Health News Blog

NHS staff: 'Brutalised and burnt out'
There's an escalating mental health crisis that has seen hospital staff take more than 8 million days off sick in the past five years. A hospital consultant said "“We brutalised our staff for months on end. Then, not surprisingly, quite a lot of them have left or retired." The government does nothing about ther staffing crisis.

Staff shortages left NHS vulnerable to Covid pandemic
Capacity in the NHS is about skilled workers and that tap can’t be turned on in an instant. We are reaping the seeds of years of workforce policy and planning failures. So says Anita Charlesworth, director of the Health Foundation.

After 12 Tory years it's come to this
Volunteers to be used to assist with ambulance emergency call-outs. It comes with ambulance response times at the worst level ever recorded – prompting the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Katherine Henderson, to say lives are being put at risk.

Women in poor areas die earlier than most other countries
Women living in the 10% most deprived parts of England have a lower life expectancy than the average woman in countries such as Colombia (79.8 years), Latvia (79.7 years). Globally, only Mexico has a lower overall life expectancy (77.9 years) than women in the poorest parts of England.

Is Sajid Javid putting political ideology before prevention?
This article identifies government cuts in public health budgets. The public health grant fell by a quarter from 2015 to 2021. It had reduced support grants for local government and thus a range of wider supportive and preventive services and wider determinants of health. The Institute for Fiscal Studies found that local authorities in the most deprived areas had been hit hardest.

The state of the NHS after 12 Tory years
Yes Covid has provided cover for Tory mismanagement and underfunding, but this is the current state of the NHS. Firstly, families have been asked to take in Covid-positive loved ones. Secondly, staff shortages that were there even before the pandemic have caused cancer patients face delays, and thirdly, swamped mental health services are turning children away.

Falling public satisfaction after 12 Tory years
At 36%, overall satisfaction with the NHS is at its lowest level since 1997. Importantly. the British public do not want an insurance based health system; it wants a taxation-based adequately-funded health service.

The Tories created the NHS crisis
Opinion piece it may be, but you know it's true. "Ministers can blame Covid, but the NHS was already plagued with a 4.4m waiting list. There are fewer doctors, nurses, beds and intensive care places than in comparable countries".

Javid cuts NHS funding, then gives it 13 objectives!!
This article is behind a pay wall, but you see enough. The government has cut NHS funding for 2022-23 by £330 million. It then gives it 13 objectives that includes "recovering and maintaining non-covid service delivery". Achievable?

Odd way to thank staff: free parking stopped
Parking fees were waived for workers for hospital workers on the Covid-19 frontline in July 2020, but health secretary Sajid Javid has put a stop to it.

Shrewsbury and Telford maternity scandal
Maternity crises are not limited to the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital trust. The Royal College of Midwives has been warning of a crisis in NHS midwifery, but the Tories have consistently ignored appeals from many professional bodies.

Ockenden: need a maternity-wide workforce plan
Here's an extract from the report, page xi, into the maternity scandal at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital trust. "...there is an urgent need for a robust and funded maternity-wide workforce plan, starting right now, without delay and continuing over multiple years." Will the government act?

ICSs told: 'Break even in 2022-23'
Campaigners have feared that Integrated Care Systems will bring rationing of care. Now Javid is making it clear that's exactly what we'll get.

Campaigners force hospital to remain open
Campaigners in the South Lakes have won their battle to keep the Westmoreland General hospital open. Congratulations to them; it proves campaigning works.

Overseas nurses forced to pay 000s to quit
Nurses recruited from overseas working in hospitals and private care homes are trapped in their jobs by clauses in their contracts that require them to pay thousands of pounds if they try to leave.

Stop the Vaccine Manufacturing Centre sell off
The Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre was launched in 2018 using public money. The centre develops vaccines to help the UK deal with pandemics like COVID 19. Now the Tories want to sell it off. Sign the petition against it here.

NHS Bill: a threat to universal care
Read an NHS campaigner's analysis of the government's Bill. "The fact that the government are trying to push this legislation through under the radar speaks volumes about their prediction of criticism, and should ring alarm bells with all who care about the future of the NHS as a fully comprehensive and public service."

The Lords showed no opposition
The NHS Bill has now completed its Lords stage, where significant amendments could have been made. But of the 477 amendments put down only 14 minor changes were made. The "Corproate Takeover Bill" sends our NHS on to the sunny uplands of the free-market promised land.

NHS to cut 'core funding' by £500 million
The government has asked NHS England to reduce core NHS funding by hundreds of millions of pounds in 2022-23.

More government scandal over PPE contracts
Firstly Hancock failed to notify his officials about private messages he exchanged with disgraced Conservative MP Owen Paterson, who operated as a healthcare firm’s paid lobbyist. Now it's revealed that Michael Gove secretly emailed a PPE company linked to the Tory peer Michelle Mone to secure huge government contracts.

NHS CEOs appointed with no healthcare experience
There's a paywall here but it says that NHS England and the Care Quality Commission have appointed chairs who had careers in the City, while the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has appointed a CEO with a background in, you guessed it, insurance. We are also thrown a CEO to NHS Business Services Authority who had a career in banking.