7th September 2021
“Tax the wealthy to pay for social care”
TUC leader Francis O’Grady tells us “seven in 10 social care staff earn less than £10 an hour and one in four are employed on zero-hours contracts”. This is a moral and political outrage, taxing those most able to pay for social care and not young low paid workers IS morally and politically right.
Looming staffing crisis in social care
There’s a pay wall to this article but its story is that a significant numbers of social care workers will leave if, as is planned, they are required to be vaccinated. There’s already a shortage of staff but a crisis looms with many leaving the industry.
A million have opted out: data grab is on hold
More than a million patients have opted out of allowing their GP data to be used in the new General Practice Data for Planning and Research scheme. The deadline was first delayed until September; not their having a “listening exercise”.
Integrated Care: another Tory top-down reorganisation
Following Lansley’s privatising 2012 Health and Social Care Act the Conservative government is imposing another top-down reorganisation, euphemistically labelled “Integrated Care”. The real issues facing the NHS are understaffing, underfunding, and privatisation. The Bill will do nothing for the first two of these and will accelerate privatisation.
Private ambulance firm kicked out on NHS
This HSJ article has a pay wall, but in essence, the Care Quality Commission have “deregistered” Keighley-based KFA Medical. It provided patient transport services to Airedale General Hospital and the Royal Bolton Hospital, badly. The litany of CQC reported problems included dirty ambulances, poor basic training and doubts over management skills.
Any hospital building project now a “new hospital”
Another HSJ article with a pay wall but so laughable that it has to be reported. To support the now infamous Johnson lies, we now have an instruction in a government communication ‘playbook’ that any refurbishment should be described in government reports as ‘a new hospital’.