Nhs

Thursday

The Spectator

Let Greece leave the eurozone

To listen to Greek government ministers addressing the outside world during their breaks from negotiations with eurozone leaders this week, it would be easy to form the impression that Greece had a mighty economy upon which all other eurozone countries were pathetically dependent. ‘Europe is going through the difficult process of understanding that Greece has a new government committed to changing a programme that has failed in the eyes of everyone who doesn’t have a vested interest,’ said finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. The reality is that Greece is the dependent country, propped up by its creditors, and it is Greek government ministers who are having trouble in understanding the situation

Saturday

James Forsyth

The Burnham message

Andy Burnham’s interview in The Times today lays down several markers. He praises Len McCluskey, declares that trade union funding is best for Labour, slates Alan Milburn, criticises Peter Mandelson for being relaxed about people getting filthy rich and distances himself from the Blairite mantra that ‘what matters is what works.’ It will, to put it mildly, do nothing to discourage speculation that he is preparing to run for the leadership on a left-wing ticket if Labour loses the election. To be fair, Burnham is frank in this interview that he has changed his mind on various subjects. As he puts it, ‘There was a period in the 80s and

Friday

Matthew Parris

To reform the NHS, use the politics of envy | 6 February 2015

‘Let’s make the rich pay more.’ Does that sound so right-wing? To me it has a positively socialist ring. It should appeal to egalitarians: to those who call themselves socially concerned and seek new ways to redistribute wealth. So why not apply it for the NHS? Let’s make the rich pay more for health care. I’m no health policy wonk. I chip in with just this one small suggestion, which is not really about market-based reform of our health service, but about how to sell the idea to a deeply reactionary electorate. The British are positively neuralgic on health. They shudder at the use of words like ‘profit’. Expressions such

Thursday

Matthew Parris

To reform the NHS, use the politics of envy

‘Let’s make the rich pay more.’ Does that sound so right-wing? To me it has a positively socialist ring. It should appeal to egalitarians: to those who call themselves socially concerned and seek new ways to redistribute wealth. So why not apply it for the NHS? Let’s make the rich pay more for health care. I’m no health policy wonk. I chip in with just this one small suggestion, which is not really about market-based reform of our health service, but about how to sell the idea to a deeply reactionary electorate. The British are positively neuralgic on health. They shudder at the use of words like ‘profit’. Expressions such

Sunday

James Forsyth

Labour MPs’ minds wander to a post-election contest

With the opinion polls so tight at the moment, we’re having to look for other ways to try and work out what the general election result will be. One indicator worth watching is which party is spending more time thinking about the leadership contest that would follow an election. Now, there has been plenty of speculation about this on both the Tory and Labour benches in recent times. But in the last few weeks, I’ve picked up more of it from the Labour side. One Labour frontbencher calculates that the focus of ‘half the party is on what happens next’. Last week’s Labour kerfuffle over NHS policy was driven, in large

Wednesday

Sebastian Payne

Andy Burnham’s car crash interview shows why Labour can’t be trusted with the NHS

If Labour is weaponising the NHS, maybe it needs to sharpen its tools. Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham had a difficult and ill-tempered interview on Newsnight yesterday about what he actually thinks about private sector involvement in the NHS. When asked about the role he sees for the private sector under his reshaped health service, Burnham said private companies would not be entirely excluded: ‘There is still a role for private and voluntary providers but I also did say very clearly that the market is not the answer.’ Presented with a graph (below) showing how private sector outsourcing grew to four per cent under Labour — but rose two per cent

Wednesday

Sebastian Payne

Labour’s new political broadcast uses a veteran to promote NHS scare stories

Now we know what ‘weaponising’ the NHS looks like: a World War II veteran. Labour has released an emotive party political broadcast via Mirror Online starring Harry Leslie Smith. The 91-year old received two standing ovations at the Labour conference last year for his strident defence of the NHS — a theme continued in this video. The purpose of the PPB can be summed up in two words: emotional blackmail. Labour appear to have used Leslie Smith, telling a very moving story about his family and how much the NHS has done to improve our quality of life, to point to the notion that the health service is somehow in

Sunday

Bill Morgan

The coalition government is not blame for the latest NHS ‘crisis’

Of all the accusations thrust at the Conservatives by Labour over the NHS in recent weeks, their weakest has been the attempt to blame the Government’s reforms to the NHS for the pressures it is facing. Some will recall that we have been here before. In winter 2010, waiting times lengthened as the NHS was shaken by a serious flu outbreak. On that occasion, a shortage of critical care beds in the [pre-reform] NHS inherited from Labour meant that huge numbers of operations had to be cancelled. Though the problem was rapidly rectified, that did not stop Labour calling out a ‘crisis’ on the NHS, and blaming the reforms even

Thursday

The Spectator

Spectator letters: A GP’s cry of distress and a defence of Stephen Hawking

Dreadful treatment Sir: I worked as a GP through the Thatcher, Major, Blair, and Brown eras, apart from a spell as an A&E doctor, and never experienced such a depressing and worrying time for the NHS as now (‘Wrong diagnosis’, 10 January). There was frequently strain on the service from underfunding, but not the crisis we are now experiencing across the country, proving to me fundamental mismanagement and policy errors. When this government finally revealed its NHS ‘reforms’, which were kept quiet before the 2010 election, I was convinced the health service was under great threat, and that the electorate was being deviously misled. This crisis was predicted in the

Tarek S Arab

Obesity a disability? Only lawyers will benefit from the ECJ’s farcical classification

Real disability is humbling for those who have to live with it and those who care for the disabled. A true disability — degenerative neurological disease, for instance — involves the equivalent of a daily war to live in the way that most of us take for granted. We shouldn’t mock the truly disabled by misusing the word. Yet the European Court of Justice has classified obesity as a disability, meaning that we are all now expected to view those who, in the majority of cases, attained morbidly-obese status by determined and unrelentless bad-lifestyle choices as deserving of our understanding and admiration as those who battle real disability everyday. The interesting

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

The real reason GPs are grumpy: the robots are coming for them | 15 January 2015

There’s something wrong with the relationship between patients and their GPs. I’ve spent much of this winter in my local surgery, what with one thing and another, sitting among the stoic and snivelling, drifting between different doctors. They’re pleasant, if perfunctory, but with each visit I became more sure that something fundamental is awry. The docs seem ill at ease, as if their collective nose is out of joint, and I don’t think it’s overstretching or underfunding that’s the problem. My unprofessional diagnosis is that there’s a change under way in the balance of power between patients and medics; the status of GP as unimpeachable oracle is under threat, he

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

The real reason GPs are grumpy: the robots are coming for them

There’s something wrong with the relationship between patients and their GPs. I’ve spent much of this winter in my local surgery, what with one thing and another, sitting among the stoic and snivelling, drifting between different doctors. They’re pleasant, if perfunctory, but with each visit I became more sure that something fundamental is awry. The docs seem ill at ease, as if their collective nose is out of joint, and I don’t think it’s overstretching or underfunding that’s the problem. My unprofessional diagnosis is that there’s a change under way in the balance of power between patients and medics; the status of GP as unimpeachable oracle is under threat, he

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

The Tories are likely to ‘weaponise’ in the lead up to the election

David Cameron did, as James says, manage to avoid debating the rather more electorally damaging issue of the A&E crisis at Prime Minister’s Questions today because Ed Miliband chose to talk about the TV debates instead. But he still had a good opportunity to raise the Labour leader’s refusal to confirm or deny that he had said he wanted to ‘weaponise’ the NHS as an issue. When Labour’s Toby Perkins asked him whether he was ashamed of what happens when the Tories run the NHS, Cameron replied: ‘Now he quite rightly says it’s very important that we conduct this debate in a very good and civilised way. Now at the

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Tories drop weak policy areas for ‘six election priorities’ launch

Why have the Conservatives left out immigration and the NHS – two of the three issues that voters consistently cite as the most important in forming their decision about who to back in the General Election – out of their list of six priorities? Among the deficit, jobs, taxes, education, housing and retirement there is no room for the health service, immigration or Europe: which also tend to be the things David Cameron and Ed Miliband fight most vehemently over at Prime Minister’s Questions. Labour is very pleased about this, and is pretending to be very cross that the Prime Minister is ignoring the NHS. Presumably Ukip will be similarly

Friday

Andrew Haldenby

Private companies can deliver exactly what the NHS needs

The end of the private management of Hinchingbrooke Hospital is not a dagger in the heart of NHS competition and reform. It does not mean, as the BBC’s business editor wrote today, that a private business cannot run an acute hospital (which is an extraordinary statement given that such businesses routinely do so in other countries). Competition is at the heart of the NHS England Five Year Forward View (5YFV), which all major political parties have supported. The degree of successful private sector delivery in and around health is often underestimated. The much-used figure is that 6 per cent of the NHS budget is spent on private providers (i.e. just

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Circle’s exit from Hinchingbrooke is a serious blow to competition in the NHS

This morning’s announcement by Circle that it will be leaving the contract to run Hinchingbrooke Hospital makes it even more difficult politically for anyone who believes in greater competition in the NHS to make their case. Opponents of private sector involvement in healthcare provision will say – with good reason – that this shows you cannot trust anyone other than the public sector to stick with a hospital in the tough times. Proponents will point out that ultimately providers leaving is better than entrenched failure. But in a way Circle needed to perform in a way that was atypical of the market: I had to succeed and it had to

Tarek S Arab

When the NHS is treated like a religion, is it any wonder whistleblowers are considered pariahs?

I will start by publicly apologising to Professor Meirion Thomas; in a moment of folly, I erroneously signed a petition decrying his alleged ‘disrespect’ of colleagues, in the wake of one of his articles in the Daily Mail. In my defence, my newborn was crying at the time and I was sleep deprived. Now, however, I believe that the undignified manner – see the abuse and attacks against him, as detailed in last week’s Spectator – in which members of his own profession reacted to his views speaks ill of the medical profession and says a lot about how public discourse has deteriorated. I have read Professor Thomas’ articles. I

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: The silencing of Meirion Thomas; finding the Cross of St George in Tuscany; and healthy scepticism about NHS privatisation

This turbulent surgeon Sir: I have taken Meirion Thomas to task before in your letters pages, saying that since one third of NHS professional staff are immigrants, it would seem churlish to deny health visitors access to the very doctors we have poached from them. Meirion Thomas is not a whistle-blower (‘Bitter medicine’, 3 January) — he has not told us anything that our own prejudices haven’t already informed us of. And quite rightly he is being encouraged by his colleagues to zip it. Is there any business, let alone political party, that would tolerate such pointless, if not divisive, mudslinging from within? Dr Tom Roberts Derby Medical cover-ups Sir: Freddy

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: the 2015 campaign begins, Charlie Hebdo and Britain’s A&E crisis

Will the next Parliament be impossible to handle? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, James Forsyth and Compass’ Neal Lawson discuss the latest Spectator cover feature on the challenges facing Ed Miliband or David Cameron if either manage to secure a majority on 7 May 2015. Will the Labour left or Tory right prove too troublesome for the respective leaders? Should Miliband or Cameron be the most worried? And are we on the brink of major electoral reform? Hugo Rifkind and Isabel Hardman also discuss the A&E crisis facing Britain and the problems of the NHS being used a political football. Who is to blame for the current crisis and will the government

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

So the near collapse of A&Es around the country is all my fault?

Oh, I see. So it’s my fault. There I was, thinking that the general swamping and near collapse of accident and emergency services in hospitals across Britain might be the result of, you know, some sort of systemic problem within the NHS. With me, a mere member of the public, just being an occasional victim. But no! Apparently it’s all because I took my wailing two-year-old daughter in, one Sunday afternoon last year, to get some antibiotics for her ear. This is good to know. For, had I not been told that all this was the fault of chumps such as me heading to such places for the sorts of