The main issue in today’s NHS news is that Con-Dem ‘reforms’ are driving GPs away from being GPs. There’s one article that I couldn’t understand that may be of interest to NHS insiders, GPs, etc: PCTs withhold GP consortia funding | GP online. The Guardian also has an article speculating that Lansley may be going.

There are local elections and a vote on adopting the Alternative Voting system in UK today. Don’t forget to vote if you intend to.

A few recent news articles concerning the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

Pulse – NHS reforms push third of GPs to head for exit

Exclusive: More than a third of GPs are planning to quit general practice in the next five years, with morale in the profession nose-diving in the wake of the Government’s NHS reforms, a Pulse survey has revealed.

The first part of Pulse’s State of the Profession Survey, published this week, paints an alarming picture of GPs’ working lives, suggesting they are being forced to work longer hours, are spending less time with patients and are struggling to meet expectations as a result. Almost half of the 576 GPs who responded to the poll reported they were suffering from stress.

But it is the fallout from the Government’s far-reaching NHS reforms that appears to have pushed the number of GPs looking to quit to the highest level for more than a decade, with 71% claiming morale had fallen as a direct result of the health bill and only 9% saying it had risen. Just 18% said they believe general practice is currently moving in the right direction.

The survey found 35% of GPs plan to leave the profession in the next five years – a sharp

increase from the findings of similar BMA surveys in recent years.

In 2001, the BMA warned that 25% of GPs hoped to leave within five years, while its survey of GP morale in 2007 found that 23% either hoped to retire or leave the profession within five years.

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Cost-effective prescribing by GPs has cut NHS costs | GP online

GPC prescribing subcommittee chairman Dr Bill Beeby said the figures released last week suggested many GPs had already achieved large savings, but further savings may be harder to come by.

Overall numbers of prescriptions dispensed in the community in 2010 rose to 926,658 across England, up 5% from 885,999 in 2009. The net ingredient cost rose to £8,834,380, a rise of 3% from £8,539,421 in 2009.

But as the number of prescriptions showed a greater rise than the cost, the net ingredient cost per prescription fell to £9.53, down from £9.64 in 2009.

‘This reflects well on the prescribing behaviours of GPs, as they heed the need to contain costs by responsible choices of medication,’ Dr Beeby said.

The Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) agenda may have meant GPs were already using more cost-effective treatment options, he said. ‘The new QIPP-related indicators for prescribing in the QOF are intended to have the same effect, though these figures may indicate that many have done the work and future savings may be smaller,’ he added.

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BBC News – Don’t be a ‘slave to competition’, NHS told

The government must not become a “slave to competition” over the NHS, the ex-head of the health regulator says.

Anna Walker said competition had an important role to play in making the health service more efficient.

But Ms Walker, now head of the Office of Rail Regulation, said ministers had to learn from other sectors – and limit the scope of private involvement.

It came as private health firms hit out at what they said was scaremongering about the changes in England.

Under plans put forward by the coalition government, the NHS is to be opened up further to competition from private sector firms.

This has prompted unions to suggest the health service is at risk of being privatised.

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Pulse – Labour pledges to strip financial responsibility from GPs

Exclusive: GPs would not be given real budgets to commission care under a Labour government, and the opposition is ready to systematically dismantle the coalition’s Health and Social Care Bill if it returns to power, the shadow health secretary has revealed.

In an exclusive interview with Pulse, John Healey said he fundamentally disagreed with the closer alignment of clinical and financial responsibility, and pledged to reverse plans to hand GPs real commissioning budgets. He also said he would oppose the abolition of PCTs and put the brakes on health secretary Andrew Lansley’s expansion of the NHS market.

The shadow health secretary said Labour would strip Monitor of its new expanded duty to enforce competition, and continue his predecessor Andy Burnham’s policy of making the NHS the ‘preferred provider’.

His stance on commissioning comes despite the previous Labour administration’s move to offer some GPs real budgets under practice-based commissioning.

Mr Healey said this policy would not be pursued in the future, claiming real budgets would jeopardise the doctor-patient relationship by creating insurmountable conflicts of interest.

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Health watchdog reveals serious concerns about Medway NHS Trust finances

A HEALTH watchdog has said it has serious concerns about Medway NHS Trust’s finances.

The independent regulator Monitor said it found the trust, which runs Medway Maritime Hospital, was in “significant breach” of the terms relating to its foundation trust status.

It threatened formal intervention unless its board took immediate action and could show it was taking control.

The trust said it was “disappointed” with the findings, but had been hit with unexpected expenditure against a commitment to cost-saving.

Trust spokesman Kelly Trinder said: “Like all hospital trusts, Medway faces a challenging economic climate.

“In 2010/11 Medway set itself an ambitious target of making £15 million savings in its running costs.

“It successfully achieved £13.6 million of these but the shortfall, coupled with significant one-off losses such as cancelled operations due to the heavy snow in December, meant that it failed to meet all its financial targets.”

Monitor, which has the power to remove all directors and put in temporary replacements, said its inspection had resulted in concerns being raised about board-level scrutiny, financial planning and performance.

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NHS news

A few recent news articles concerning the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

Ed Miliband urges voters to deliver verdict on ‘reckless’ coalition | Politics | guardian.co.uk

Ed Miliband has urged voters to use Thursday’s local and devolved elections to deliver a verdict on David Cameron’s “reckless” agenda in government.

Miliband said the polls would offer voters their “first chance” to send a strong message to the government that ministers cannot return to “business as usual” by pursuing “rightwing policies for which they have no mandate”.

The Labour leader called on people to use their vote to make the party’s voice “as strong as possible”, saying Labour presented an alternative to the “divisive policies” of government, which he attributed largely to the Conservatives with the “enthusiastic participation” of the Liberal Democrats.

The last-minute appeal by Labour to give the coalition a wake-up call included publication of a document detailing policies the Tories and Lib Dems are implementing with “no mandate” such as the NHS reorganisation, police cuts and the trebling of tuition fees.

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Fury at ward closures|7May11|Socialist Worker

NHS campaigners in east London last week reacted with fury to health authority plans to close the Connaught Day Hospital at Whipps Cross hospital in Waltham Forest.

Health bosses say the ward, which specialises in the treatment of elderly patients, may be “scaled down” or closed altogether.

They are expected to announce their decision this month.

Over 80 health workers, patients and NHS campaigners gathered outside the hospital on Thursday of last week to defend the ward.

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Join fight to save health service|7May11|Socialist Worker

Dozens of hospitals already struggling to cope with the government’s crippling financial demands will be forced to slash even more jobs and services.

The devastating news follows a warning from Monitor, the regulator of NHS foundation trusts in England. It says department of health demands for £20 billion of “efficiency savings” this year are an underestimate.

Monitor says that health bosses must now slash their spending by 7 percent a year for the next five years, not the 4 percent previously expected.

The nurses’ RCN union has identified almost 40,000 NHS posts across Britain that face being lost—up from the 27,000 it reported in November. That figure could now rocket as health trusts seek more cuts.

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Full scale of NHS cutbacks revealed – Local – Wakefield Express

HOSPITAL budgets will be slashed by £60m in the next two years – almost double the amount first imposed under government spending cuts, it has emerged.

Health bosses must find £30m of savings this year and next – a rate of £2.5m per month – to balance the books at Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust.

Fears over patient care and job losses were already being raised when the trust, which runs Pinderfields, Pontefract and Dewsbury hospitals, slashed £38m from last year’s budget following the spending restrictions announced by the coalition government.

The trust had anticipated saving a further £32m during the next two years – but rising costs and inflation mean a further £28m will now have to be found.

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Protesters voice their concerns at changes to NHS (From Worcester News)

HEALTH demonstrators have voiced their disgust over Government-planned changes to the NHS.

Pressure groups held a public demonstration outside the main entrance of Worcestershire Royal Hospital in Worcester on Saturday.

Members of Worcester Against The Cuts (WATC) and 38 Degrees were voicing their displeasure at Government-imposed changes to how healthcare is delivered across the country, accusing health ministers of turning the health service “into a business”.
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Health Bill may not bring local control, experts warn | GP online

The government’s NHS reforms may fail to liberate the NHS as central organisations bid to maintain control over local decision making, the King’s Fund has warned.

The think tank carried out a simulation exercise with NHS Lincolnshire to look at how the NHS will function in 2013/14. The 24-hour exercise simulated a year of NHS activity.

Commissioning for the future showed that central NHS organisations actively tried to manage local decisions as local groups looked to them for guidance.

The researchers said GPs were often ‘overwhelmed’ by the number of activities they were expected to take part in.

Patient involvement in decision making was limited, the exercise found.

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Ther’s been another long weekend with a bank holiday on either side – some rich people got married on Friday.

The main NHS news is that NHS cuts – ‘savings’ as the Conservatives and Liberal-Democrats like to call them – are going to be far more severe than previously expected. Andrew Lansley, David Cameron and the Con-Dem coalition government repeatedly claim that there are no cuts to the NHS. Look at this small selection of news articles – cuts to capacity and cuts to staff. Earlier NHS news details routine operations that have been cut to save money. What are they if not cuts?

There have been many May Day events highlighting privatisation and cuts to the NHS. I’ve only mentioned one or two.

A few recent news articles concerning the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

THE number of beds in the Bristol Royal Infirmary is set to be reduced by a quarter within five years.

THE number of beds in the Bristol Royal Infirmary is set to be reduced by a quarter within five years.

An £80.7 million redevelopment of the hospital was approved by its directors yesterday, setting out how services will be overhauled between now and 2016. It includes the approval of a new ward block behind the accident and emergency department.

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Currently there are 503 beds in the BRI, which can be pushed up to 531 in times of pressure.

The plan is for a reduction to 408 by 2014/15 and a further decrease to 379 by 2015/16 – a reduction of 124 on the current figure.

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Move to axe 300 beds at hospitals – Main Section – Yorkshire Post

AS many as 300 hospital beds in 10 wards are set to close in Hull and the East Riding over the next five years as part of efforts to save £95m.

Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust chief executive Phil Morley said the figures were based on a regular census which showed 300 people were in hospital beds when they did not need to be.

The closures, which would affect both Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital, would be phased, starting with an old ward on the Castle Hill site which needed around three-quarters of a million pounds spending on it.

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LEYTONSTONE: Health bosses would ‘prefer’ to keep elderly unit open (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

HEALTH bosses have said their “preferred option” for the future of an under-threat specialist unit for the elderly is to keep it open.

Fears have been raised about the Connaught Day Hospital centre, which is based at Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone, after it emerged that management were considering closing it down.

The unit provides specialist rehabilitation and outpatient support for pensioners, such as physiotherapy for those injured in falls.

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Health Secretary Andrew Lansley packs NHS “listening panel” with yes men – and just one nurse – mirror.co.uk

Health Secretary ­Andrew Lansley has just one ­practising nurse on the 50-strong “listening panel” set up to save his ­controversial reforms.

And all five GPs serving on the panel – ­including Professor Steve Field, former President of the Royal College of GPs – are already supporters of Mr Lansley’s plan.

The embattled Health Secretary set up his ­Futures Forum after nurses’ leaders gave him a ­humiliating no-confidence vote at their ­conference last month. But now Mr Lansley is facing angry criticism that he has shunned the views of ­frontline NHS workers by packing the forum with “yes men and ­women”.

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Mr Lansley and the PM David ­Cameron created the panel – largely made up of health service bureaucrats – after the public outcry over plans to give GPs more control of the budget of the NHS and open it up to more private firms. The forum has been asked to seek the views of patients and health experts then report back to the Government.

But Dr John Lister, of pressure group Health Emergency, said: “This is all a stunt to convince the public that Lansley is listening.”

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May Day protesters march against job cuts | Manchester Evening News – menmedia.co.uk

Scores of protesters took part in Manchester’s traditional May Day rally to condemn public spending cuts.

The march, organised by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), commemorated International Worker’s Day.

Participants protested against spending cuts, privatisation and the government’s NHS reforms. Marchers met outside All Saints’ Park on Oxford Road and walked down Peter Street, Deansgate, John Dalton Street and Cross Street to Urbis. Afterwards, food and entertainment was put on at the Friends Meeting House in Mount Street.

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NHS reform: GP group gets control of £100m (From The Bolton News)

A GP group has been handed control of more than £100 million of the primary care trust’s (PCT) budget this year.

Bolton Health Consortium (BHC), originally known as Bolton GP Commissioning Consortium, is made up of 40 of the town’s 50 practices.

It is one of two groups who will take over buying health services when PCTs are scrapped in 2013.

NHS Bolton will cease to exist from April that year, with GP consortia or groups, replacing them to commission services.

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Nursing union hits out at Teesside NHS trust ‘cuts’ – Gazette Communities – Gazette Live

A NURSING union has hit out at what it claims are proposed cuts to frontline services at Two Teesside hospital trusts.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) aims to highlight how health reforms could result in cuts to jobs and frontline services.

Its website Frontline First outlined how South Tees NHS Foundation Trust, which manages James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough and The Friarage in Northallerton, “cut” 14 cardiology beds and a 30-bed surgical ward containing specialities including ear nose and throat, and ophthalmology.

The RCN also stated the trust had to save £20m over four years. However, the trust said the process of removing cardiology beds was completed last year with no redundancies, although some nursing staff were redeployed to other wards.

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BBC News – NHS hospitals told to seek 50% more savings

A regulator has warned hospitals in England they could face having to make savings about 50% higher than those already demanded by ministers.

Monitor, which oversees NHS foundation trusts and assesses applications for foundation status, blamed factors such as greater-than-expected inflation.

It has written to local health chiefs after significantly revising its financial assumptions.

Ministers said the warning was based on Monitor’s most “pessimistic” scenario.

The regulator said hospitals could have to make average savings of up to 6% or 7% a year, compared with the annual 4% set out by the previous Labour government, as part of efforts to cut £20bn from running costs.

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Worsened cuts ‘risk the NHS’ / Britain / Home – Morning Star

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Monitor, which oversees NHS foundation trusts and assesses applications for foundation status, has written to local health chiefs after significantly revising its financial assumptions.

It suggested average savings of between 6 and 7 per cent a year may be necessary, compared with the annual 4 per cent called for by the Department of Health (DoH) as part of plans to slash £20 billion from running costs.

In the letter, Monitor said it had changed its figures after taking into account the government’s spending review, inflation expectations set out by the Office of Budget Responsibility and new NHS operating rules.

Despite being spared the deep budget cuts imposed on other government departments, the NHS still faced a “substantial challenge” in meeting rising demand for health services while making substantial efficiencies, it cautioned.

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Labour cries foul as NHS regulator predicts deeper hospital cuts | Society | The Guardian

Labour has accused health bosses of burying bad news on royal wedding day when it emerged that the health regulator Monitor had predicted hospitals would have to make efficiency savings up to 50% higher than previously envisaged.

Monitor, in a letter to NHS foundation trusts dated 27 April and released on Thursday, said the higher efficiency savings were partly due to inflation rising above predicted levels.

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Private company to care for pregnant women in Wirral, instead of NHS – Wirral News

PREGNANT women in Wirral are to be cared for by a private company instead of the NHS.

The borough’s primary care trust (PCT) has approved an application from a company called One to One to provide a “community midwifery service”.

But the move has been criticised by Labour as “sinister” and privatision “by the back door”.

Wirral’s Labour group leader Steve Foulkes said he was shocked by the move and added: “There has been little or no consultation about moving from the pilot to a full blown service. It looks like the forerunner to many other services going out to private partners. The NHS is a public service and should be publicly accountable to public scrutiny.

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THE NHS has spent more than £17 million on procedures at an Emersons Green centre run by the private sector in the past 18 months.

THE NHS has spent more than £17 million on procedures at an Emersons Green centre run by the private sector in the past 18 months.

Since the centre opened in November 2009, almost 15,000 procedures have been carried out on patients from the wider Bristol area on behalf of the local NHS.

The centre, run by UK Specialist Hospitals carries out diagnostic tests and procedures including dental surgery, ear, nose and throat, gynaecology and joint replacements.

Unlike general hospitals the independent sector treatment centres do not provide emergency care for patients and they do not deal with more complex cases.

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NHS reforms at heart of Norwich protest event – Politics – Eastern Daily Press

Norwich and District Trades Union Council organised the event on Monday in Chapelfield Gardens as a traditional May Day International Workers’ Day celebration.

However, given the cuts faced by many frontline public services, the day was also a chance to raise awareness of these and in particular focus on the plans to overhaul the NHS, which critics fear will lead to the privatisation of healthcare.

While musicians entertained the public from the bandstand and there was a bouncy slide for children, a host of unions and organisations were in attendance to get across the message that the proposals could be disastrous for the NHS.

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Today’s NHS news features the interesting case of a huge US health care provider UnitedHealth selling its business undertaking of Camden GP practices to The Practice Plc. The public clearly have absolutely no influence over such private business transactions which will increase under increasing privatisation.

Cameron says Socialists have no sense of humour. A doctor claims he was misrepresented by Cameron and accuses Cameron of playing football.

A few recent news articles concerning the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

Nursing union hits out at Teesside NHS trust ‘cuts’ – Local News – News – Gazette Live

A NURSING union has hit out at what it claims are proposed cuts to frontline services at Two Teesside hospital trusts.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) aims to highlight how health reforms could result in cuts to jobs and frontline services.

Its website Frontline First outlined how South Tees NHS Foundation Trust, which manages James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough and The Friarage in Northallerton, “cut” 14 cardiology beds and a 30-bed surgical ward containing specialities including ear nose and throat, and ophthalmology.

The RCN also stated the trust had to save £20m over four years. However, the trust said the process of removing cardiology beds was completed last year with no redundancies, although some nursing staff were redeployed to other wards.
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Article > MPs ask: post-NHS reform, who will be accountable for health spending?

MPs have told the government that even though its NHS reforms are still at an early stage, they need certainty about who to hold accountable for health spending once they are complete.

“It is vital that the Department [of Health] creates robust accountability structures so that Parliament and the public can property follow the taxpayers’ pound and hold those responsible to account,” Margaret Hodge, chair of the Commons Committee of Public Accounts said yesterday, as the panel published its latest Landscape Review of the NHS. “Key questions have yet to be addressed,” added the Labour MP for Barking.

In particular, she said, the Committee is concerned that the Department has yet to develop a high-quality risk management protocol for either the commissioning or providing bodies. Health officials have told the MPs that certain health trusts and GP practices still have some way to go to achieving Foundation Trust status or becoming commissioning consortia, and the panel stresses that the Department must have effective systems in place to deal with failure so that, whatever happens, the interests of both patients and taxpayers are protected.
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Camden patients ‘in dark’ over UnitedHealth surgeries sale – American giant sells GP services to rival Practice plc | Camden New Journal

PATIENTS registered at three Camden GP practices sold by an American health giant to a rival company last week were not told about the changes.

UnitedHealth, who had boasted of how well they had run the surgeries since a controversial takeover in 2008, said it was not up to them to inform thousands of unknowing patients of the transaction.

A UnitedHealth spokes­woman said: “It’s not one for us. This is a simple transfer of ownership and patients will be seeing the same doctors and nurses.”

But the sale to The Practice Plc was exactly the kind of move that NHS campaigners warned of when they protested against UnitedHealth’s initial introduction to the borough three years ago.

They warned that patients would lose a say in how their surgeries were run and would be unable to scrutinise performance.

The UnitedHealth UK surgery sell-off was introduced to Thursday’s Town Hall health scrutiny committee meeting agenda “as a matter of urgency” following a story in the New Journal last week.

Labour councillor Adam Harrison told the meeting: “I must express an interest as I am a patient at the Brunswick [Medical Centre].”

When asked if he was informed of the change before it was agreed, Cllr Harrison replied: “No, I certainly was not.”

Chairman of the committee, Liberal Democrat councillor John Bryant, said: “We are in a no man’s land.”

The panel has asked for clarification from NHS bosses on how contracts are managed and transferred apparently behind closed doors.
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David Cameron: socialists have no sense of humour – Telegraph

The Prime Minister was accused of sexism by Labour after his Commons put-down to Angela Eagle at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Mimicking a catchphrase used by Michael Winner, the film director, on a television insurance advertisement, he repeatedly told her to “calm down, dear”, prompting calls for him to apologise.

But yesterday he brushed off the row and made light of the remarks.

He said: “I don’t know what it is about some people on the Left. It seems that when they put the socialism in, they take the sense of humour out.
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BBC News – Cameron accused of using NHS as ‘political football’

An ex-Labour MP who David Cameron claimed supported his health reforms has accused the prime minister of using the NHS as a “political football”.

Dr Howard Stoate said his views about GPs powers were “taken out of context”.

He was at the centre of a political row on Wednesday after Mr Cameron told Labour MP Angela Eagle “to calm down dear” at Prime Minister’s Questions.

He made the comment after Ms Eagle sought to correct remarks he made about Dr Stoate in the Commons.
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Response: Calm down, David Cameron – and get your facts right at PMQs | Howard Stoate | Comment is free | The Guardian

Series: Response
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Calm down, David Cameron – and get your facts right at PMQs

The prime minister distorted my views. He should stop using the health service as a political football

David Cameron’s comments to MP Angela Eagle to “calm down, dear” caused a furore during prime minister’s questions on Wednesday (Cameron accused of sexism over ‘calm down dear’ Commons taunt, 28 April). But along with many others I was more concerned about inaccuracies in the point he was trying to make at the time.

He quoted a comment I made in a Guardian Response column (GPs do not fear the chance to reshape services, they welcome it, 12 January) in which I said many GPs were enthusiastic about the chance to help shape services for patients. I was referring to GPs in my own borough of Bexley, south London, and qualified this by saying GPs in the borough had a head start, building on their experience of commissioning over the last four years.

Taken out of context, and interspersed with condescending comments to backbench MPs, Cameron’s quote is entirely misleading. As you report, “Eagle picked him up when he started to claim that a former Labour MP who supports the health reforms, Dr Howard Stoate, had been defeated at the election by the Tories.” I was not defeated by a Conservative candidate – I did not in fact stand.