… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Tag: David Cameron

NHS news review
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Cameron and Lansley have been claiming that NHS cancer figures are bad while actually they are extrememly good.
38 Degrees explain their legal advice about the Health Secretary’s responsibilities: It’s about distancing the Health Secretary from responsibilty for the NHS.
http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/targets
The banks have run the global economy into the ground. Bankers, encouraged by the government, gambled recklessly with our money, and they lost. Spectacularly. Remember 2008? In the UK, the government decided it had to step in with a bail-out because these banks were ‘too big to fail’. According to the Bank of England, the cost of this bail-out now exceeds £1trillion. The result is that all high street banks- from Barclays to RBS- owe their existence to public financing.
What did we get for our billions? A banking system that serves ordinary people rather than the super-rich? No. Regretful bankers who refuse to reward themselves with massive bonuses? No. How about increased financial regulation to ensure this crisis couldn’t happen again? No. The government has done nothing to stop it being business as usual for banks.
What’s worse, the money that was given to the bankers is the money now being taken from the poorest in society, guaranteeing a rise in poverty, debt and inequality. Nearly £7 billion will be paid out in bank bonuses this year. This sum is more than the first wave of public spending cuts. We are not all in this together because it’s us who will pay if education, health, housing, libraries, woodland and much, much more, disappears from our lives.
Who’s telling us we must make these cuts? A government led by a cabinet of millionaires, in bed with the bankers, which is now pulling off an audacious con-trick in front of our eyes.
This is how their story goes. The crisis was caused by a bloated public sector. We binged away all our money on luxuries like healthcare and free education and council services, care for the elderly, for people with disabilities, school sports and free school meals for children living in poverty. Now the country is bankrupt and we must repent, detox, cut back. We have to relinquish our welfare state to appease the circling money men. Welcome to the Age of Austerity but don’t worry because we are all in this together.
We say – don’t believe their lies. This is their crisis, but there is no austerity for the bankers.

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.
NHS cancer figures contradict David Cameron and Andrew Lansley’s claims | Society | The Guardian
The prime minister and health secretary have criticised the NHS on cancer, but new figures suggest the service is a world leader
David Cameron and Andrew Lansley’s repeated criticisms of the NHS’s record on cancer have been contradicted by new research that shows the health service to be an international leader in tackling the disease.
The findings challenge the government’s claims that NHS failings on cancer contribute to 5,000-10,000 unnecessary cancer deaths a year, which ministers have used as a key reason for pushing through their radical shakeup of the service.
In fact, the NHS in England and Wales has helped achieve the biggest drop in cancer deaths and displayed the most efficient use of resources among 10 leading countries worldwide, according to the study published in the British Journal of Cancer.
“These results challenge the feeble justification of the government’s changes, which appear to be based upon overhyped media representation, rather than hard comparable evidence. This paper should be a real boost to cancer patients and their families because the NHS’s performance on cancer is much better than the media presents. It challenges the government’s assertion that the NHS is inefficient and ineffective at treating cancer – an argument for reforming the NHS,” said Prof Colin Pritchard, a health academic at Bournemouth University.
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38 Degrees | Blog | NHS bill: “hands-off clause” advice
A few months ago, we asked one of the legal experts we funded for his view on the “autonomy clause”, or Clause 4 in the bill.
The full advice is here, but below are the main points on the “hands-off clause”.
Our legal advice:
30. However, what is proposed to be a new section 1C of the NHS Act 2006, does seem to me to be of importance. This would read
―1C Duty as to promoting autonomy
In exercising functions in relation to the health service, the Secretary of State must, so far as is consistent with the interests of the health service, act with a view to securing—
(a) that any other person exercising functions in relation to the health service or providing services for its purposes is free to exercise those functions or provide those services in the manner that it considers most appropriate, and
(b) that unnecessary burdens are not imposed on any such person.”
31. Therefore, so long as the Secretary of State does not think that it is inconsistent with the interests of the NHS, s/he must positively act to allow any other person exercising health service functions to do so in the way that that person thinks appropriate. This is what I described in conference as a “hands off” clause. Although the Secretary of State keeps some form of oversight, it is the other persons and bodies delivering the health service whose views are important as to how those services are to be delivered. This is further explained in the Explanatory Notes as follows
74. This clause seeks to establish an overarching principle that the Secretary of State should act with a view to promoting autonomy in the health service. It identifies two constituent elements of autonomy: freedom forbodies/persons in the health service (such as commissioning consortia or Monitor) to exercise their functions in a manner they consider most appropriate (1C(a)), and not imposing unnecessary burdens from those bodies/persons (1C(b)). The clause requires the Secretary of State to act with a view to securing these aspects of autonomy in exercising his functions in relation to the health service, so far as is consistent with the interests of the health service.
75. This duty would therefore require the Secretary of State, when considering whether to place requirements on the NHS, to make a judgement as to whether these were in the interests of the health service. If challenged, the Secretary of State would have to be able to justify why these requirements were necessary.
32. This kind of wording is often used in statutes to mean that a public body only has the power to act when steps to be taken are “really needed” or “essential”, rather than because the public body thinks something is desirable or appropriate. A court looking at this kind of wording would expect the public body (the Secretary of State in this case) to demonstrate why no other course of action could be followed, which is a high test to meet.
33. I think the reference to potential challenges at the end of this note is significant and reflects the limit of the Secretary of State’s powers. If the Secretary of State attempts to use his or her powers to impose requirements on commissioning consortia, for example, then there could well be a judicial review challenge from a consortium which opposed the requirements on the basis that they infringed the principle of autonomy in the new section 1C and could not be justified as necessary or essential. This approach replaces the, more or less, unfettered power that the Secretary of State has to make directions currently to be found in s8 NHS Act 2006 (as explained above), with a duty not to interfere unless essential to do so. It is also noteworthy that the same “autonomy” or “hands off” duty is also placed on the NHS Commissioning Board, by what would be a new s13E of the NHS Act 2006 (and it is, of course, the Board who will have closer contact with commissioning consortia than will the Secretary of State).
8 November 2011
NHS news review
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David Cameron
Heir to Bleir David Cameron is confirmed as being divorced from reality and full of shit.
It’s official: Cameron and the ConDem coalition government is cutting spending on the NHS. The Independent on Sunday reports that UK Prime Minister David Cameron breaks promise to increase spending on the NHS in real terms.
‘The official analysis from the House of Commons Library – which is independent of political parties – shows that in real terms, when inflation is taken into account, NHS spending fell by £800m in 2010-11.
The Prime Minister, whose party manifesto at the last election pledged to “increase health spending every year”, has gone out of his way to say the coalition government would protect frontline health cash.
In June Mr Cameron launched five NHS “guarantees you can hold me to and that I will be personally accountable for” – including “not to cut spending on the NHS, but to increase it”.
Yet Labour has claimed that the Treasury’s own figures reveal a cut in real terms in NHS spending from £102.8bn in 2009-10 to £102bn. Mr Cameron and the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, reject the claims, based on the Treasury’s July 2011 Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA).
The shadow Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, asked the Commons library to analyse the data and received the following information: “NHS total expenditure [fell] from £102.8bn in 2009-10 to £102.0bn in 2010-11 (in 2010-11 prices, rounded to nearest £0.1bn) – a real terms fall of 0.7 per cent.”
Mr Burnham said that another ministerial claim – that the PESA figures had not been adjusted according to the GDP deflator – rang hollow since the Treasury document made clear they were adjusted.
Mr Burnham has called on Simon Burns, the health services minister, to correct a statement to the Commons last week in which he said: “We gave a commitment in our election manifesto to provide a real-terms increase in funding in every year of the Parliament while we are in government – the lifetime of this Parliament. We have honoured that, and we will continue to do so in subsequent years.”
Mr Burnham told The Independent on Sunday: “It is official: David Cameron cut the NHS budget in his first year as Prime Minister despite promising he wouldn’t.
“He has inflicted the first real-terms cut in NHS spending for 14 years – the last being in the final year of the Major government.
“David Cameron stands at the dispatch box week after week claiming to have increased NHS spending. His hollow rhetoric will grate with NHS staff facing the reality of redundancies and patients who are being told they must wait longer for treatment. He is hopelessly out of touch.
“Cameron ruthlessly used the NHS to detoxify the Tory brand. But, one by one, he is breaking all the promises he made. He promised no top-down reorganisation, but launched the biggest since 1948.
“He promised a moratorium on hospital changes but is closing A&E and maternity departments up and down the land. He promised not to cut the NHS, but has done just that in his first year in office.”‘

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.
Actually, this post in the public interest as a record.
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
31 October 2011
NHS news review
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The big NHS news today is further example of Liberal-Democrat spin that they opposed the Destroy the NHS Bill. Let’s get this clear: The NHS is getting destroyed by Conservatives and Conservative Liberal-Democrats acting in unison.
Lib-Dem peers have published a letter in the Guardian proclaiming that “The time for declaratory statements is past.” I had to find a definition for declaratory statements. It is unnecessarily complex and is inteded to exclude most people from understanding it but I think that it’s about explaining the law and stating the rights of parties. Liberal-Democrat hypocrisy is exposed by the letter also stating “Any politician who plays party political games with the NHS would be open to justified public criticism.” There you go then: justified public criticism.
The letter comes after Health Secretary Andrew Lansley signalled that he would accept an ammendment regarding ultimite responsibility for providing a health service. The ammendment appears to be a dimunition from responsibilty for providing a comprehensive health service to “retains ultimate responsibility” for NHS services. While I find this also a little complex it does seem to continue Con-Dem government’s attempts to evade responsibility for proving a health service but I’m waiting for commentary from others.
The Labour Party claims that Prime Minister David Cameron has broken three promises on the NHS: to end top-down reorganisations, to increase NHS funding in real terms and to stop hospital reconfigurations.
The British Medical Association repeats it’s call for the bill to be abandoned and states 11 changes it wants made.
The TUC highlights the government’s “credibity deficit”.
Campaign group Stroud Against the Cuts is continuing legal action against NHS Gloucestershire’s plans to transfer local health services to a community interest company.
trying to see what Gerada has to say about bloggers …
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.
Letters: Lib Dems draw a line on the NHS | Society | The Guardian
The time for declaratory statements is past. Patients who care passionately about the NHS, and staff who want to give the best possible service, need certainty about the future of the health service (The battle is far from over, 25 October). Any politician who plays party political games with the NHS would be open to justified public criticism. So it is now imperative that members of the House of Lords get on with their job of subjecting this bill to detailed, rigorous scrutiny.
In order to safeguard the NHS, free at the point of need and accessible to all, Liberal Democrat peers are putting forward amendments which require the secretary of state to remain responsible for health services being provided across England. In coming weeks we will seek to ensure that the NHS continues to develop cutting-edge research and that any income from private patients is used solely for the benefit of NHS patients. We will carry on scrutinising this bill so that the NHS can continue to deliver world-class care for patients.
Shirley Williams
Jonathan Marks QC
Paddy Ashdown
Liz Barker
Phil Willis
Floella Benjamin
Judith Jolly
John Shipley
John Alderdice
Navnit Dholakia
Monroe Palmer
Paul Strasburger
Diana Maddock
Chris Rennard
John Sharkey
Jenny Randerson
Ros Scott
Tim Clement-Jones
Dick Newby
Mike German
David Steel
Kishwer Falkner
Bill Bradshaw
Roger Roberts
Brian Cotter
Bill Rodgers
Anthony Lester
Sal Brinton
Paul Tyler
Mike Storey
Joan Walmsley
Trevor Smith
Related guff: Liberal Democrat peers end war with Tories over reform of NHS | Society | The Guardian BBC News – NHS bill: Lib Dem peers signal end to rebellion
David Cameron has ‘betrayed the NHS’, claims Labour | GPonline.com
Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham has accused prime minister David Cameron of betraying the NHS ahead of a House of Commons debate on the Health Bill on Wednesday.
Labour said it was taking its fight against the Bill directly to the prime minister for ‘writing cheques in opposition that he couldn’t cash in government’.
In a debate in the House of Commons on Wednesday, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham will accuse the prime minister of breaking three personal pledges on the NHS.
He is expected to criticise David Cameron for performing a U-turn on his pre-election promise to end top-down reorganisation in the NHS. He will also say the government’s pledge to increase NHS funding in real terms has not been met, and that the government has broken a pledge to enforce a moratorium on hospital reconfiguration.
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BMA highlights recommended changes to health bill – News – Practice Business
The British Medical Association publishes the changes it would like to see made to the Health and Social Care Bill, as the legislation reaches the Lord’s committee stage
The British Medical Association (BMA) has called for further changes it would like to see made to the Health and Social Care Bill as the bill enters the committee stage in the House of Lords this week.
The BMA outlines 11 areas of significant concern it has with the current draft of the legislation, as well as a call for the “mitigation of damage” to the NHS which it believes the bill will cause.
Included in these recommendations is an amendment making it explicit that increasing patient choice will not be given greater priority than ensuring fair access for all, a call for the secretary of state to retain ultimately responsible for the provision of comprehensive health services and a reduction of the overly restrictive powers granted to CCGs.
The BMA also expressed a wish for the government to be clearer concerning the role and the future role of the CCGs, and that the secretary of state should have a duty to ensure there is an effective system for delivering medical education and training.
Dr Hamish Meldrum, chair of the BMA Council, commented on the publication, stating: “The BMA’s preferred option is for the Health and Social Care Bill to be withdrawn – However, during this stage of the parliamentary process, there is scope for further significant change to be made.”
He added: “We have today set out the areas where we believe there still need to be amendments. We hope the Lords will agree with us and change the proposed legislation, limiting the damage this Bill could do to the NHS.”
Reforms have a ”credibility deficit” – Public Service
The gap between rhetoric and reality of the government’s public service reforms is growing, as privatisation and workforce opposition to the changes increase, according to a paper published by the Trades Union Congress (TUC).
In response to the government’s Open Public Services white paper, the TUC said a market-led approach to reform was increasing the private sector takeover of public services and public sector workers were turning against the measures:
The TUC pointed out that while health ministers were promoting social enterprise in the UK, NHS Surrey awarded the contract for its community health care services to private provider Assura Medical (75 per cent owned by the Virgin Group) rather than the government’s social enterprise champions Central Surrey Health.
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Legal action delays NHS Gloucestershire social enterprise plans | Healthcare Network | Guardian Professional
Gloucestershire’s primary care trust has paused plans to transfer local health services to a community interest company pending a hearing
NHS Gloucestershire has put on hold its plans to transfer community health services and a £100m budget from the local health service to Gloucestershire Care Services, a company spun out of the local primary care trust.
Jan Stubbings, the trust’s chief executive, said she had agreed not to sign the contracts needed to effect the transfer before the outcome of a legal hearing.
“Concluding the arrangements for the transfer is in the interests of patients and staff and will ensure service continuity and stability,” said Stubbings. “Timely resolution of outstanding legal matters is also in the interests of the taxpayer and public funds.”
Campaign group Stroud Against the Cuts said the pause followed a judicial determination that trust should not finalise its proposed transfer of more than 3,000 NHS health staff and a variety of health services out of the NHS, after a legal case presented by its solicitors.
The group has claimed that the proposed transfer would be highly damaging to NHS services in Gloucestershire. James Beecher, a co-ordinator of Stroud Against the Cuts, said that if the challenge is successful it will force managers to consider options which have been successfully implemented elsewhere in the country and would keep services and staff within the NHS.
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26 October 2011
NHS news review
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Prime Minister David Cameron may become known as the man who destroyed the NHS.
NHS spending cuts put babies at risk
Private sector supports Clinical Commissioning Groups.
GPs concerned that they may lose maternity pay
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.
New Statesman – NHS reform is a never-ending nightmare for Cameron
The Prime Minister could end up with a reputation as the man who broke the NHS.
The NHS bill cleared a legislative hurdle in the Lords this week . But that doesn’t really solve any of the political problems facing the government’s reforms. Of those problems, one of the biggest is that the coalition doesn’t seem to have a clear grasp of why Andrew Lansley’s plans are causing so much difficulty.
The one thing everyone can agree on is that the plans have been appallingly presented. Lansley cooked them up in the Department of Health without much input or scrutiny from Downing Street. (So blindsided was the prime minister that the episode triggered a whole re-organisation of the Number 10 policy operation earlier this year.) According to one senior civil servant at the heart of the operation, when Cameron was first presented with Lansley’s plan he skimmed the introduction and then turned to his aides in shock and disbelief and said “have you read this stuff?!” He had, until then, had no idea of the scale of what was being planned.
There was a moment, towards the end of January, when a u-turn was still an option. But Cameron feared looking weak by abandoning such a huge public sector policy drive – and, reasonably enough, worried that dropping the reforms would implicitly confirm voters’ suspicions that the Tories had some hidden agenda on health. A u-turn would make it look as if they had been rumbled. The way senior figures in government tell the story, Cameron’s foot hovered between the brake and the accelerator, finally choosing the latter. That now looks like a huge mistake.
The essential miscalculation was the PM’s assumption that if he personally threw some weight behind the cause – deploying the powers of persuasion in which he has considerable confidence – the public mood might shift. Of course, the Conservatives did not count on a Lib Dem backlash, sanctioned from the top of the party as a device to “differentiate” the junior coalition partner (fearful of losing its identity) over an issue of famous toxicity to the Tories. Some of the Lib Dem turbulence around the NHS earlier this year was principled objection to the reforms but some is retaliation for the Tories’ personal attacks on Nick Clegg during the referendum campaign on the alternative vote. The compromise package that ended up before the Lords this week was therefore a mangled monster consisting of the original Lansley plan with heaps of ad hoc Lib Dem caveats, brakes, disruptions and supposed safeguards.
And there lies the government’s problem. The reform it is now trying to sell is the expression of Westminster political choreography and not a coherent response to the needs of the health service. Everyone in the NHS knows it and voters can sense it.
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NHS cuts putting vulnerable babies at risk, says charity | Society | The Guardian
Special care baby charity Bliss warns about qualifications of some nurses and midwives in hospital neonatal units
More than half of England’s specialist baby care units do not meet the government’s minimum standards and are putting the most vulnerable babies at risk, a charity warned on Monday.
Bliss, a special care baby charity, said staff cuts in a third of England’s 172 neonatal units were “significantly affecting the care of premature and sick babies”.
Minimum standards set by the Department of Health require 70% of nurses and midwives in neonatal units to be qualified in specialist care, Bliss said, but more than half had failed to meet this target. Last year, the charity said 1,150 extra nurses would be needed to reach minimum standards, but a recent freedom of information request by the charity found 140 posts had been cut.
In addition, it said that while 450 nurses needed to receive extra training to meet the department’s standards, one in 10 units said they were struggling to release staff for training because of budget cuts.
Andy Cole, chief executive at Bliss, said: “The government’s assurances that frontline services would not be affected by changes in the NHS is not true for these most vulnerable patients. The government and the NHS must take responsibility now and ensure our tiniest and sickest babies receive the highest standard of care at this critical time in their lives.”
Bliss reported that about 20% of neonatal units were likely to make further cuts to their workforce in the next 12 months, through redundancies, vacancy freezes and down-banding posts.
Janet Davies, executive director of nursing at the Royal College of Nursing, said the findings were deeply shocking and called for a stronger strategy.
“At a time when extra nurses are needed to meet even the most basic standards of neonatal care, some [NHS] trusts are making reckless cuts to posts, which will undoubtedly have an impact on the care of premature and sick babies,” she said.
“Sadly, this is a reflection on what is happening throughout the NHS, where we know that 40,000 posts are earmarked to be lost. It is critical that hospitals have the right numbers of specialist nurses, who can provide one-to-one care to premature babies and support for families at an extremely stressful time in their lives. Equally, a properly funded strategy is now urgently needed to recruit and retain more of these specialist nurses.”
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31 commissioning groups sign landmark deal with private firms to provide ‘organisational support’ – newsarticle-content – Pulse
Clinical commissioning groups representing several thousand GPs across London have signed a multi-million pound deal with private consultants handpicked by NHS bosses to help support the rollout of GP commissioning.
The £7m landmark deal has seen 31 CCGs sign contracts for a programme of ‘intensive organisational support’ for commissioning from the likes of KPMG, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Capita and McKinsey, which has formed a joint partnership with the RCGP’s Centre for Commissioning and consultancy Ashridge Alliancce to advise CCGs ahead of authorisation.
NHS London said all 38 of the capital’s pathfinders were expected to sign up to the ‘development framework’ within weeks, and that £3.7m had been allocated for ‘leadership training’ for managers and clinicians.
The list of approved commissioning partners, which also includes Ernst and Young, Capsticks Solictors, Binder Dijker Otte, and Entrusted Health Partnership, was drawn up by NHS London after a competitive tender designed to provide CCGs with assistance in organisational development, leadership training, strategy, finance and market analysis.
The consultants will offer CCGs coaching, leadership plans, resources and how-to guides, 360 degree feedback, self-assessment tools and organisational development plans to assess their readiness for authorisation.
The move significantly boosts the private sector’s stake in advising GP commissioners, after Pulse first revealed earlier this year that dozens of CCGs had enlisted the support of McKinsey and Pricewaterhouse Coopers with QIPP, budget holding and governance.
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GPs fear maternity pay could ‘disappear’ under NHS reforms | GPonline.com
MWF president Dr Clarissa Fabre said funding for practices to cover the cost of locums for partners on maternity leave was under threat.
It was unclear whether clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) or the NHS Commissioning Board would be responsible for the payments once PCTs were abolished, she said.
‘At present, at least you know the PCT will pay a bit of the locum payments,’ Dr Fabre said. But she warned that in future CCG budgets could be so tight that they could no longer afford to pay them.
‘Locum payments are going to disappear,’ she said.
NHS Confederation acting deputy chief executive David Stout said he could not be sure who would be responsible for the payments once PCTs no longer existed.
But he suggested that because the NHS Commissioning Board (NCB) will hold GP contracts, it could take control of maternity payments as a part of this role.
Maternity locum payments are not mandatory under current rules, with some PCTs choosing not to pay.
Mr Stout said if the payments became the responsibility of the NCB, it would have a single national policy on maternity locum payments. ‘It’s unlikely that they’d do it inconsistently,’ he said.
GPC member Dr Helena McKeown said it was still unclear who would be responsible for the payments. She said a single policy would be welcome to eliminate the current postcode lottery.
17 October 2011
NHS news review
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Monitor to employ 600 at an average salary of over £50,000.
Private health firms are experiencing a boost in business from NHS cuts.
The ConDem coalition government eases information requirments for private healthcare providers.
The ConDem coalition government hides the cost of reforming the NHS until after the third reading of the Destroy the NHS / Health and Social Care Bill. It is disappointing that the government resorts to such subterfuge.
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 ‘watchdog’ set to become ‘bureaucratic monster’, says Unite
Monitor – the government’s revamped organisation to regulate competition in the NHS – is set to become ‘a bloated bureaucratic monster’, Unite, the largest union in the country, has warned.
Unite said that Monitor’s running costs were set to soar from £72 million-a-year to £82 million – with a 600-strong staff being paid twice the national average wage of £26,000.
Unite said that ministers were creating a bloated, old fashioned bureaucracy which would be responsible for handing over lucrative NHS contracts to the ‘government’s friends’ in the private healthcare sector.
Monitor was expecting to spend a further £14 million-a-year on consultants and £4 million in legal fees, according to the Department of Health’s own Impact Assessment report.
Monitor is a lynchpin of the government’s Health and Social Care Bill, currently before Parliament, with the remit of promoting choice, competition and collaboration – which Unite says are contradictory and confusing aims.
Unite national officer for health, Rachael Maskell said: ‘It is equally disgraceful that the Impact Assessment team have been unable “to develop a robust monetary estimate of the benefits of changes to the regulatory regime”.
‘All this indicates that a revamped Monitor is not being geared for the benefit of patients, but as a conduit to channel lucrative NHS contracts to private healthcare companies, many of whom have bankrolled the Tory party since David Cameron became leader.’
‘Monitor anticipates employing about 600 staff at an average cost of £84,000 each, which would include salaries, National Insurance contributions, any pension provision and other costs.’
‘This works out at average annual salary levels of more than £50,000 – double that of the average national salary of £26,000. A bloated bureaucratic monster is being created – so much for all the ministerial chatter about efficiency savings. This is being paid for by cuts to frontline services, as well as staff pay and terms and conditions.’
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Grasp the nettle now – before it’s too late / Features / Home – Morning Star
As Andrew Lansley’s hugely controversial and largely unaltered Health and Social Care Bill faced its crucial vote in the Commons, unelected Tory Health Minister Lord Howe was smugly assuring a conference of grasping private-sector companies that the Bill offers them “genuine opportunities” to take over large chunks of the NHS.
There would be profitable opportunities galore – both in the provision of certain profitable services and in supplying management expertise to help GPs decide how to spend local budgets.
Howe recognised that “the NHS will not give up their patients easily.”
But of course that’s why the Bill, which sailed through a docile Commons with a majority of 65, will stack the odds against public-sector providers and open up most of the £100 billion NHS budget in England to cherry-picking private companies.
It will scrap any pretence at strategic planning or equitable provision by abolishing primary care trusts and strategic health authorities and strip away the thin veneer of local accountability, putting a new national body, the NHS Commissioning Board, and the regulator Monitor – led by pro-market fundamentalist and former McKinsey consultant David Bennett, who was also at the conference with Howe bigging up the private sector – firmly in charge.
Monitor will draw up the list of “any qualified providers” which GPs will have to offer as “choices” when patients need further treatment.
The Bill, coupled with the massive £20bn cuts programme to be achieved by 2014, will also pull the financial rug from under dozens of major NHS hospitals, forcing them to close services, merge with neighbouring trusts and axe staff to stay afloat.
At the same time it will encourage many foundation trusts to maximise the numbers of wealthy private patients they treat, by removing all limits on the amount of money they can make.
While David Cameron and his arrogant, lying ministers falsely claimed support from “the Royal College of GPs, the Royal College of Physicians, the nurses, people working in the Health Service,” we all know that quite the opposite is the case.
The Bill is even opposed by a large majority of GPs, who are the only people apparently set to benefit from its proposals, making Lansley possibly the first politician in history to seek to force £80bn in commissioning budgets into the hands of people who insist they don’t want it.
The Bill is also rejected by the BMA, which has promised to step up its lobbying against the Bill in the Lords, by Royal Colleges, and by almost every academic and think tank not in the pay of the neoliberal right wing.
Every health union is also against the Bill, but the mass campaign that was needed to stop it has still not taken off – a year after the TUC voted unanimously against the outlines of the Bill, as set out in Lansley’s white paper.
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NHS rationing boosts private healthcare firms – report | Business | The Guardian
NHS costs squeeze means longer waiting lists – and growing numbers of patients opting to pay for operations, say private firms
by Denis Campbell
Private healthcare firms are experiencing an increase in business caused by the financial squeeze across the NHS in England, a new report on the sector shows.
Independent providers are benefitting from the growing number of patients who are choosing to pay for their own care after having treatment delayed or denied altogether by an NHS primary care trust (PCT).
In a survey of 101 influential industry figures – including chief executives, investors and advisers – 34% said budgetary pressure in the NHS had led to increased demand for private healthcare.
While the reasons were not given, experts said the NHS’s need to cut costs was prompting patients to fund their own hip or knee replacement, hernia repair or cataract removal. “We are certainly picking up that some patients are being asked to wait longer than they would have expected and are therefore deciding to pay for themselves rather than wait,” said David Worskett, chief executive of the NHS Partners Network, which represents more than 30 firms – both for-profit and not-for-profit – that work with the NHS.
Worskett said “misguided” decisions of many PCTs to force patients to wait many months for treatment, often until the next financial year, lay behind the growing trend. Many PCTs are rationing access to care as the NHS struggles to adjust to a 0.1% annual increase in its budget, after years of big rises, and the need to make £20bn of efficiency savings by 2015.
The trend is a boost for a UK private health market which that was hit hard by the downturn in 2008 and for which recovery since has lagged behind that seen elsewhere in Europe, according to Credit Suisse. It is contained in HealthInvestor magazine’s annual study of the industry’s fortunes in conjunction with law firm Nabarro, called The Healthcare Industry Barometer 2011, which is published today.
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The NHS will soon be less accountable: that’s good news for the health reform lobby | openDemocracy
While battle rages over the government’s controversial reforms of the NHS, the Department of Health has sneaked out two toxic changes that could seriously damage your health by promoting ignorance and restricting your rights as a citizen.
The two changes appear to be unconnected but are extremely helpful to new private providers of NHS medical services. One will limit the information that the private firms have to provide under the Freedom of Information Act to patients and relatives, the other will help them by abolishing the collection of health statistics on the services they provide and the quality of staff they employ.
The first has been revealed by the authoritative Campaign for Freedom of Information who are rightly demanding that Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, amends the law so patients can be protected. See their letter .
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The second comes from a very convoluted consultation exercise launched the day after the August bank holiday and trumpeted by Anne Milton, the public health minister, as a drive against “red tape”.
This proposes to slash the collection of statistics by the Department of Health by 25 per cent in a rather uneven and unclear way. But it is clear that the aim is to “minimise the burden” on the NHS and in particular the new private providers.
Half the statistics collected on the NHS workforce – which are used to improve staff training and forecast the need for skilled staff – are to be dropped. The consultation document says: “This will be of significance for non-NHS providers of NHS services as it will determine the minimum workforce information they would be required to provide.”
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Ministers ”hid impact of NHS reforms” – Public Service
Labour’s shadow health secretary John Healey has attacked the government for slipping out details on the cost of reforming the NHS the day after the House of Commons finished debating the legislation.
The Department of Health published the revised impact assessment on 8 September but, Healey said, this was prepared and signed off on 1 September.
Healey said in the Commons: “Last week MPs were asked to debate, amend and pass the Health and Social Care Bill with no new information of the costs and consequences of the biggest reorganisation in NHS history because the government had promised a new impact assessment following the Future Forum recommendations.
“The day after the debate, the new impact assessment was then smuggled out with no press statement. It shows Monitor, the new economic regulator, plan to employ 600 staff at an average cost of £84,000. And most importantly, it shows a health minister signed off the assessment on 1 September – a full five days before the Bill was debated last week.
“It’s a disgrace these facts were kept hidden from MPs and the public before such a critical and controversial debate.”
UNISON News | The public service union | ‘Save the NHS – kill the bill’
“Save the NHS and kill the bill.” That was the rallying cry from UNISON president Eleanor Smith as the TUC debated the government’s NHS plans and the All Together for the NHS campaign to defeat them.
“Our NHS is number one in equity, number one in quality and number one in safety,” said Ms Smith, who works in the health service as a theatre nurse.
But just a week ago, she recalled: “MPs began a two-day debate to wash their hands of the NHS. And on Wednesday night they voted to pass the Health and Social Care Bill.”
Now, she said, in terms of Parliament “all that stands between the government and our NHS is the House of Lords.”
And make no mistake, she added, “the bill hasn’t changed. Yes, they had what they laughingly called a listening exercise. Yes, there have been tweaks. But all the essentials are still there.”
The bill still removes the health secretary’s responsibility to deliver a health service in England, “any qualified provider” remains, allowing private companies to provide services instead of the NHS and the cap on NHS hospitals treating private patients has been lifted.
And in an age of austerity and cuts, warned Ms Smith, “hospitals will be forced to do all they can to raise cash from whatever source”.
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‘There is still time to protect the NHS,’ TUC Congress told | The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy
The government’s proposed health service changes have nothing to do with improving the NHS, promoting better integration, or keeping the NHS safe for future generations, the CSP told the TUC Congress today.
CSP industrial relations committee chair Alex MacKenzie said the Any Qualified Provider policy and the Health and Social Care Bill would put the free market above all other considerations, leading to fragmented services, a postcode lottery for care, rationing and the undermining of professional collaboration.
Seconding composite motion 10 at Congress, which ‘deplored’ the government’s health reforms because they would ‘break up the NHS and put profits ahead of patients’, Ms MacKenzie said ‘overseas healthcare companies are rubbing their hands. The Coalition is waving to them – ‘come over here, Britain’s open for business, the rest of the country might be struggling, but there’s money to be made on the NHS’.
Pointing out that the NHS was ranked number one in the world for quality, equity and safety despite costing less per head than many other major developing countries, Ms MacKenzie said there was no case for radical upheaval. The CSP and other health unions would continue to oppose the reforms, she said.
‘It isn’t all over yet.’
‘The Bill has still to go through the House of Lords and then back to the Commons.
‘There is still time to protect the NHS.’
The vote was carried.

13 September 2011