Wes Streeting

NHS outsourcing fuels inequality and longer waits, study shows

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/nhs-outsourcing-fuels-inequality-and-longer-waits-study-shows

 A general view of medical equipment on a NHS hospital ward at Ealing Hospital in London

NHS outsourcing is fuelling inequality and lengthening waiting times, with wealthier patients receiving faster treatment than poorer ones, a study revealed today. 

Researchers found that expanding private providers into NHS-funded care has reduced surgical admissions at NHS hospitals and driven up waiting times across the board. 

Private hospitals are disproportionately located in wealthier areas and poorer patients, who are often sicker, are less likely to be admitted.With NHS capacity under pressure, the study warned that those on lower incomes are now waiting longer for care, receiving less support at home and facing greater barriers in travelling to private hospitals. On average, patients treated by private providers via the NHS waited only half as long as those treated in NHS hospitals.The poorest 20 per cent of patients are significantly less likely to be treated in the private sector and face longer waiting times than the wealthiest 20 per cent.Between 2003 and 2008, when private involvement in NHS treatment was minimal, surgical admissions rose and waiting times more than halved. But from 2008 onwards, as private sector provision expanded, NHS capacity fell and waiting times increased.Study co-author Professor Allyson Pollock of Newcastle University said: “The private sector is now substituting for, not adding to, NHS capacity. 

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Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/nhs-outsourcing-fuels-inequality-and-longer-waits-study-shows

Continue ReadingNHS outsourcing fuels inequality and longer waits, study shows

NEU president slams Labour’s renewed austerity

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(left to right) Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner clap their hands during the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, September 22, 2024

NATIONAL Education Union (NEU) president Sarah Kilpatrick slammed Labour’s renewed austerity today, telling the NEU annual conference that Tory welfare cuts had killed her disabled father.

She accused ministers of “perpetuating and repeating the shameful pattern of punching-down and finger-pointing” by “balancing the books on the backs of the poor.”

On the first day of the conference in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, she described how her father had died at the age of 56 after being stripped of his disability benefits under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.

She said that she had experienced poverty as a working-class child in Newcastle upon Tyne and was his carer for a number of years.

“As Iain Duncan Smith gleefully applauded the welfare cuts, I represented my father in a tribunal against the DWP [Department for Work and Pensions] decision to remove his disability benefits,” she told delegates.

“He’d had his gas cut off. Couldn’t afford groceries. His elderly mother was adding tins of food to her shopping to bulk up what I was buying for him, but he isolated himself further still.

“He lost a lot of weight during that time and never really recovered.”

In 2013, her father became one of an estimated 120,000 people who died as a result of the Tories’ austerity programme, she said.

“When Wes Streeting brags to the Tories across the benches that Labour have done what they never could and slashed the welfare bill, this is what they mean,” said Ms Kilpatrick.

“Let’s be clear. Nearly two decades of economic permacrisis has not been caused by disabled people.”

Nor has it been caused by the elderly, refugees, the trans community or children in poverty, she said.

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Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/neu-president-slams-labours-renewed-austerity

Keir Starmer says that his Labour Party is intensely relaxed about assaulting the very poorest and most vulnerable.
Keir Starmer says that his Labour Party is intensely relaxed about assaulting the very poorest and most vulnerable.
Continue ReadingNEU president slams Labour’s renewed austerity

Thoughts of the Day 14 April 2025 2/2 UK’s Notional Health Service

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NHS emblem
Notional Health System emblem

I’m ill again with overwhelming fatigue which explains in part why I’ve been neglecting this blog. It could be a symptom of something far more serious of course and I wouldn’t be surprised that it is. The UK’s NHS is reduced to little more than a notion where you have to ring at certain times of the day to be ignored by a health-ignorant de-skilled workforce in an attempt to have a 5-minute telephone conversation with and arrogant, dismissive GP a fortnight later.

Under Wes Streeting’s proposals you will be able to discuss your health with a health-ignorant de-skilled NHS employee at your home. There are already health-ignorant people I can discuss it with – neighbours, delivery drivers, postpeople, refuse workers. I can even tell random people in the street or shopworkers.

Continue ReadingThoughts of the Day 14 April 2025 2/2 UK’s Notional Health Service

Why should people with disabilities get a new car for free on top of their benefits?

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In short, this doesn’t happen and is part of a frenzy of demonization of disabled benefits claimants whipped-up by the right-wing including Labour Health Secretary Wes Steeting. The Guardian explains:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/24/monday-briefing-motability-myth

Queen Elizabeth inspects the classic Invacar, as she hosts a ceremony to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Motability, at Windsor Castle in 2017. Photograph: Richard Pohle/AFP/Getty Images.

A common refrain in the coverage – “Do you want a free new car?” the Times’ Alice Thomson asked – but one which misses a central point: the Pip funding that goes to Motability is money that customers would have been getting anyway.

If they weren’t getting a car, they’d have it to spend on something else. And if they want a more expensive car – perhaps needing a bigger vehicle for essential equipment, perhaps shockingly able to have preferences despite also having a disability – they have to make a down payment out of their own pocket.

The cars are new, meanwhile, so that they retain a significant resale value at the end of the lease. “It’s just not true that it’s ‘free’,” Carew said. “And because it comes out of an existing Pip award, it’s at no additional cost to the taxpayer.” Scrapping Motability wouldn’t save a penny from the benefits bill.

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So where did this story come from?

Allegations that Motability is infested with people making bogus claims have existed for many years. Hardy perennial though the story is, it’s also worth tracking the genesis of the latest iteration. Part of the timeline is familiar enough: first a fascinating Bloomberg piece focusing on Motability’s impact on the car market, then the Daily Mail, then everyone else.

Before that, though, the story gained momentum in a stranger corner of the internet – through a couple of rightwing X accounts, @loftussteve and @maxtempers, with fewer than 28,000 followers between them. The anonymous user behind Max Tempers, in particular, has been banging the drum since at least December, when he suggested that claimants should only be allowed to drive a hideous old car with MOTABILITY written on it. A few weeks later, a post of his about grooming gangs was shared by Elon Musk, and became the ground zero of a whole other dodgy social media frenzy.

As the Motability story went viral, it got picked up by accounts like Politics UK, a popular X news source, and later by prominent users like GB News’ deputy political editor Tom Harwood, who even borrowed Max Tempers’ idea for a car of shame. With crushing inevitability, after the Daily Mail piece, Wes Streeting told GB News the story showed why the welfare system needs reform.

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Read the original article at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/24/monday-briefing-motability-myth

Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.

Continue ReadingWhy should people with disabilities get a new car for free on top of their benefits?

Cabinet arguments over PIP as Streeting says “We haven’t discussed welfare reforms at cabinet”.

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Keir Starmer confirms that he's proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.

We have the Guardian reporting on “a tense cabinet meeting on Tuesday” with “… several serving members raised their concerns about how the Labour government would be viewed if it froze Pip and made it more difficult to receive payments.” while Wes Streeting claims “We haven’t discussed welfare reforms at cabinet”. It’s difficult to reconcile both claims, looks like someone is lying and that it’s not the Guardian.

Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Continue ReadingCabinet arguments over PIP as Streeting says “We haven’t discussed welfare reforms at cabinet”.