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The House of Lords is to discuss and vote on the Health and Social Care / Destroy the NHS Bill today and tomorrow. There are amendments proposed to delay or abandon the bill.

The Con-Dem coalition government – despite obvious evidence to the contrary – claims widespread support amoung medical practicioners for the proposed reforms.

A further letter by accomplished medical professionals – with a few celebrities thrown in for good measure – makes yet another statement of opposition to the bill and urges the Lords to make major changes.

The new Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham offers to collude with the ConDems overs Clinical Commissioning Groups if the bill is dropped. I’m surprised at this move and don’t agree with it. I was quite impressed with John Healey who has apparently resigned for family reasons.

Some photos of Sunday’s ‘Block the Bridge, Block the Bill’ protest called by UK Uncut.

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.

BBC News – Lords to debate controversial NHS shake-up bill

The government’s controversial plans to overhaul the NHS are set to be debated in the Lords.

The Health and Social Care Bill would increase competition and give clinicians control of budgets.

The bill has already been substantially altered following criticism from NHS staff and Liberal Democrat MPs.

But Labour peers are expected to table an amendment calling for it to be dropped altogether, while Lib Dems have vowed to push for further changes.

On Sunday, hundreds of protesters gathered on Westminster Bridge in central London to urge peers to “block the bill”.

And last week almost 400 health professionals and academics wrote to peers asking them to vote against the bill, arguing it would do “irreparable harm to the NHS, to individual patients, and to society as a whole”.

The government says the changes are vital to help the NHS cope with the demands of an ageing population, the costs of new drugs and treatments and the impact of lifestyle factors, such as obesity.

Select committee

The Health and Social Care Bill has been described as the biggest shake-up of the NHS since its creation.

The original plans proved so controversial that the government took the unprecedented step of halting the legislation while it carried out a “listening exercise” with critics – and subsequently altered the bill considerably.

Ministers now say it does have support from the medical profession, but groups such as the Royal College of Nursing and Royal College of GPs have continued to express concern.

Almost 100 peers have requested the chance to speak during the Lords second reading debate on Tuesday and Wednesday. Peers are set to vote on the bill on Wednesday.

Among them, two crossbench peers – Lords Owen and Hennessey – have tabled an amendment calling for part of the bill to be sent to a special select committee – which allows witnesses to give evidence – for further scrutiny.

They say the bill raises serious constitutional issues, particularly aspects relating to the role of the health secretary in overseeing the NHS and the role of a new body, Monitor, in promoting competition within it.
… (article continues)

Related: BBC News – NHS shake-up: The sticking points

Senior doctors revolt against health reforms – Health News, Health & Families – The Independent

More than 60 leading medical professionals have demanded that the Government’s “unpopular and undemocratic” health reforms, which return to Westminster today, be either scrapped or heavily rewritten.

Their call, in a letter to The Independent, increases the pressure on Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, who faces widespread opposition in the House of Lords to the planned overhaul.

Signatories include consultants, surgeons, psychiatrists and paediatricians, as well as midwives and family doctors. They have joined forces with public figures including the actors Julie Christie and David Morrissey, the comedian Russell Brand and the fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood to demand a halt to the reforms. They say that, despite a series of amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill, Mr Lansley’s plans still do not have the support of the public or the profession.

“It is perfectly clear – as the Prime Minister is acutely aware – that the British public does not support the privatisation of the NHS, and it is a matter of fact that no one ever voted for it, and so this current Bill has no democratic mandate whatsoever,” they write.

They call for the “suspension of, or significant amendment of, the Bill in order that it can be supported by a majority of the medical profession and the British public as a whole, who pay for, support and service our great NHS”. The signatories add: “No one is against reform and change, but the NHS is too important and valuable to our society to be transformed forever in this unpopular, undemocratic way.”

Their letter comes as the Bill returns to the House of Lords where it is due to face concerted opposition, with so many peers requesting to speak that business managers have been forced to set aside another day for the debate.

More than 90 members have applied to speak in the Second Reading debate. Attempts will be made to block the Bill or to delay it by referring key parts to a select committee.

Ministers are expected to offer one concession – an amendment designed to spell out more clearly that the Health Secretary has ultimate legal responsibility for the NHS. But there is growing anxiety within the Government that critics could muster enough support to delay the measure.
… (article continues)

Letters: No one voted for the NHS to be privatised – Letters, Opinion – The Independent

As the House of Lords prepares to vote on the NHS and Social Care Bill, it is clear that medical professionals and the British people – despite a protracted listening exercise by the Government – still do not support existing plans for the NHS.

Despite the Prime Minister’s claims to the contrary, it is public fact that every single Royal College representing nurses, GPs and midwives maintain serious concerns about the Bill. The official policy of the British Medical Association is that the Bill be withdrawn.

… (letter continues)

Related: Medical royal colleges join forces to oppose NHS reforms – Telegraph

Management in Practice – Labour to back CCGs if Bill is dropped

Labour will work with the government to reform NHS commissioning but only if the Health Bill is scrapped.

The new Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham has written to the Secretary of State for Health Andrew Lansley, warning the NHS is now in the “danger zone” as he has “failed to build a consensus around his plans”.

Burnham said it is time to “stop digging” and “change course” if patient care is to be protected.

He has pledged his commitment to work alongside the government to develop “true clinician-led commissioning in every locality in England” in return for the withdrawal of the Bill.

Labour believes that such reforms do not need legislation, and could be implemented quickly.

“This approach offers a way ahead that everybody could unite behind,” said Burnham.
… (article continues)

GPs join NHS reform ‘block the bridge’ protest | GPonline.com

Up to 3,000 protestors, many dressed in surgical scrubs, lay down on the bridge in central London at 1pm as a huge ‘Save our NHS’ banner was unfurled across it.

The demonstration came as the House of Lords prepared to debate the Health Bill this week.

Block the Bridge, Block the Bill protest 9 October 2011
Block the Bridge, Block the Bill protest 9 October 2011

GPs including RCGP chairwoman Dr Clare Gerada visited the protest to show their support.

Block the Bridge, Block the Bill protest 9 October 2011
Block the Bridge, Block the Bill protest 9 October 2011

More images

Dr Louise Irvine, a partner at the Amersham Vale Practice, in Lewisham, London said she took part because it was important to show the profession’s anger at the reforms.

‘This Bill has hardly had any scrutiny, it has been rushed through,’ she said. ‘Many MPs have said they didn’t have time to study it properly.’

The reforms were the ‘biggest change to the NHS since it began’, Dr Irvine warned. She argued that the government had no mandate for the reforms, and was trying to implement changes in the face of huge opposition from NHS staff and healthcare organisations.

Dr Irvine said she hoped the House of Lords would delay the Bill for so long that it would run out of time, or throw it out.

‘I’m worried about privatisation and fragmentation of health services, the huge transaction costs of running a market, the loss of accountability of the secretary of state, the postcode lottery as clinical commissioning groups decide what services are available on the NHS,’ she said.

Dr Irvine warned that if the range of services available on the NHS became more limited, patients may be forced to take out private health insurance as a back-up to NHS healthcare.

Dr Julia Hodges, of the Villa Street Practice in Southwark, London, said: ‘Andrew Lansley likes to make out that GPs are backing the Bill and support what he’s doing, but all the surveys of GPs’ attitudes show 60 to 70 per cent do not support it. So it was good to be able to put people straight. I worry our relationship with patients will suffer because of the reforms. They will ask if their GP is benefiting financially from the way they refer. I worry answer may be ‘Yes’ after the Bill.’

But a DoH spokeswoman rejected fears about the NHS reforms. ‘Claims that we aim to privatise the NHS amount to nothing more than ludicrous scaremongering. We have made it crystal clear, time and again, that we will never, ever, privatise the NHS,’ she said.

‘The reality is that we’ve protected the NHS budget, we are giving more power and choice to patients over how they get treated, keeping waiting times low and cutting bureaucracy so more cash gets to the front line.’

[You can’t trust the Tories – or the Lib-Dem Tories – on the NHS]

 

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.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

Continue ReadingNHS news review

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While the Con-Dem coalition government claims that there are no cuts to the NHS:


Conservative election poster 2010

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

NHS hospital asks staff to give up holiday or do unpaid work – Telegraph

Staff at an NHS hospital have been asked to give up their holiday time or work for nothing in a desperate attempt to save money.

Whipps Cross University Hospital Trust in east London has told doctors and nurses that it needs to take “extraordinary financial measures” to tackle its £4.5million deficit.

These include asking all of its 3,400 workers to voluntarily “sacrifice” part of their annual leave, take unpaid leave or perform “additional unpaid sessional duties”.

The hospitals’s executive team have all agreed to give up two days of their holiday entitlement while consultants are being asked to work one extra clinical shift every month.

It is a stark example of the financial pressures facing NHS organisations.

The overall health budget is falling in real terms while trusts have been told to make efficiency savings totalling £20billion by 2015.

All trusts are expected to reach semi-independent Foundation Trust status by 2013, which means balancing their books, while their income is likely to fall as the NHS is opened up to more competition.

In the letter to staff, Whipps Cross’s chief executive, Cathy Geddes, wrote: “As you all know the Trust is facing unprecedented and demanding financial challenges in 2011/12 and beyond. Therefore, it is imperative that we take all necessary steps and make concerted efforts to ensure we work towards the achievement of our financial, and all other, targets.

“To this end, and in light of our month five financial results (£4.5m actual deficit) you will be aware that the Trust has now launched extra-ordinary financial measures.

“As part of these measures we have asked staff if they are willing to volunteer to sacrifice annual leave and/or perform additional unpaid sessional duties. In true Whipps Cross spirit many of you have already rallied to this request and kindly offered to help.

“I would also like to stress that any such sacrifice will be a one-off in 2011/12 and will NOT commit anyone on an on-going basis or change anyone’s terms and conditions of employment.”
…

BBC News – NHS cuts: Managers urge government honesty

Health service managers have called on the government to be more honest about the financial challenges facing the NHS in England.

The NHS Confederation says a lack of candour over funding is damaging as the public may resist a service being cut.
…

One trust chief executive said ministers were not being straight with the public: “What people cannot tolerate is the lack of honesty about some of the tough choices that we’re having to make.

“Wrapping it up in a language of modernisation and patient choice is simply unacceptable.”

Another said: “Many chief executives – just about all that I speak to, believe that we’re living in a parallel universe.”
…

NHS cuts prolonging wait for physiotherapy patients, survey finds | Society | guardian.co.uk

Fewer getting timely physiotherapy treatment and most have to wait for months, says Chartered Society of Physiotherapists

Patients needing NHS physiotherapy are waiting up to six months to be treated, receiving fewer sessions and having their pain prolonged due to cost-cutting and staff shortages, a new report warns today[fri].

The NHS’s financial squeeze means access to physiotherapy is declining despite rising demand from those with sore backs, necks and shoulders, according to the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists (CSP).

The longest waits for treatment are in West Sussex, where waiting time is between four and 27 weeks, CSP’s audit of 115 NHS primary care trusts across England revealed.

But in South Tyneside and Gateshead, patients were assessed by a physiotherapist within two working days of referral and had their first appointment in no more than three weeks.

The average wait across England is 11.8 weeks, found the survey, which uncovered “significant variations in how physiotherapy services are commissioned and funded”.

More than 4 million patients a year receive physiotherapy on the NHS, particularly those with a musculo-skeletal disorder such as arthritis or long-term conditions such as cystic fibrosis, or those who have had a stroke. Treatment plays an important role in keeping some people well enough to be able to continue working.

“Despite the cost savings to the NHS and the benefits to patients that physiotherapy can deliver, the CSP has discovered that physiotherapy services across the UK are currently being reduced, and this is having a negative impact on the quality of care for patients,” the CSP warns in its report ‘Stretched to the limit’.

More patients will end up being readmitted to hospital if they are denied the physiotherapy they need to recover properly due to increasing rationing prompted by the need to save £20bn from the budget of the NHS in England by 2015, it adds.
…

Addition 10.45 a.m.

Patients Association comments on NHS Confederation warning about cuts.

Patients Association comments on NHS Confederation warning about cuts.

Katherine Murphy, Chief Executive of the Patients Association said

“For months we have been speaking out about the cuts that the Department of Health continue to deny are happening. We know from patients phoning our Helpline and research we carried out earlier this year that thousands of patients are having to wait longer for operations, tests and results. Long waiting times and cancelled operations are the number one reason patients are phoning our Helpline. Patients are also being left to suffer as procedures that could help them are being denied to them, including hip replacements and knee operations. When the NHS was asked to make £20 billion worth of savings we were concerned that frontline services might suffer, but patients were promised that these “efficiency savings” would not affect patient care. But now we have NHS Managers speaking out about the cuts saying they are putting patients at risk. It is telling that the Government continue to try to hide behind the idea that these are “efficiency savings” and cannot admit that they are cuts. Patient safety and wellbeing  is being put at risk, and definitive action must be taken now to end this crisis. The Department must ensure that they are always putting patients first.”

 

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40 health care experts warn that the Destroy the NHS / Health and Social Care Bill will “[usher in] a significantly heightened degree of commercialisation and marketisation that will lead to the harmful fragmentation of patient care; aggravate risks to individual patient safety; erode medical ethics and trust within the healthcare system; widen health inequalities; waste much money on attempts to regulate and manage competition; and undermine the ability of the health system to respond effectively and efficiently to communicate disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies”.

David Cameron responds: “Of course there are doctors and others within the NHS that are wary about parts of our proposals, about greater choice for patients, about greater competition with the NHS.

“There have always been opponents to that, but the point of the exercise we held in the summer, when we paused and restarted the reforms, was to bring more of the health service on board, and many GPs, many doctors and many in the health service recognise that change is necessary if we are going to drive up standards in the health service, in which we invest and care about so much.”

He added: “I think the reforms are right, I think they will improve patient care. Above all, they will be good for patients. They are going to give you more power and control over the care you get, a greater choice too, which I think patients will welcome.”

It appears that there is a choice between 40 accomplished health professionals and a former Bullingdon Clubber with a track record of lying and broken promises to get elected.

Professor Norman Williams, head of the Royal College of Surgeons warns that rationing operations in the short term will cost more in the long term.

Andrew Lansley to address the NHS-destroying Conservative Party Conference today.

Conservative election poster 2010

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

Scrap NHS reforms, doctors tell Lords | Society | The Guardian

Experts including 40 directors of public health say government’s health and social care bill will cause ‘irreparable harm’

Sarah Boseley

More than 400 senior doctors and public health experts are calling on the House of Lords to throw out the government’s health and social care bill, saying it will do “irreparable harm to the NHS, to individual patients and to society as a whole”.

The signatories include Professor Sir Michael Marmot, the author of several reports on the links between wealth and health that suggest children born into poverty are penalised for life.

Marmot has until now not been openly critical of the coalition’s approach, and instead has offered encouragement for David Cameron and Andrew Lansley’s apparent enthusiasm for public health.

But Marmot and others in senior positions have now concluded the bill will damage all aspects of the health service.

“While we welcome the emphasis placed on establishing a closer working relationship between public health and local government, the proposed reforms as a whole will disrupt, fragment and weaken the country’s public health capabilities,” says the letter.

“The government claims that the reforms have the backing of the health professions. They do not. Neither do they have the general support of the public.”

The letter details the harms the experts believe the health reform bill will do.

“It ushers in a significantly heightened degree of commercialisation and marketisation that will lead to the harmful fragmentation of patient care; aggravate risks to individual patient safety; erode medical ethics and trust within the healthcare system; widen health inequalities; waste much money on attempts to regulate and manage competition; and undermine the ability of the health system to respond effectively and efficiently to communicate disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies,” the letter says.

In their judgment, the signatories say, the bill “will erode the NHS’s ethical and co-operative foundations” and “will not deliver efficiency, quality, fairness or choice”.

The signatories include around 40 directors of public health from around the country who have taken the difficult decision to go public with their concerns. There are also two senior members of the Faculty of Public Health, one of whom, Dr John Middleton, is a vice-president. Other well-known names include Professor John Ashton, director of public health in Cumbria, and Professor Michel Coleman from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Dr David McCoy, consultant in public health medicine at the Inner North West London primary care trust, one of the organisers of the letter, said he was surprised at the number of people prepared to sign. “I think if we had continued to collect signatures, I’m quite sure we would have collected another 200 It is having a snowball effect,” he said. “I think the feeling is incredibly strong.”

There was a lot of debate about whether we should call for outright rejection or amendments, but there is a feeling the whole package of reforms is harmful and we need to express our position in the strongest terms. I think there was a feeling the forthcoming reading in the House of Lords is the last chance of minimising the harm and damage.”

The public health community has not spoken out in this way before. “I think there has been an attempt to work with the reforms and work behind the scenes to optimise the proposed reforms,” said Dr McCoy.

Dr Middleton said there was no great opposition to the planned move to place public health services such as smoking cessation within local authorities. “But the letter is a recognition from the public health community that the reforms proposed around the NHS are deeply damaging to the public health in themselves,” he said. There was concern that they would lead to inequalities in healthcare and less access for the poorest and most deprived to the services they need.
…

Cameron defends coalition NHS reforms – UK Politics, UK – The Independent

…
Mr Cameron told ITV1’s Daybreak: “Of course there are doctors and others within the NHS that are wary about parts of our proposals, about greater choice for patients, about greater competition with the NHS.

“There have always been opponents to that, but the point of the exercise we held in the summer, when we paused and restarted the reforms, was to bring more of the health service on board, and many GPs, many doctors and many in the health service recognise that change is necessary if we are going to drive up standards in the health service, in which we invest and care about so much.”

He added: “I think the reforms are right, I think they will improve patient care. Above all, they will be good for patients. They are going to give you more power and control over the care you get, a greater choice too, which I think patients will welcome.”
…

Commentary: these reforms will leave NHS a poorer service – Telegraph

* Dr David McCoy is a Consultant in Public Health Medicine in Inner North West London and Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the Centre for International Health and Development, University College London

[snipped a long but interesting section on the health service in Apartheid South Africa]

Now in the midst of the NHS’s transformation, I am struck by the contrasts to South Africa. Instead of strengthening the functional integrity of the health system, the reforms have created chaos and disorganisation.

Instead of protecting the public and patients from the corrosive effects of commercialisation, competition, private capital and the financial motive is being encouraged. And instead of directing more money towards benefiting patients, a rising proportion of expenditure will be siphoned out of the NHS as surplus value for private profit or on the infrastructure required to“manage competition”.

The NHS may remain publicly funded and mostly free at the point of service. But it will become a poorer service; and it will stop being a single, comprehensive and universal system for all. It will become a more fragmented and uneven collection of service points operating in parallel to systems of private insurance and with multiple tiers of care.

As for public health, when the reforms were first announced, many professionals saw the glint of a silver lining. The government was proposing to elevate the profile of public health by creating a dedicated public health agency and ringfencing public health budgets.

The proposal to move certain functions to local government was welcomed as a means of placing greater emphasis on ‘upstream’ determinants of health such as education, housing, diet, leisure and exercise. Even the ‘Big Society’ chimed with the evidence that social empowerment and solidarity underpin good health.

However, there are a many threats to public health. Organisational disruption has resulted in huge amounts of money, time and energy being diverted from real work, including the sustained development of shared knowledge, understanding and trust across the different elements of the health care system, local government and communities – vital for the building of participatory and integrated responses to rising unemployment, youth alienation, fuel poverty, social inequality and homelessness.

Public health will also be downsized and subjected to competition and commercialisation, including a ‘reductionism’ in which it will be broken up into discrete interventions, some of which will be commoditised and outsourced.

The direct involvement of businesses in the formulation of public health policy, contrary to professional advice and evidence,also signals a backward step in the urgent need to regulate the food, alcohol, sugar and tobacco industries.

The relationship between public health and clinical care may also become more distant. At the moment, local public health and clinical budgets are mostly held together within Primary Care Trusts.

But in the future, public health and clinical budgets will be spread across different organisations, potentially undermining the public health function of bridging clinical medicine with the social context and physical environment of families and patients. Cancer screening, immunisations and communicable disease control will become harder and more costly to deliver.

Critics of the reforms are frequently labelled as being ‘anti-privatisation’. But it is commercialisation, the intrinsic tendency for health care markets to fail and the damage that competition does to patient care, trust and ethical practice that lie at the heart of most objections.
…

Health is a lottery in out-of-control NHS, warns top surgeon – Health News, Health & Families – The Independent

A postcode lottery has returned to the NHS with “a vengeance”, the leader of Britain’s surgeons warned yesterday, as hospitals look to secretly cut costs without consulting doctors or patients.

Professor Norman Williams, the new head of the Royal College of Surgeons, said some hospitals were now rationing operations that would have otherwise saved the NHS money in the long term, because of a short-term desire to cut costs.

“We are back at the moment to a postcode lottery with a vengeance,” he told a fringe meeting at the Conservative party conference. “This is happening without any transparency of public debate and often without clinical involvement.”

Today Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, will address the conference and highlight some of the progress the NHS has made in investing in frontline services by taking away “bureaucracy” from the NHS. He will also announce new mandatory language checks for NHS doctors to ensure only those who can speak “a good level of English” are allowed to practise.

Highlighting some of the problems thrown up by the Government’s reorganisation of the NHS, Professor Williams said some health authorities were now unilaterally restricting operations which had significant clinical benefit.

Some were refusing to give gastric bands to morbidly obese patients while others who needed hip or hernia operations were also being denied them.
…

 

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.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

Continue ReadingNHS news review

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GP magazine returns to the often recurring theme of NHS changes driving away GPs.

The Royal College of Nursing repeat their opposition to the Destroy the NHS / Health and Social Care Bill and say that MPs are not listening.

Health workers consider non-cooperation.

Health unions warn that a toxic combination of increasing demand, shrinking resources and the pay freeze, are putting staff under severe pressure.

Conservative election poster 2010

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

GPC update: NHS reforms are driving GPs away | GPonline.com

GP leaders have hit out at the government over its handling of the implementation of NHS reforms and warned even enthusiastic GPs were now being driven away.

GPC chairman Dr Laurence Buckman condemned the government’s failure to scrap plans to offer successful clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) a ‘quality premium’ bonus payment.

‘We are not going to have one. It is in the Bill still – it should not be, it is an inappropriate use of public money.’

Dr Buckman said the quality premium was ‘ethically dubious’ and not acceptable, suggesting that if the government had spare cash to hand out, it should ‘give it to the poor’.

‘We think it is utterly immoral to take some of the money out of patient care and give it to GPs.’

GPC negotiators questioned the logic behind growing pressure on CCGs not to form around small population sizes, and warned that the government was rapidly pushing the NHS back into structures similar to the ones it had just spent billions of pounds to dismantle.

In addition, many experienced managers ‘who know how to run an NHS’ had been expensively laid off and lost to the health service.

He pointed out that the government had initially had a ‘laissez-faire’ approach to the establishment of CCGs but had now performed a volte-face and was dictating how they should look.
…

RCN monitoring Health and Social Care Bill – Health News – News – ChronicleLive

AT the Royal College of Nursing, we have been keeping a close eye on the Health and Social Care Bill, as it works its way through Parliament.

And despite reforms to the Bill, in response to a public outcry, it seems politicians still haven’t listened.

While MPs say the new Health Bill will reform the NHS and provide considerable efficiency savings, we fear these promises could prove hollow, and it will be the quality of care in the North East that suffers as a result.

Hospital Trusts throughout the North East are already struggling to make unprecedented budget cuts, after NHS CEO Sir David Nicholson demanded the NHS in the North East save £800m over four years, as part of a £20b national cost efficiency drive.

At the same time, we are facing the dissolution of our Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authority, which are being replaced by a large number of untested Clinical Commissioning Groups.

Ironically, the administration costs of running this new system of CCGs is forecast to be more expensive, and more complicated, than the one it is replacing. And if we get the commissioning of NHS services wrong, the delivery of care will not happen efficiently.

What this will mean for patients is a worryingly uncertain future for healthcare provision.

At the RCN, we’ve already identified the Government’s efficiency savings will result in 40,000 frontline NHS jobs being cut. This will result in understaffed and overstretched wards and practice centres across the country.

On top of this, the new Health Bill would remove the income cap for private patients, meaning there will no longer be a limit on the amount of money hospitals can make from private patients.

As a consequence, the access NHS patients have to services could become more limited.

The Government also hope by allowing ‘any qualified provider’ to supply healthcare services, they will drive up quality through competition.

However, this new policy could end up being a race to the bottom, with private sector companies undercutting the approved service tariffs of NHS providers.

At the RCN, we believe it is vitally important the new Health Bill puts safety guards in place to ensure the quality of patient care is not harmed by forced price competition.

Unions may call on members to resist reforms through ‘non-cooperation’ | News | Nursing Times

Unions may consider non-cooperation action against the government’s NHS reforms, a midwife leader has said.

Royal College of Midwives general secretary Cathy Warwick was asked about the prospect of action at a fringe event hosted by the Trades Union Congress at the Liberal Democrat autumn conference in Birmingham yesterday.

She said the organisation was still consulting with members about non-cooperation, although it was more likely to be in response to planned changes to pensions.

But she said: “It [non-cooperation] is something I think we maybe should be thinking about.”

Professor Warwick said the RCM was “close to thinking the only way forward is to ask for this [Health] Bill to be withdrawn”.

Her concerns include fragmentation of services and privatisation.

Ron Singer, a GP and Unite representative on the British Medical Association GP’s committee, said GPs were very unlikely to take action but it was becoming more likely in other health professions.
…

UNISON Press | Press Releases Front Page

Health unions* are warning today (20 September) that a toxic combination of increasing demand, shrinking resources and the pay freeze, are putting staff under severe pressure. The impact of the proposed pension changes and the massive programme of NHS reforms in the Health and Social Care Bill, are adding even more to the stress felt by staff.

In their joint evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body, the unions, which represent staff including nurses, midwives, paramedics, therapists, porters, cooks and cleaners, highlight increasing concerns about how they can maintain the quality of patient care.

High inflation and the Government’s pay freeze have resulted in a big drop in the value of NHS pay over the last few years. Many NHS staff are suffering financial hardship and the £250 given to the lowest paid has been soaked up by the impact of changes to tax credits, childcare fees and the rising cost of basic essentials such as food and fuel.

Christina McAnea, UNISON, NHS Staff-Side Chair said:

“Stability is vital in any workforce – more so during a period of change. The current turmoil in the NHS is undermining staff morale and threatening the delivery of high quality patient care. On top of job cuts and ward closures, growing waiting lists and an attack on their pension, staff face a reorganisation on an unprecedented scale.

“By imposing a pay freeze for the second year running, the Government is adding insult to injury. Pay has never been generous in the NHS and, with inflation rising, many families are struggling to cover the costs of even basic essentials.

Josie Irwin, RCN, Staff-Side Secretary said:

“Coalition policy means that nurses face suffering a second year of pay cuts. This comes on top of unprecedented change and upheaval in the NHS – leading to low morale, uncertainty and insecurity. The RCN calls on the pay review body to recognise that further attacks on pay will only do more damage to recruitment and retention in the NHS.”

Stephen Austin, Head of Employment Relations for the BDA Trade Union said:

“For years the public have supported the workers in the NHS to get a fair rate of pay for the caring and committed work that they do and this was achieved by the last government, but the current government under the disguise of necessary cuts are returning health workers back into the position of being poorly paid”.

Rehana Azam GMB National Officer, Head of NHS said

“At a time when working people are dealing with their own deficits as the cost of living increases including the essentials like childcare, fuel and food. Wage stagnation and the position directed from Government to Pay Review Bodies is unhelpful and unfair.

“Public Sector workers are being attacked on a daily basis by this Government and the propaganda distributed about public sector workers with the attempts to put private sector workers against public sector workers will reveal that this Government’s only agenda is to undermine the hard working people of this country by making them pay for a deficit which was not their making. All employers in this country are expected to negotiate, consult and agree changes to employment terms and conditions and the bullying tactics applied by this Government in imposing changes to public sector workers terms and conditions will be challenged and stopped”.

Rachael Maskell, Head of Health, Unite, said:

” The Pay Review Body continues to play an important role in providing independent and robust evidence on the remuneration of NHS employees. The NHS workforce are facing unprecedented challenges to their pay, in the midst of mass re-organisation and cuts, in some cases losing 25% in pay as a result. These cuts to services and employment terms are causing morale in the NHS to fall significantly. We are hopeful that this year’s Pay Review Body will ensure that NHS staff are remunerated fairly to ensure that they stop falling behind other sections of the workforce and economy. Unite further hopes that the Pay Review Body will address the recruitment and retention challenges for pharmacists, and estates and maintenance workers in this year’s review.”

*British Association of Occupational Therapists, British Dietetic Association, British Orthoptic Society, Chartered Society of Physiotherpists, Federation of Clinical Scientists, GMB, Royal College of Midwives, Royal College of Nursing, Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, Society of Radiographers, UCATT, UNISON, Unite.

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Voting Lib-Dem and police issues

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Cleggeron

The Liberal-Democrats are engaging in allsorts of illiberal and anti-democratic gymnastics to avoid a vote on abolishing the NHS.

I’m sorry to admit that I actually voted(1) Liberal-Democrat at the last general election. I could never vote Tory and I couldn’t bring myself to vote Labour even though it was no longer hijacked by Blair & Co. I’m going to have real problems ever voting Labour. They willingly allowed themselves to be hijacked by a Fascist, psychopathic nutter totally divorced from reality and any concept of truth who quite clearly pursued an alien agenda for so many years. Unison and Unite were so supportive of Him. Is it so important to remain in power that you prostitute all your values? Today, the Liberal Democrats may be following the same path.

Back to voting Liberal-Democat at the last general election. It was a tactical vote but I’m pleased to say that it had no effect since my constituency is certain to return a Labour MP.

As I’m sure that you’re aware – while there was no overall winning party at the General Election the Conservatives and the Liberal-Democrats formed a coalition government, the ConDems. I was pleased that New Labour was eventually defeated and out of power and initially hoped that the Liberal-Democrats would restrain the Tories. No such luck. It turns out that Clegg is a Tory in everything except political party. A European Tory, immensely rich and privilleged and – although exactly the type that are repeatedly appointed – entirely the wrong person to hold any political office. Why oh why did they listen to the press and dump Campbell?

The ConDem coalition – essentially a Tory government – shit on the electorate. Tuition fees, the Education Maintenance Allowance that was so important to poor families and now the NHS. “No top down reorganisation”. What a Blair-faced lie that one was. “We’re not privatisng the NHS”. Well, you’re not selling shares but in every other sense the NHS is getting privatised. Foreign and UK companies running hospitals, the profitable bits getting cherry-picked and a cash-starved shell of an NHS having to pick up the pieces. Health insurance, pay or go without – isn’t that privatisation?. Opposed by all major healthcare associations and yet they continue in destroying the NHS.

“No top-down reorganisation”. There is quite obviously no mandate for change.

The Lib-Dems will and are getting blamed for this. Without them it would not be happening. The toxic comments they get on newspaper articles are instructive. Will it be fatal for them? I expect to be campaigning against the Lib-Dems with anti-Blair vigour unless they change their ways pretty quickly.

(1) To be continued.

19/9/11

DRAFT: to be expanded – particularly murders by police, the role of ACPO.

There are many issues.

I am regarded by oppressive state authorities as an anarchist and potential violent terrorist. This is really quite strange since I consider it important to vote and participate in the democratic process. There is something quite clearly wrong here.

It is clear that I regularly vote as some simple searches will demonstrate. Why then am I regarded as an anarchist? How can the official assessment be so absurdly wrong? Similarly, it is clear that I participate in the democratic process and that I have always participated within the discourse of politics. Why then am I regarded as a potential terrorist – a potential violent extremist? Again, how can the official assessment be so absurdly wrong?

I consider that a huge proportion of it is to do with my perspective and activity. As somebody who rejects fake, manufactured terrorism I have been cast as the enemy. As somebody who recognises and is able to identify the real terrorists, I am the enemy of those terrorists.

Accusations of terrorism used to involve issues such as making bombs and using bombs and the threats of such things. We have seen – particularly over the last decade – that terrorism is used by strong vested interests to promote and pursue a particular agenda. Accusations of terrorism are now cheapened and directed at those that oppose such strong vested interests.

Oppressive state authorities promote the official ideology of fake, manufactured terrorism while the true anti-terrorist is cast as the terrorist. Accusations of terrorism have come to be directed at percieved opponents of some powerful interest group.

The official assessment is so absurdly wrong because the world has been turned on its head. Those that should be concerned with fighting terrorism are the terrorists and those that are accused of being terrorists are the anti-terrorists.

20/9/11 Still in Draft: may be altered and to be expanded

The question remains: Why is the official police assessment of me so absurdly wrong despite clear and obvious evidence to the contrary?

While it is accepted that the police are capable of staggering incompetence, there is more than that. I think that the answer is harassment – it is obvious that suspected terrorists can be violently killed by police with complete impunity at any time. This is a continuation of the harassment I endured from Ian Blair and John Reid. The same bullshit is involved – homegrown terrorists, liquid explosives, etc.

I think that many murders by police that are similar to me are intended to reinforce this point i.e. we can kill people similar to you so we can kill you. The police involved and their superiors are responsible for these murders by police and they are likely to continue until they are held to account.

 

Continue ReadingVoting Lib-Dem and police issues