Health News Blog

BMJ: "underfunding in the past decade"
The British Medical Journal and the Health Service Journal have written a joint editorial speaking of 2022 that was meant to be the year of full speed recovery. But the NHS is in crisis; "this brutal situation is the culmination of prolonged periods of underfunding in the past decade, lack of a workforce plan, and failure to undertake social care reform."

Test and Trace spent £450 million on consultants
You will remember that Johnson said the Test and Trace system is world-beating. Now it's announced by Jennie Harries on the Health Protection Agency that it spent more than £450 million on management consultants during the pandemic.

Government: fund pay rise from existing budgets
The pay rise described by workers as "disgusting" will give a 5% increase but the health service will be forced foot some of the bill, the Treasury will fund only 3%. This means cuts, possibly allowing posts to remain unfilled when workers leave and fewer hospital beds.

Ambulance hand-overs: NHSE says "take risks"
Behind a paywall but the essence is that NHS England is encouraging hospital trusts to take risks that will "involve the creation of observation areas" - in other words care in hospital corridors. I can imagine A&E nurses saying that they already do! Anything but fund the service adequately.

Covid inquiry: gov't spent £2m on legal advice
Does the government fear what the Covid inquiry will reveal? The Health and Social Care department has signed a £2.2 million contract with international law firm Pinsent Masons to provide additional resources and expertise to support "its contribution to the inquiry".

BMA chair: "doctors strike inevitable"
Professor Philip Banfield, the new chair of the BMA, said that a doctor’s strike is “inevitable” and will expose how dangerously threadbare the Conservatives have left the health service. "The public is already witnessing an NHS that’s disintegrating in places."

Doctors dispute claim Covid caused NHS crisis
Senior doctors have drawn up a dossier refuting Sajid Javid’s claim that the pressures on the NHS were created by the Covid pandemic. It is disingenuous of this government to claim the waiting lists ... with NHS care at the moment are due to Covid. They have been building for a decade."

ICS's and fantasy economics
ICSs are expected to make "efficiency savings" of 5% - this means cuts to services, nurse vacancies left unfilled, at a time when there are already 110,000 NHS vacancies.

The state of a mental health service
Read this harrowing personal account of working with a disturbed youngster in our threadbare mental health service. It doesn't have to be like this, mental health services have been cut repeatedly.

NHS staffing crisis: doctors forced to work extra shifts
Junior doctors are are being sent home from daytime shifts and told to come back and work overnight in the latest stark illustration of the NHS’s crippling staff shortage.

Steve Barclay: 'vindictive bully, hostile to the NHS'
Never has a politician arrived in the post of health secretary trailing a worse reputation among NHS leaders than Steve Barclay.

40 "new" hospitals: where's the cash?
Neither 40 nor new, the flagship Johnson policy represents another deceit. Trusts are saying they don't have funding for the plan. Now it's facing a National Audit Office investigation. Here's the truth.

Ridiculous NHS 'savings' targets
NHS England has warned of cuts to services if it is not given extra funding for staff pay-rises above 3 per cent. The government demand 'efficiency savings' that really mean cuts to services.

UK workers with long Covid 'abandoned'
The rate of Covid-19 caused by workplace exposure is around four times higher in health and social care workers compared to other workers. Two doctors express their disgust at the way healthcare workers with Long Covid have been treated; some are now vulnerable to disciplinary absence procedures, and loss of employment, career and income.

Female doctors launch campaign against mysogyny
Female doctors have launched an online campaign to expose gender-based discrimination, harassment and sexual assault in healthcare. More than 40 stories have been shared on the campaign’s website, ranging from sexual harassment by patients to inappropriate remarks and sexual advances from supervisors.

Labour plan for a National Care Service
We'll wait for real details for what has been obvious for years, the need for a government funded social care service. There's some prevarication by Streeting when he says 'We would not be able to deliver this overnight or even in a single parliament.'

Palantir has 'no place in the NHS'
Palantir, owned by Trump backer Peter Thiel, criticised for its work with the US immigration agency, as well as its intelligence service and defence contracts, is the favourite to win a £360 million contract for the NHS’s Federated Data Platform. Foxglove says Palentir “makes no secret of its desire to keep profiting from war and surveillance”.

Shrinking GP numbers 'threat to patient safety'
In a speech Professor Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of GPs warns that continuity of care is becoming almost impossible to deliver on the NHS amid soaring demand and shrinking numbers of GPs in what he will describe as the “most worrying crisis in decades”.

Public backs the NHS despite right-wing wreckers
In an opinion piece Polly Toynbee takes on the right-wing press for naysaying the NHS. The true comparison with similar countries is that France and Germany have always spent more, with many more beds, doctors and nurses per head of population. The moaners omit the fact that from 2010 saw the harshest NHS funding cuts ever, which began with deep cuts to doctor and nurse training, whose effects we feel now.