Health News Blog

Biggest scandal of all time
ITV programme on VIP lane contracts forces us to consider "...something that is almost too disgusting to contemplate: that when our country faced one of its darkest hours, certain people in charge saw not a crisis, but an opportunity."

Covid PPE contracts: Tory leaves the Lords
The Conservative peer Peter Gummer will leave the House of Lords after an investigation found he committed five breaches of standards over Covid PPE deals.

Report urges termination of Palantir contract 
A Medact report recommends the commissioners to  decline the implementation of FDP or any other Palantir products in their local data systems and urges NHS England to terminate its contract with Palantir Technologies.

Privatised eye care undermines NHS
High street opticians can refer patients directly to cataract clinics leading to a lowering of the threshold for surgery (provider led demand). Patients in affluent areas are more likely to be referred, increasing health inequalities. The proportion of the budget for eye services spent on cataract surgery has increased at the expense of funding then left for NHS.

Do ICBs have a future?
You may not have access to this HSJ article, but it questions the value of Integrated Care. "Widespread scepticism about commissioners stems from the fact that, despite the NHS’s 30-plus-year experiment with the purchaser/provider split, the evidence for its efficacy is mixed at best. Many think that ICBs simply get in the way."

Concerns about Palantir contract
Palantir is a US surveillance technology company that also works for the Israeli military and Donald Trump’s ICE operation. Fewer thean half of health authorities in England had started using the technology amid opposition from the public and doctors. Whitehall officials privately warned that the public perception of Palantir would limit its rollout, meaning the contract would not offer value for money.

Many NHS trusts not using Palantir's FDP
Many of England’s largest and most prestigious trusts are yet to start using the federated data platform, despite a push from the centre for full adoption from April 2026.

ICE using Palantir software to hunt "illegals"
US immigration agents are using an app developed by Palantir that draws on the health records of millions of Americans to find and detain people they deem illegal immigrants.

Mandelson-Palantir links must be exposed
Foxglove, a fair tech campaign group, led calls for the Cabinet Office to release information relating to any involvement by Mandelson in the negotiation of Palantir’s contracts. It demands that Keir Starmer and the Cabinet Secretary urgently investigate whether Mandelson used his position as Ambassador to the US to unfairly benefit the secretive US tech company.

Privatiser Milburn earned £8 million from private healthcare
The man chosen to drive through Streeting's NHS "reforms", i.e. privatisation, former Labour health secretary Alan Milburn, has  earned £8.36 million from the consultancy he owns.  He also chairs PricewaterhouseCooper's health industries oversight board and is also a senior advisor to private equity group Bridgepoint Capital, which owns one of England's largest external providers of NHS services . 

Legal review of IHRA for NHS
A judicial review has been launched against the NHS for adopting the antisemitism definition International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Critics say the IHRA definition blurs the line between legitimate criticism of Israel as a state and antisemitism.

Spire to private equity?
The UK’s biggest private hospital provider, Spire Healthcare, is in talks about a sale to private equity. Its leading investor Harwood Capital Management is pressing for a sale. NHS work makes up about 30% of Spire’s revenue and has provided a steady income stream. Private equity milks local authorities funding with immoral disregard.

How many long stay patients?
According to NHS England figures, during November hospitals began each day with an average of more than one in five (over 20,000) front line General and Acute (G&A) beds filled with patients who had had ‘no criteria to remain’ in an acute bed, and should have been discharged. Meanwhile there are patients collapsing in A&E corridors.

The love that is the NHS
Read Anne Perkins's paean to our NHS, it will do your heart good. Equally from a speech by NHS campaigner Sally Ruane "The NHS has always been a profoundly moral institution because it has always embodied a view of how human affairs should be ordered. It was founded on the principle of equity or fairness: that we should all contribute to its funding on the basis of our ability to pay; that we should all have access to its services on the basis of need alone."

Are waiting lists growing or declining?
It's a mixed picture. Read health campaigner John Lister's balanced account. "At this rate it could take 86 years to clear the waiting list."

Will 10 year plan rebuild the NHS?
Former Labour MP Margaret Greenwood thinks not. The plan is fraught with risks not least a new private finance initiative. Here's an example of the disaster that is PFI.

Staff forced out by NHSE abolition
Nearly 200 staff not eligible to work for Department of Health because they are not UK or Commonwealth nationals.

Making Palantir irreplaceable
Palantir is being built into the NHS replacing the old cancer pathway with Palantir Cancer 360, operated by a single staffer rather than significant clinical input and possibly a lot of meetings.

Streeting's irresponsible public tirates
"...the health secretary has far more power to prevent NHS strikes .... not through confrontation, but by rebuilding trust and putting an offer on the table that creates sufficient brand-new training places for doctors - this is the main issue for junior doctors.

Trusts are forced to make cuts
News of plans to save money by cutting staff in NHS trusts and foundation trusts began to emerge in the spring, but has continued through November.