Jeremy hunt

For weeks now, we have been reading about a crisis in A&E — a symptom, we’re told, of a funding crisis in the National Health Service more generally. Since I started working for the NHS almost 45 years ago, this has been a familiar theme: the system is creaking, but a bit more tax money should suffice. To many of us who have seen the system close at hand, another question presents itself: what if the NHS were to cut down on waste? And perhaps recover costs from the health tourists who turn up for treatment to which they are not entitled? I first made the case for doing so

The language of the left is a truly transformative grammar, so I suppose Noam Chomsky would heartily approve. There are words which, when uttered by a leftie, lose all sense of themselves — such as ‘diverse’ and ‘vibrant’ and ‘racist’. It is not simply that these words can mean different things to different people — it is that when the left uses them they are at best a euphemism and at worst a downright lie. And from that you have to draw the conclusion that their whole political edifice is built upon a perpetually shifting succession of imaginative falsehoods. Such as when they tell you you’re a ‘denier’ of something

One of the supposed rules of modern politics is that you shouldn’t tell the voters they are wrong. So, Jeremy Hunt saying that a large part of the problem at A&E is people turning up who shouldn’t, is going to come in for some criticism. One can almost hear Labour readying its denunciation of the Health Secretary for trying to blame patients for the NHS crisis that Tory cuts have caused. But Hunt is right about people turning up to hospital too readily. He cites NHS England’s numbers which show that up to 30 per cent of those attending A&E don’t need to be there. It should be noted, though,

Mark Carney’s appointment in 2013 as Governor of the Bank of England was almost universally applauded. Yet more recently Carney has become something of a divisive figure. His interventions during the referendum campaign angered many. While his economic policies have also come in for criticism, leading some to call for Carney to quit. So should the Bank of England chief listen to his critics or is it best for Britain’s economy that he stays put? The Daily Telegraph says Carney has been hit by ‘referendum shockwaves’ and suggests that the attacks levied against him during the referendum – whether true or not – have undoubtedly placed him in an uncomfortable position.

The BMA’s decision to cancel the first of its planned five-day strikes yesterday was justified as a response to concerns over patient safety. Yet these warnings were nothing new. The General Medical Council issued frank advice to doctors hours earlier saying the strikes could harm patients. And the former Department of Health director Sir John Oldham – who also wrote Labour’s health policy review two years ago – also said the strikes were unethical. These interventions followed last week’s statement from the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges that, wait for it, made it clear the strikes would cause ‘real problems’ for the NHS. But amidst those warnings, Labour’s silence on patient safety was deafening. In an interview last weekend,

Junior doctors have scrapped plans to strike next week. In a dispute which looks increasingly messy and interminable, this is a small token of welcome news. But whilst the BMA has made the right decision in this instance, they are still sticking with their threat to stage three five-day walkouts in October, November and December. What’s more, in justifying why they called off the strike which was due to start on September 12, they’re trying to have their cake and eat it. After all, when industrial action was announced last week, patient safety – that all important concept which the BMA had trumpeted in the earlier stages of this row – seemed to have

Junior doctors are striking again: this time, for five days in a row over several weeks. This level of industrial action is without precedent in the history of the NHS. Even though I will soon be employed as a junior doctor under the terms of the contract, I think the decision to strike is scandalous. In the early stages of this row, it was possible to sympathise with junior doctors’ discontent about having a contract imposed on them. Now it has become harder and harder to know what it will take to please them. The contract they were offered was a good deal — even the BMA said so. Yet for

The junior doctors row bubbles on. This time, medics will walk out for five back-to-back days starting on September 12. Predictably, Jeremy Hunt has condemned the strike; and the BMA is blaming Jeremy Hunt. It’s a bitter and somewhat dull stalemate which will bore many for its endless intransigence. Yet beneath this, it’s clear this latest industrial action will cause chaos: the strikes comes at such late notice that contingency plans put in place before industrial action earlier this year will not have been made. The strike is messier, too, for the increasing remoteness of a sensible compromise being struck. The BMA’s Mark Porter dismissed the 73 concessions made by

Just when it looked as though Britain’s vacuum Government had enough on its plate, the junior doctors row – which many had hoped had finished – will now bubble on. BMA members have just voted to reject the Government’s contract offer by 58 per cent to 42 per cent. The margin was convincing enough that the BMA’s chair Johann Malawana, who proved an effective combatant against Jeremy Hunt during the dispute, has stepped down. In his letter, Malawana pointed the finger of blame at the Government, saying: ‘I believe the fundamental breakdown in trust caused by the government’s actions over the last five years has resulted in a situation where no

That’s the trouble with conducting a strike via social media — press the wrong button and what was supposed to be private becomes very public. A leaked cache of WhatsApp messages has revealed the junior doctors’ strikes for what they were: a politicised dispute which always was about more than the finer details of when doctors would be asked to work and what they would be paid for doing so. The messages, received by the Health Services Journal, reveal how a drawn-out strike was masterminded by the BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee (JDC), a union within a union. The chair of the JDC, Dr Johann Malawana, posed in public as sweet

The junior doctors strike will be remembered not only as the first time in NHS history that a complete walk out took place, but also for its viciousness. Both the British Medical Association and the Government can share their blame in this. Jeremy Hunt’s threat to ‘impose’ contracts on junior doctors was unhelpful in its forcefulness, even if his frustration was understandable. Whilst the rhetoric used by the BMA has also scarcely painted the association in a good light. Junior doctors may have had their concerns about patient safety but this was also a dispute about pay and to suggest otherwise was disingenuous. It seems, at last however, that an

A deal has been reached between the government and the BMA on the new junior doctors contract. The deal now needs to be approved by a BMA ballot. Details of the deal are still emerging, but I understand that rather than junior doctors working the 11 Saturdays a year that the government wanted them to, they will now work 6 weekends a year. The marginal cost for a hospital of employing a junior doctor will fall by roughly a third if this deal goes through. The government has given some ground elsewhere. Doctors returning from maternity leave will be entitled to catch up on the skills training that they have

Jeremy Hunt has not done himself any favours in the past with his comments about junior doctors. But today – the first time junior doctors have ever walked out without providing emergency cover – was the time for sounding conciliatory. The Health Secretary said it was a ‘very, very bleak day for the NHS’. Hunt went on to add that: ‘The reason this has happened is because the Government has been unable to negotiate sensibly and reasonably with the BMA over a manifesto pledge’. His emphasis on the Conservative’s ‘manifesto pledge’ is a clear part of the Health Secretary’s tactics to win over the public and Hunt repeated his focus