Health News Blog

£9 billion wasted on PPE
£9.9 billion of the £13.6 billion worth of PPE that the government bought between 2020 and 2022 was unusable. Ministers have been accused of throwing away taxpayers’ money “as if it were confetti”.

Hospital pathology outsourcing costs £100 million
Whittington Health Trust is outsourcing its pathology services to a private firm at a cost of £100 million. It claims it will gain greater economies and efficiencies, but at what cost to the service it gives?

I'd rather see a doctor
Following a patient death caused by a misdiagnosis by a physician assistant, Nigel Edwards of the Nuffield Trust says "I'd rather see a doctor".

10 years to clear NHS waiting lists
The Institute of Public Policy research says in a report that even if the next government matched previous rates of improvement, it would take nearly 10 years to recover levels of access in the NHS, such is its state after 13 years of neglect.

New year "storm of pressure" for NHS
A surge in the number of flu and Covid admissions threatens the NHS in January 2024.

Palantir: Is there an opt out?
Confusion reigns. NHS England has not published enough details to know whether patients’ objections will be respected, whether and where it believes they don’t apply, and/or whether the Government will make everyone opt out again.

Ophthalmology risks becoming largely privatised
Royal College of Ophthalmologists’ has said a review needed to look at the entire commissioning process and argued generous tariff rates for cataracts were resulting in some patients with very mild cataracts getting surgery at the expense of other patients going blind, which he said was just wrong.

Palantir offices shut down
Hundreds of health workers have shut down the London HQ of Palantir in protest at the awarding of NHS contracts to a company complicit in Israel's 'ongoing genocide in Gaza'.

"Going to be  a terrible winter"
The warning signs were clear: the NHS was starting to slide into another winter crisis. So observed a Unison branch chair and paramedic for nearly four decades. Sunak has reneged on promises to slash long waiting times with a promise of thousands more beds, 800 new ambulances and an expansion of community care backed by a dedicated fund of £1 billion.

Private equity profiteering on care homes
Close to one in four places in a children’s care home in England now ultimately have the involvement of an investment company. One private equity group had pre-tax profits last year of £27.7 million.

Mone and the morals of the super rich
Here's a number of readers' letters on the PPE Michelle Mone scandal. "If Michelle Mone thinks it’s not a crime to lie to the press, then in that spirit, I’d like to say what a warm and wonderful human being she is." Gove has said he's cooperating with the inquiry.

NHS facing catastrophic winter crisis
Roayl College of Emergency Medicine: "it is clear that firm pledges made by the government less than a year ago to deliver the 'largest and fastest' improvement in emergency response times ever, before this winter, would not be honoured."

It's going to be a terrible winter,,,
Tim Gardner of the Health Foundation said "Trolley waits of 12 hours or more rarely happened a decade ago, but in November there were about 1,400 a day in England, similar to November a year earlier."

Maternity investment "nowhere near good enough"
Donna Ockendon, midwife and expert tasked by government and NHS England to investigate maternity scandals has criticised ministers for failing to provide the funding necessary to address the problems.

Mone admits she lied about links to PPE Medpro
The former Conservative peer Michelle Mone has admitted that she lied when she denied repeatedly having been involved with a company that made millions of pounds in profits from UK government PPE deals during the pandemic.