There has been some limited debate amongst committee members about the use of rude words on our website. It occurred to me that we could dispense with the voluminous list of Anglo Saxon obscenities and import a very emphatic word from the German vocabulary. Quatsch is an expletive with onomatopoeic explosiveness. For those not versed….
NHS Threats
Lewisham – no decisions about me without me !!??
The Draft Report of the Trust Special Administrator (TSA) called in to deal with the financial crisis at South London Healthcare Trust centres mainly on changes at the neighbouring University Hospital Lewisham. It is proposed that this hospital should lose its A&E and its critical care, complex surgery and complex medical services, despite the fact….
Gaming in the English NHS
The first article by Jonathon Tomlinson a GP from Hoxton (inner city London GP practice) on this website, gives you an insight into how the market has “forced” hospitals to use gaming tactics in order to finance their budget. You should read this in conjunction with Matthew Dunnigan’s research showing the exorbitant way in which….
The Bill that till Effectively Legalise Fraud
As the government looks to open up the NHS further to private companies, it has been as coy in its description of the companies looking to profit from this as the companies themselves. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley hardly mentions that these companies will be making a profit from his reforms, preferring to talk about modernisation….
Evidence (??) based politics takes another hit
Dr Peter Samuel puts the Scottish cat amongst the Lansley pigeons The NHS in England may be in turmoil, but a major new academic study claims its Scottish equivalent should serve as a role model for the public sector. According to the findings of a two-year report, post-devolution healthcare in Scotland represents a ?ground-breaking? approach….
Clive’s critique v Coalition’s codswallop re privatisation
The government’s health reforms fulfil commonly accepted criteria for privatisation. Repeated government denials about NHS privatisation don’t stand up to scrutiny. In response to widespread criticism of the proposed reforms of the NHS in England, the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, the prime minister, David Cameron, the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, and the chancellor of….
The Plot Against the NHS by Colin Leys
This lecture, given at Goldsmiths College, is based on the book The Plot Against the NHS, by Colin Leys and Stewart Player, published on April 14th. The common view of the changes proposed in the government’s Health and Social Care Bill is that they would be the most radical changes ever made to the NHS…..
BMJ Editorial underlining the stupidity of rushing through NHS reforms
“Dr” Lansley’s Monster Tony Delamothe, deputy editor Fiona Godlee, editor in chief The British Medical Journal London WC1H 9JRT, UK What do you call a government that embarks on the biggest upheaval of the NHS in its 63 year history, at breakneck speed, while simultaneously trying to make unprecedented financial savings? The politically correct answer….
The truth about the lies that encouraged NHS PFIs
Labour ministers only paid £5 billion of the £65 billion “spent” on building more than 100 hospitals between 1997 and 2010. The rest of the money, some £60 billion, must still be repaid by the taxpayer – with some of the gigantic debt lasting for more than 30 years. The highest profile case concerns….
Absence of evidence base for NHS reforms in England
The rule of ignorance: a polemic on medicine, English health service policy, and history. by John V Pickstone, research professor Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine University of Manchester Manchester M13 9PL, UK Over the past two centuries dogmatism and quackery have been substantially reduced in clinical medicine, albeit unevenly. Over recent….