Health News Blog

Starmer’s targets 'unachievable' without more funds
The Society for Acute Medicine represents hospital doctors: "Starmer’s desire for a return to 92% of patients waiting a maximum of 18 weeks was “doomed” unless overstretched NHS urgent and emergency care services such as A&E and ambulance services, were dramatically improved." ...

...yet ICBs are told to cut services
Nearly all 42 Integrated Care Systems (ICS) in England are told to restrict spending by a collective total of around £8 billion. But what about the money from the budget? It will help, but high demand for care, pay rises, and inflation all chip away at the rise. NHS England demands that ICBs stay within budget. The primary focus for making these substantial savings is the NHS's most significant area of expenditure: its workforce.

Long waits for child mental health services
"Imagine what we could achieve with the right resources to build an effective mental health service. Prevention and early intervention would be a daily reality rather than a hoped-for future, and crisis referrals for children would be rare, rather than the frequent occurrence they are today."

Building private hospitals with NHS funds
According to the Telegraph, the private healthcare sector is prepared to spend £1 billion on expanding their own facilities so that they can treat more NHS patients. In exchange, the government will guarantee them access to NHS contracts and budgets for the long term, such is the profit they already make from the NHS.

Private healthcare booms, NHS is in crisis
Record numbers of patients are being forced to pay out of pocket in order to be seen quicker. Private providers are being paid enormous sums to deliver procedures that should be done by the NHS. We are hurtling towards a two-tier health system. The new government has an opportunity to set our NHS on the road to recovery. But so far they have not committed to the lifesaving policies our NHS so desperately needs - increased investment, fair pay for NHS staff, an end to outsourcing of NHS outsourcing .

Your chance to tell Wes ....
Have your say! Add your views to this WeOwnIt template. Tell him about the myth of private hospital "spare" capacity. Or that only by employing and training more staff will restore the NHS...funded to succeed, not defunded to fail.

Rehashed policies: didn't work then, so why now?
The appointment of Alan Milburn as ‘lead non-executive member’ to the board of the Department of Health and Social Care has dredged back up a failed politician. Milburn saddled the NHS with Private Finance Initiative-funded hospitals and a plethora of contracts for private providers before he went off to make millions in the private sector.

Doctors warn of "massive winter crisis"
The president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said: “This is a stark warning from those on the frontline. Clinicians are worried and patients are unsafe... It looks like we are facing a massive crisis."

If a plane is under safety review, it's grounded...
30-year-old Emily Chesterton died from a pulmonary embolism after a misdiagnosis from a physician associate. She thought she was seeing a GP.  So why do PAs continue to treat patients?

Streeting's plan for the NHS
Have we learnt nothing from 14 wretched years of Tory austerity, privatisation and draconian outsourcing? We are told the big NHS plan is to be … naming and shaming? Hospital league tables, introduced by Alan Milburn, who has just been hired as Streeting's advisor, are a simplistic and retrograde gimmick.

Covid use of private sector examined
The Centre for Health and Public Interest has investigated the use of private hospitals during Covid. The NHS paid the private hospital sector’s full operating costs at an estimated cost of £2 billion. We were told that this contract would provide additional capacity to assist the NHS when it was being overwhelmed. In fact the private sector were allowed to treat large numbers of fee-paying patients; the contract placed limits on the number of NHS patients which could be treated.

Myth of spare capacity in private sector
Nearly all the doctors working in the private sector do it on a part time basis and work for the NHS the rest of the time. The main constraint on clearing the NHS backlog is not lack of operating theatres but the number of consultant surgeons and anaesthetists. There is only one pool of such healthcare professionals in the UK and unless that pool expands significantly and quickly, pushing patients into the private sector will have little impact on the overall waiting list.

Wife died because NHS used 'cheap labour'
Roy Pollitt did not know his 77-year-old wife was being treated by a PA, who are only required to have two years' medical training, and believes "she would have lived if the NHS had not used cheap labour".

Concern over physician assistants (PAs)
As the result of professional concern over the clinical use of PAs, the government has ordered a review of the regulation of physician assistants.

Charles taxes the NHS
£11.4 million - that's how much King Charles made from letting the NHS rent a warehouse to store its ambulances.

Rapid expansion of PA roles
NHS Employers has set out guidance on employing physician associates (PAs), which advises those employing physician assistants (PAs) to ‘review adverts and job descriptions’ for the role to ensure they do not ‘blur the lines’ between PAs and doctors.

NHS needs in-sourcing
New We Own It research shows the NHS loses £10 million a week to private profit from outsourced NHS services. Plus, the reasons why outsourcing is a failed policy.

Trust threats tenants eviction
Workers housed in on-site accommodation blocks face eviction by Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust.

New £1.5 billion for NHS capital spend
The NHS will be given an additional £1.5 billion in capital funding next year to spend on new surgical hubs and scanners. Of course, where the trained staffing comes from is a separate matter.