nhs cuts
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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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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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Personal Health Budgets lead to individualism and isolation By Richard Blogger
A Thatcherite ‘voucher’ system is being imposed on the NHS is the worst way to deliver ‘personalisation’. From April 2015 all Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) must be able to offer Personal Health Budgets (PHBs) to all patients who have a long term condition (LTC). Personal Budgets were mentioned in the Conservative 2010 manifesto, but the… Continue reading
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How to commercialise and cut health and social care without anyone noticing By Jenny Shepherd
Plans to ‘create a local market’ in health and social care, including personal budgets, threaten to undermine our collective rights and our systems based on social solidarity. The final part in our View from the Grassroots series. Over the last week our ‘View from the Grassroots’ series has been looking at an interlocking set of… Continue reading
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What might a trip to your GP look like in future By Jonathan Tomlinson
The government’s plans for the future of primary care are long on gimmicks, but short on cash. Jonathan Tomlinson sees a more interesting vision of the future – if sufficient funding is there. Continue reading
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Will volunteers become the sticking plaster holding the NHS together? By Jenny Shepherd
Not a week goes by now without some part of the establishment warning us that the NHS is ‘unaffordable’ in its current form. This austerity mood music struck up in 2008 when New Labour asked the American management consultants McKinsey for advice on how to run the NHS more cheaply, after the government had spent… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 