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.
Andrew Lansley forced into major climbdown on planned health reforms
Threat of Lords revolt compels health secretary to change NHS bill amid claims of ‘sheer panic’ in government over opposition
The health secretary will perform a dramatic climbdown over his reforms this week in a desperate attempt to prevent a cross-party revolt among peers who fear that the changes would lead to the fragmentation of the NHS.
Amid growing concern in Downing Street that health policy is becoming the government’s achilles heel, ministers will table a series of amendments to the health and social care bill that will oblige Andrew Lansley to maintain the NHS as a national public service and, his critics say, limit his ambitions to expand the role of the private sector.
The changes will also spell out the kind of services that must be offered by GPs and will effectively ban them from withholding certain forms of care from patients.
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Shake-up in NHS ‘could pay for 6,000 nurses’
Money being spent on the reorganisation of the NHS could pay 6,000 nurses for three years, Labour has claimed.
Ed Miliband will today attempt to ramp up pressure on the Government to drop its controversial Health Bill during a visit to the Princess Royal University Hospital in Kent. He has claimed there are “just three months to save the NHS from the reforms”.
The Doncaster North MP said that more than 3,500 nurses had been lost since the Government came to power and another 2,500 were threatened, according to Royal College of Nursing (RCN) estimates.
Mr Miliband said the Government was planning to spend £1.7 billion bringing in the Health and Social Care Bill, while covering 6,000 full-time equivalent nursing posts for three years would cost £748m.
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