Health
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Stop the government’s care.data sell-off
The government are planning to sneak through the plan that would allow private companies to buy our personal medical data. But together we could stop it. Continue reading
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medConfidential Bulletin 10 October 2014
Now the pathfinder areas have been announced, we are pushing to see exactly what patients (and GPs) will be told. In the meanwhile, if you do have concerns about care.data and if you haven’t done so already, our advice continues to be to opt out now. N.B. If you opted out of care.data earlier this… Continue reading
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UK Supermarkets Told to Wake Up to GMO
GeneWatch UK called on supermarkets Wednesday to wake up to the environmental harm caused by genetically modified (GM) animal feed, imported from North and South America. Blanket spraying of Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready GM crops with the weedkiller RoundUp has destroyed the habitat of the Monarch butterfly in the United States to such an extent that… Continue reading
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Make the NHS the issue of next year’s election
Now it’s time to focus on the other parties and make sure they also commit to increasing NHS funding. They’ll make their election promises in the next few days. So let’s show them that UK voters want the NHS to come first. Continue reading
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What we want from our NHS
With a sea of ‘I love the NHS’ t-shirts, we sent out a strong message that we love our health service too much to let it be sold off to the highest bidder. Last night, NHS bosses could clearly see which issues hit home, and more importantly which didn’t. When 38 Degrees members come together,… Continue reading
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Quiz the NHS Today!
It’s NHS England’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) and they’ll be making decisions about the future of our NHS. 38 Degrees members will be there to make sure NHS bosses are clear we want the NHS to be protected. But if you can’t attend, your voice can still be heard! Continue reading
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Last Chance to tell the NHS what you think
In one week’s time, NHS England – who run our NHS – are holding their biggest decision-making meeting of the year. The meeting’s open to anyone, so this is our chance to be heard by the people making huge changes to our NHS. Continue reading
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NHS protest camp and a new Jarrow march – whatever it takes to save our hospitals By Jos Bell
Public health is crumbling. This week hospitals have reported a 71% rise in patients admitted suffering from malnutrition since 2010, including a 31% rise in the yesteryear Vitamin C deficiency disease, scurvy. Echoes of Daniel Defoe and Proust in the 21st century. Late summer brings a surge of protest against plans to close down swathes… Continue reading
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My eye – the blurring of Foundation Trusts and private medicine By Diane Langford
Only when I was summoned to an appointment at a private hospital I’d never heard of, for a procedure I didn’t need, did I begin to question how NHS Foundation Trusts are obliged to raise money from private patients – and the pressures on them to set up private units through a complicated web of… Continue reading
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We all already own the NHS – the latest ‘mutual’ spin is about taking it out of our hands By Caroline Molloy
Here we go again. Turning the NHS into a ‘staff-owned’ mutual or ‘social enterprise’ has been re-launched more times than Liam Fox’s career, generally to a resounding wave of indifference or hostility from NHS staff who are generally less interested in being ‘social entrepreneurs’ than in getting on with doctoring and nursing. Continue reading
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Stop distracting us with the ‘health tourism’ sideshow By Kailash Chand
Hunt commissioned research from two firms, Prederi and Creative Research, to come up with the £500m a year figure – but the companies themselves admitted this research was “based on incomplete data, sometimes of varying quality, and a large number of assumptions”. Actual ‘deliberate’ health tourism was estimated by Prederi to cost between £20 and… Continue reading
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On TTIP and the NHS, they are trying to bamboozle us By John Hilary
The TTIP trade treaty talks re-open in Brussels this week. We should not be reassured by the convenient ‘leak’ of a private letter between key TTIP advocates claiming the treaty poses no threat to the NHS. Continue reading
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Take our ‘treatment’ or we’ll stop your benefits, Tories threaten mentally ill By Louise McCudden
Proposals to strip benefits from depressed people who ‘refuse’ treatment are unethical, ignore root causes, and are likely to force people into inappropriate treatment or penury. Continue reading
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“Save our Surgeries” call goes out on NHS birthday By Doctor Ron Singer
As the NHS turned 66 on Saturday, patients and health workers marched through the streets of East London in protest at the threatened closure of scores of GP surgeries. Continue reading
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Destroying the NHS: Time to get even with Stevens By John Lister
New NHS boss Simon Stevens has revealed his true privatising colours with this week’s announcement on personal health budgets – which would wreck NHS services and leave the field clear for big business. We have been waiting to see whether – and how – new NHS boss Simon Stevens would work round to furthering the… Continue reading
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“Handing patients NHS cash” is just rebranding cuts By Peter Beresford
Personal health budgets are to be rolled out to many more patients and combined with social care personal budgets, Simon Stevens, NHS England’s new Chief Executive announced yesterday. But as spending on both social care and the NHS contracts, what is the evidence underpinning this massive shift in resources? Continue reading
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New disability payments system responsible for deaths in Britain By Dennis Moore
A new disability benefit, Personal Independence Payments (PIP), brought in by the UK government to replace Disability Living Allowance (DLA), has resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. In addition, many seriously ill people have been left without a payment months after applying. Continue reading
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Britain’s National Health Service “fraying at the edges” By Paul Mitchell
In 2012-2013, one in four A&E visits (nearly 6 million) took place after patients had been unable to get an appointment with a GP. Previous research has shown that the reasons include the change to GP contracts in 2004 allowing them to opt out of providing night and weekend cover, leaving it to other agencies… Continue reading
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Cameron is wrecking our world-beating health system By James Lazou
After all the negative headlines over the last few years you would be forgiven for thinking that the NHS was a mediocre, failing, bureaucratic service destined to collapse. That is the message that Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, would like you to believe. Since becoming Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt has seen it as… Continue reading
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Monsanto’s “Insidious” GM0 Food and its Dark Connections to the Military Industrial Complex
Monsanto, the world’s largest genetically modified (GM/GMO) seed producer, has been at the centre of controversy for decades as evidence of the harmful effects on humans of GM foods continues to mount. Joined with the likes of DuPont’s Pioneer Hi-Bred International and Syngenta, Monsanto and partners comprise the corporate nexus of Big-Agri, where the control… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 