate work.

The Department of Health says Milburn will give up his job as an adviser to Mars Inc at the end of this year, so next year, he will be able to forget all about working for Mars Bars and start discussing obesity.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/sweet-like-chocolate-alan-milburns-new-deal

Continue ReadingSweet like chocolate: Alan Milburn’s new deal

The wrong people listened to on puberty blockers ban

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https://archive.ph/20241217095323/https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24799355.wrong-people-listened-puberty-blockers-ban/#selection-1751.0-1751.97

Labour have enacted the first piece of anti-LGBT legislation to come from Westminster in 36 years

IN indefinitely extending the ban on puberty blockers for trans young people, Labour have enacted the first piece of anti-LGBT legislation to come from Westminster in 36 years.

And like the ban on teaching of LGBTQ+ identities enacted in 1988, it is grounded in little more than a moral panic that harms young people.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting claims that the decision to extend the Conservative Party’s ban on something which is a reversible and safe means to give young people the time and space to decide what is right for them was taken after receiving expert advice. But the Government’s own consultation process tells another story.

If, as the Government’s proponents are so quick to say, we must take the heat out of the so-called transgender debate, the route to doing so must surely be through expert opinion and by listening to the experiences of young trans people themselves.

READ MORE: ‘UK complicity in Israeli war crimes not without consequence’, Labour warned

Yet skipping through the list of names invited to respond to the Government’s targeted consultation on the indefinite ban, a number of chosen invitees are objectively the last people who should be near such a consultation – anti-trans organisations, conversion therapy advocates and groups with ties to far-right American evangelism.

The list of groups and organisations invited to take part included charity the LGB Alliance, which was labelled by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) as a hate group in 2022.

GPAHE – which was formed by two former members of the respected US Southern Poverty Law Center – highlighted the LGB Alliance among other groups such as the Official Proud Boys Ireland and the Iona Institute as setting out to “demean, harass, and inspire violence against people based on their identity traits”.

The Government also invited the Bayswater Support Group to respond – a favourite go-to of the far right that pushes conversion therapy and advocates abuse toward trans youth “for their own good”.

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https://archive.ph/20241217095323/https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24799355.wrong-people-listened-puberty-blockers-ban/#selection-1751.0-1751.97

Continue ReadingThe wrong people listened to on puberty blockers ban

Emergency doctors hit out at NHS guidance on treating patients in corridors

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A support worker stands in a corridor as the first patients are admitted to the NHS Seacole Centre at Headley Court, Surrey, May 2020

EMERGENCY doctors have expressed concern today about a new guide on how to treat patients in corridors, saying it is “normalising the dangerous.”

NHS England recently produced guidance on “providing safe and good quality care in temporary escalation spaces.”

But the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) said the “nonsensical” guidance is out of touch and that it is “not possible to provide safe and good quality care” in corridors or cupboards.

The guidance acknowledges corridor care is “not acceptable and should not be considered as standard,” but due to current pressures some hospitals are “using temporary escalation spaces more regularly — and this use is no longer ‘in extremis’.”

It suggests how staff can deliver the “safest, most effective and highest quality care possible” to patients in these circumstances.

In a statement yesterday, the college said: “Advice from arm’s length bodies that appear out of touch with what is happening in our departments was always going to be poorly received.”

The use of corridors will lead to long waits in emergency departments, “associated with measurable harm to patients,” it added.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/emergency-doctors-hit-out-nhs-guidance-treating-patients-corridors

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Morning Star Exclusive: Streeting urged to back New Deal for Workers and block £100m NHS privatisation bid

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/streeting-urged-back-new-deal-workers-nhs-staff-strike-over-ps100m-plus-outsourcing-bid

Health Secretary Wes Streeting arrives in Downing Street, London, for a Cabinet meeting, December 3, 2024

HEALTH Secretary Wes Streeting has been urged to honour the New Deal for Working People after failing to back a Unison NHS strike over a £100 million-plus privatisation plan.

More than 350 facilities workers are on a three-week walkout over East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust (ESNEFT’s) plans to outsource their jobs.

Large NHS contracts such as this need Cabinet Office approval but Mr Streeting has said he will not intervene in the trust’s outsourcing bid despite Labour’s promise for the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation, a union source said.

His stance has attracted criticism from Labour MPs, Unison and NHS campaigners, with ESNEFT’s board of directors expected to rubber-stamp the outsourcing of their soft facilities management contract tomorrow.

Eastern Unison head of health Caroline Hennessy said: “Moving these essential teams out of the NHS is a false economy and goes against government pledges on insourcing.

“The trust has spent months trying to justify its ill-thought-out plans to privatise the jobs of these key staff and has failed to win any of the arguments.”

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/streeting-urged-back-new-deal-workers-nhs-staff-strike-over-ps100m-plus-outsourcing-bid

Continue ReadingMorning Star Exclusive: Streeting urged to back New Deal for Workers and block £100m NHS privatisation bid