You can see from her qualifications that Dr Lucy Reynolds is not a medical doctor, however she takes a keen interest in the way the NHS in England is changing following the Health and Social Care Act legislation last year. She is a Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and her interests include the way healthcare system structure, financing and health outcomes interact.

Privatisation of the NHS will not happen with a “Big Bang.” Maybe it would have been more honest if it had been introduced in that way because it would have been obvious. If you stay in England, and you and your family use, or will use the NHS (that means nearly everyone in the country) then this question and answer session is worth watching.

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Even though Jimmy Savile was a “benevolent” superstar, and even though he is now described as a “predatory paedophile,” it is beyond belief that he was put on a pedestal within hospitals and given the degree of access to patients to the extent that is being reported.

He was appointed as head of a task force to run Broadmoor, the high security psychiatric hospital. Why would they want him in that role? What qualifications did he have? Celebrity status? Large donations of money maybe?

JIMMY SAVILE SEX SCANDAL : GOVERNMENT TO INVESTIGATE BROADMOOR ROLE

They say he even had his own set of keys!

SAVILE HAD A SET OF BROADMOOR KEYS

He seems he might even have had a home from home at Stoke Mandeville hospital for spinal injuries.

STOKE MANDEVILLE HOSPITAL STILL HAS QUESTIONS TO ANSWER OVER THE JIMMY SAVILE CHILD ABUSE SCANDAL

He was even an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists.

SIR JIMMY SAVILE

Why? What contribution to the training of radiologists did he make? Money again perhaps. Maybe they should dismember the above link to this press release and stop being so sad.

It seems they are squirming now.

“Yesterday the Royal College of Radiologists squirmed over having made Savile an honorary fellow for his fundraising efforts. A spokeswoman said: “Had we been aware of these allegations at the time the RCR would not have had this association with him.”

Perhaps the Royal Colleges should concentrate on training doctors, and avoid being bribed by honouring non-medically qualified people who have not passed their exams but who have purchased their way in.

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A new political party has been born in the UK.

It is in response to the Health and Social Care Act which recently became law and which many believe will be the beginning of the end of the NHS as market forces take their toll.

It would be wonderful if a candidate could stand in every single constituency, and everyone who is ill, might become ill, or fears for the future healthcare of their children and grandchildren when they become ill, joins, supports or at least votes for this party during the next general election.

It would be even more wonderful if the party won the next election and a new Prime Minister was selected from their ranks.

Impossible?

Not really.

No political party had a mandate from the people of this country to govern during the last election.

There was no mandate for the Health and Social Care Act.

There was no mandate to unwind the NHS.

Supporting and voting for this party would make a very strong statement to every other major political party that they are not to be trusted with the healthcare of this country because priority is being given to business interests over health.

NATIONAL HEALTH ACTION

COUNTRY: UK

Welcome

The National Health Action party was formed by a group of like-minded healthcare professionals, who strongly support the original principles of the NHS and are shocked by the failure of the democratic process as demonstrated by the appearance and the passage through parliament of the Health and Social Care Act.

We believe the resulting legislation will destroy the NHS in England as an effective, efficient health system fair to all citizens and patients. It will transform a cost-effective public system of health care into one that will be more expensive, wasteful and unequal, whilst diminishing levels of public trust and corroding standards of ethical behaviour. Quite apart from the direct effects on healthcare provision, the destruction of the NHS also marks the violation of important social values. The NHS was more than just a structure for the delivery of healthcare. It was also a social institution that reflected national solidarity, expressed the values of equity and universalism, and institutionalised the duty of government to care for all in society.

The NHS marked out a space in society where the dictates of commerce and the market were held in check so as to give expression to socially directed goals, for individuals and society as a whole. Thus the NHS became the glue that holds together the social fabric of our nation. As the NHS is under so much threat, we believe that a new political party is needed to defend the NHS and its values, and we have therefore set up the National Health Action party.

We welcome members from all walks of life who value the NHS, not just NHS professionals.

P.S. If you have difficulty accessing this site today it is because it is receiving so many hits apparently!

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The Health and Social Care Bill has trundled its way through the House of Commons, the House of Lords, where it was subject to about a thousand amendments, and back through the House of Commons. It will have become law once it receives Royal Assent. The Bill may already be approved by the Queen, in which case it becomes an Act of Parliament i.e. Law.

This has been one of the most controversial pieces of legislation that has passed through parliament. Although it refers only to English Law there may be ramifications for the healthcare in other UK countries.

Many believe the law was intentionally long and unintelligible and few understood its full implications. There is a widely held view that it heralds the end of the NHS in England and is designed in such a way that the government abdicates much of the responsibility for the healthcare of the citizens in England, and that the NHS over the next few years will move fast forward into the private sector with some care funded through taxation and some rationed and paid by the patient directly or through separate insurance cover. There is a worry that the private sector will cherry-pick the most profitable and easy to treat conditions.

Another controversy was that the government refused to publish a document indicating the risks associated with Bill. This is known as a Risk Register and it is normal practice for these assessments not to be published. However, because of the perceived risk to the health of the nation the coalition government was told to publish it but refused to do so. Recently what was alleged to be an early copy of the Risk Register was leaked to at least two individuals and last night Twitter was chirping away about the contents.

This alleged Risk Register is currently located here :

HEALTH BILL TRANSITION RISK REGISTER 15 OCT 2010

Note the red and orange warnings.

And note the government-speak gobbledygook in the “Mitigation Actions” column.

No doubt the government will respond (if it chooses to respond at all) by saying this is an old document and the thousand amendments have solved the problem.

There are many who do not agree with that view.

Here are two of these people :

The Professional Case for Withdrawing The Health and Social Care Bill from Daniel Saul on Vimeo.

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There’s an awful lot going on in UK healthcare at the moment and it is difficult to keep up to date and read and understand all the documentation involved.

In fact you might say the NHS is spinning round and round in circles.

The proposed new Health and Social Care Bill that removes the Secretary of State for Health’s “duty to provide” healthcare for citizens in England is currently being debated in the House of Lords having succeeded in its passage through the House of Commons.

“The Change” that is going on will turn healthcare in England into a commodity. It is happening even before the Bill has been given legal status.

In fact, David Cameron in a speech on regulation of the economy said that he wanted the NHS to be a “fantastic business for Britain” He cannot deny therefore that his vision is to turn healthcare into a commodity.

Enter the hedge fund supremos. In the form of “CIRCLE”

“CIRCLE HEALTH – THE “SOCIAL ENTERPRISE” RUN BY THE WORLD’S HARDEST HEDGE FUND MANAGERS

Circle Health – the company that last week became the first private healthcare operator to take over the running of an NHS district general hospital – has variously been described as a “John Lewis-style mutual”, a “third-sector provider”, and a “social enterprise majority owned by employees”. It is none of these things.

If it were, it would not have attracted about £120m of investment from highly astute and profit-driven venture capital and hedge funds, including Odey European, Lansdowne, Balderton and BlueCrest. These funds are run by ruthlessly brilliant investment managers whose reputations are built on spotting trends in the capital markets before anyone else.

Anyone who thinks their investment criteria might include a social dimension would do well to cast their mind back to 2009. Some of these funds made millions from identifying weaknesses in Britain’s banks, and betting the Treasury would be forced to intervene to rescue them. It might be too much to say they caused that banking crisis, but they saw it coming, and saw an opportunity to profit.

CARE MAY SUFFER, ADMITS PRIVATE COMPANY TAKING OVER NHS HOSPITAL

Circle’s admissions come in a share prospectus it was legally obliged to publish in June when the parent company, Circle Holdings, floated in London. It had been in negotiations with the government for two years over the takeover of Hinchingbrooke hospital; as the preferred bidder, it expected to be successful. In its document, the company reveals its aspiration to take over further hospitals but also spells out the risks to patients. It says: “As well as the establishment of further independent hospitals, Circle intends to significantly expand its NHS business.

“Circle’s growth has placed, and its anticipated growth will continue to place, a strain on its managerial, administrative, operational, financial, information technology and other resources and could affect its ability to provide a consistent level of service to its patients.”

The medico-political bloggers are on to it too. Here is what Dr No has to say:

CIRCLING THE DRAINS

The second difference, as Martin Amis might have said, is that the money is always after the money. While a GP in a tight corner will usually know his or her primary duty is unassailably to his or her patient, a venture capitalist sails to a different compass. We have only to look at Southern Cross to see in what direction that compass points. And news is already abroad that – like heads-we-win-tails-you-lose-bankers – Circle investors’ financial losses are already protected.

Will they be allowed to fail?

If not, who will bail them out?

The government?

With our, the taxpayers’, money?

Just like the banks?

And more :

LEST WE FORGET : A POPPY FOR THE NHS

And so it is that Dr No feels the queasy irony that Remembrance Day this year was stained by the news that the first national health service general hospital is to be run by the private sector. For, to the extent that the NHS was born of the sacrifice of those who fought in the Second World War, any move that threatens to destroy the body and values of the NHS is, in its way, an affront to those who fought and died in that war.

By further irony, the house colour of Circle is red. We shall soon see that red cast on the NHS blue of Hinchingbrooke. Let us hope that in the years to come that Circle red does not bleed to become the red of a poppy, a red poppy of remembrance for the NHS we have lost.

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Or will The House of Lords save this institution that comes to the rescue of us all when we need it most, because all through our lives, we, our parents and grandparents have funded it.

Or will our money that we pay through taxation be handed over to private companies, sometimes global companies, in order that their shareholders can profit from our ill health?

Here is the text of an open letter written to the Members of the House of Lords. It has been signed by more than 400 doctors.

It is now up to The Upper House to decide whether or not the Health and Social Care Bill becomes law.

Dear Honourable Members of the House of Lords,

As public health doctors and specialists from within the NHS, academia and elsewhere, we write to express our concerns about the Health and Social Care Bill.

The Bill will do irreparable harm to the NHS, to individual patients and to society as a whole.

It ushers in a significantly heightened degree of commercialisation and marketisation that will fragment patient care; aggravate risks to individual patient safety; erode medical ethics and trust within the health 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 communicable disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies.

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.

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.

It is our professional judgement that the Health and Social Care Bill will erode the NHS’s ethical and cooperative foundations and that it will not deliver efficiency, quality, fairness or choice.

We therefore request that you reject passage of the Health and Social Care Bill.

It is not just global companies that are waiting in the wings for this windfall.

Cherie Blair, wife of Tony, our former prime minister is alleged to be waiting in the wings too. It is said that she has formed a private company with the rather odd name of “Mee.”

CHERIE BLAIR “STANDS TO GAIN FROM NHS PRIVATISATION

The wife of the former Labour prime minister is one of the founders of a business planning to open private clinics in supermarkets.
Her choice of venture is likely to prove controversial among Labour supporters, who will today set out their opposition to greater private involvement in the health system.

Other posts webwhispering about the Health and Social Care Bill can be accessed here.

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The Health and Social Care Bill is complicated and boring, however one of the key issues is the clever use of “weasel” words replacing the previous terminology. This change could easily have been missed. These words concerns the government’s “Duty to Provide” health care for it’s citizens.

The Health and Social Care Bill that has recently been approved by the House of Commons is now about to move through the House of Lords. It needs the approval of the Upper House before it can become law.

One of the strange things about this Bill is that much of what it contains is already happening. Private companies are taking over large chunks of the clinical work in the NHS and some of the structures that were previously in place are being replaced by others proposed in the Bill.

The question that some are asking therefore is: “If these things are already happening, then why is it necessary to have a new Bill at all?”

It may well be because of the need to introduce the “weasel words.”

Sometimes, the medical blogosphere in the UK raises political questions before they reach the mainstream media. In March of this year a blogger who uses the pseudo-nom “Dr No” raised a key issue about the Bill in his blog “Bad Medicine”.  These three short posts  summarise the worries that most members of the medical profession have about this Bill. They are worth reading carefully because what is happening now in parliament will mean that when you or your family are ill, the NHS may no longer be there to treat you because the government are attempting to abdicate their responsibility for this service.

THE SECRET NAIL IN THE NHS COFFIN

IF IT WALKS LIKE A DUCK…..

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU VOTE FOR

Having succeeded in it’s journey through the House of Commons, the Bill is now in the first stages of it’s progression through the House of Lords.

HOUSE OF LORDS DEBATE: NHS FUTURE FORUM

Already key questions are being asked.

Scroll down to 15 September 2011 : Column 865:

“Baroness Wheeler: My Lords, this is an important debate. It is the first opportunity for the House to discuss the NHS following the First Reading of the Health and Social Care Bill last week. It takes place in the context of the continuing debate, controversy and deep unease over key aspects of the Bill, its incoherence and complexity even in this, its fourth iteration.”

At the heart of the continuing problems are two issues that are fundamental to the ethos of an NHS that is free at point of need and provides a national public service. First, there is the importance of the Secretary of State having a continuing duty to ensure that we have a comprehensive NHS. Secondly, we must address the real concerns over Part 3 of the Bill, which places competition at the heart of the NHS and sets up an economic regulator that still has substantial powers to promote competition in the NHS. The Future Forum was clear on these issues and the recommendations are welcome and straightforward. However, the amendments to the Bill do not reflect that or translate the Future Forum’s intentions into legislation.

The Commons deliberations have failed to resolve the issue of the Secretary of State’s duty and role in relation to the NHS. Indeed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said in her recent Observer article, “confusion thickens”. My honourable friends in the other place, supported by authoritative legal opinion, have underlined that if the Bill becomes law then the duty to provide a National Health Service would be diluted and lost. The Government argue strongly for greater freedom for clinical commissioners from political interference. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, has said,

“to throw out accountability in order to tackle petty interference is to undermine democracy itself”.

A select committee in the House of Lords has followed up with this statement.

HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE BILL

it is not clear whether the existing structures of political and legal accountability with regard to the NHS will continue to operate as they have done hitherto if the Bill is passed in its current form. As such, the House will wish carefully to consider whether these changes pose an undue risk either that individual ministerial responsibility to Parliament will be diluted or that legal accountability to the courts will be fragmented.

Moreover, it is not self-evident that the proposed changes are a necessary component of the Government’s reform package. Given the uncertainty as to the interpretation of the provisions proposed in the Bill, could not the relevant wording contained in the 2006 Act be retained?

The newspapers are now reporting on the possible abdication of the Secretary of State for Health.

NHS SHAKEUP POSES THREAT TO POLITICAL CONTROL, LORDS COMMITTEE CLAIMS

The coalition’s reorganisation of the NHS risks diluting the government’s “constitutional responsibilities” to the health service, an influential Lords committee has warned.

The health secretary currently has to a legal duty provide key NHS services, such as hospital accommodation, ambulances, maternity and nursing. The NHS bill going through parliament envisages that the health secretary would only have to monitor their provision and intervene in the case of failure. The government would not be legally and constitutionally responsible.

The future of the NHS is now in the hands of The House of Lords. Hopefully, unlike the Members of Parliament in The House of Commons they will not be whipped into toeing the party line.

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There is quite a lot of consternation going on within the UK medical profession at the moment. It concerns The Health and Social Care Bill that is currently wending its way through parliament.

Yesterday it completed its journey through the House of Commons with a vote of  316 for  (the “Ayes” to the right) and 251 against (the “Noes” to the left) giving a “healthy” majority of 65. Apparently 4 LibDems voted against the Bill and 10 abstained from voting.  It now has to be debated further in the House of Lords, and cannot proceed further to become law until it has the consent of The Upper Chamber.

THE PASSAGE OF A BILL THROUGH PARLIAMENT

All of this seems boring stuff, but I have been following the progress of this Bill through parliament and am beginning to find the system quite interesting. In fact, to be truthful, I’m no longer bored by it all.

The Health and Social Care Bill, if successful, will be the biggest change in the NHS since it’s inception in 1948. Many, including myself, believe it will be the end of the end of the NHS as we know it in England. The main fear is that the NHS will become a kite-mark used by private companies to give them legitimacy to profit from tax-payers money which funds them for the clinical services they provide. The other countries of the UK are autonomous in organising how they run the NHS so, for the moment, if the HSCB becomes law only England will be affected.

It is a mighty, lengthy Bill, but there is one key element of the Bill that should not be overlooked. Maybe the Bill is so long and mighty because it is hoped the key element would slip through un-noticed!

I’ll come back to this key element again.  Why? Because I hope some day my children in particular will not only find this blog useful in finding reliable health information when they feel they need it, but I hope too they will look back and it will help them understand my views at this critical time for the NHS. At the moment these changes are of no interest to them at all. They all think they have more important things to concern themselves with, but someday they will find that they need they NHS to be there for them without them having to worry about how they will fund their own healthcare and those of their own children.

In the meantime, here is this monster of a Bill.

THE HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE BILL

There will be very few people who have read it in full.

And fewer still who understand it.

More later…….

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To be honest, I hate rap music. It makes me really agitated. Well, maybe it’s supposed to make you agitated.

This, though, is rapping with a difference.

It is attacking Andrew Lansley. He is the Health Secretary in the UK’s coalition government. Probably the majority of people who have studied the new Health and Social Care Bill going through parliament just now are against it since they interpret it as the demise of the NHS and the birth of UK healthcare controlled by multinationals whose main aim will be profit.

Many of the population including the medical profession don’t really know what is going on. Probably a lot of Members of Parliament don’t really know what’s going on either.  Those who do know what’s going on don’t seem to be able to stop it.

But here is Mr Joe Public tackling the government on this issue in the way he knows best. This Mr Joe Public is a 22 year old bin-man who calls himself MC NxtGen. The rappers real name is Sean Donnelly and this is what he thinks:

“”we’ll become more like the US / and care will be farmed out to private companies, / who will sell their service to the NHS via the GPs / who will have more to do with service purchase arrangements / than anything to do with seeing their patients.”

He doesn’t fancy this so he is telling the young generation about it.

The Guardian has an article on this:

ANDREW LANSLEY TAKES RAP FROM MC NxtGen OVER HEALTH POLICY VIRAL VIDEO

Success of YouTube video criticising Department of Health white paper prompts health minister to respond to rapper critic

COUNTRY : UK

If like me, you can’t understand rap music, here are the words:

Chorus:
Andrew Lansley, greedy,
Andrew Lansley, tosser,
the NHS is not for sale you grey haired manky codger. (x4)

So the budget of the PCTs, he wants to hand to the GP’s,
Oh please. Dumb geeks are gonna buy from any willing provider,
get care from private companies.
They saw the pie and they want a piece;
Got their eyes on the P’s like mice for the cheese.
I talk truth when I ride the beat, you talk shite when you speak,
see money when you close your eyes to
sleep.

So fall back — your face looks like a shrivelled up ball sack.
The stuff that you chat is bull crap, I’m sure Andy Pandy snorts crack.
Health minister, I mean sinister.
You know your public will finish ya,
is your brain really that miniature?

You’re full of crap
Give yourself an enema.

Made filthy rich by those who represent Walkers Crisps,
Mars and Pizza Hut, proved your a health slut and your always talking shit.
A hundred and thirty four pound an hour every week, that’s quite a lot of quids;
and you came to the conclusion that the food industry should be a little less strict.

Scandal disclosed that you flipped your second home.
You said your claims were within the rules, filled your pockets, took us for jokes;
so how would you cope when broke folk get ill, injured and broke,
but don’t have the dough,
to get their life back on the road, so poor die slow, and the rich take control.

(Chorus x 4)

Lansley’s white paper: “Liberating the NHS”
sets out a plan where we’ll become more like the U.S.
and care will be farmed out to private companies,
who will sell their service to the NHS via the Gps,
who will have more to do with service purchase arrangements
than anything to do with seeing their patients.

He’s been given cash
by John Nash,
chairman of Care UK:
a private healthcare provider,
who, if they have their way,
will be the biggest beneficiaries
of conservative Lib Dem policies
to privatise healthcare and pull apart the welfare state.

These plans have been slagged by patient organisations,
charities and unions,
nursing and medical institutions.
The Royal College of GPs even joined the attack,
looked closely at the proposals
and said they were crap.
Say yes for the NHS, Andrew Lansley can suck on David Cameron’s breast.
His quest is for the rich to pay less, and the poor have to stress, it’ll be one big mess.

(Chorus x 4)

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The NHS in the UK is undergoing yet more reorganisation. Many doctors believe that the extent of the changes proposed will herald the demise of the NHS as we know it in order to pave the way for private companies to to turn healthcare into a commodity. It is considered that cherry picking will occur and patients who are in real need will not generate income and therefore will be marginalised.

Several bloggers posted in the past day or two about their concerns. If you stay in the UK, these posts are worth reading and thinking about.

LAUGHING AT DEMOCRACY

http://www.badmed.net/bad-medicine-blog/2011/03/laughing-democracy.html

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A TSUNAMI LOOMS

http://drgrumble.blogspot.com/2011/03/tsunami-looms.html

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DON’T JUST STAND AND MOAN, DO SOMETHING!

http://juliemcanulty.blogspot.com/2011/03/dont-just-stand-and-moan-do-something.html

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BATTLE LINES

http://abetternhs.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/battle-lines-the-bma-and-the-political-parties/

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FACT CHECK

http://factstoknow.co.uk/?p=19440

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THE “PRINCIPLES” AND THE LIES

http://ferretfancier.blogspot.com/2011/03/principles-and-lies.html

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