Health News Blog

Privatised ugent treatment centres
It's likely you have a clinic within your local A&E set up to take minor injuries. These are UTCs and it's also likely that it's run by a private company. One such company, Totally PLC, runs 11 urgent treatment centres, including at London’s King’s College, West Middlesex, Woolwich Queen Elizabeth and Orpington Princess Royal hospitals.

The NHS is deliberately under funded
Yes it is, read here. The government confuses people  by saying the NHS gets record funding. But this isn't enough. We must fund the NHS to the level of comparable economies and rebuild health services. Raising taxes by equalising capital gains with income tax rates could raise £15.2 billion a year.

NHS: a jewel of socialist solidarity
The principles underlying the creation of the NHS continue to exemplify social solidarity; comprehensive health care for all, publicly owned and provided, funded from progressive taxation. Prior to the Thatcher governments there was a broad consensus regarding the nature of the NHS.  Since then there has been a slow conversion to market principles, leading to its fall in international comparison of health systems.

Scale of NHS problems facing Labour
"The social destruction of austerity has created a health deficit that may prove more onerous to shift than the national debt.Labour people admit it may take more than one term to restore the NHS to its peak state of 2010, when it recorded its shortest waiting times and highest satisfaction".

"Fund the NHS properly!"
“If Wes Streeting is seeking solutions to the problems in the NHS, he should commit to a significant pay rise for NHS staff, he should commit investment to fix crumbling buildings, and he should commit to ending private outsourcing” says Dr Julia Grace Patterson, chief executive of the Every Doctor campaign.

End private hospital deaths, invest in the NHS
The government has sent NHS patients to get operations in private hospitals, funded by taxpayers. Labour backs this policy. The vast majority of private hospitals do not have intensive care units, meaning that if patients develop complications there, their lives are in danger. View the Panorama investigation here.

Maternity delays cause thousands of safety alert
Maternity departments are raising thousands of safety reports every year about delayed inductions of labour. Nearly half of all hospital maternity services covered so far by a national inspection programme have been rated as substandard.

Patients not on waiting lists due to A&G
Advice and Guidance (A&G) is a device GPs are urged to use to sideline patients who otherwise would be referred to hospitals.

Long A&E waits cause 250 extra deaths
A study reveals that long waits in A&E have caused at least 250 needless deaths. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine analysed the 1.5 million who waited 12 hours or more to be admitted in 2023. 

Physician assistants obscure 1st degrees
Courses in becoming a physician assistant ask for degrees that contain little or no scientific content. The BMA call for an inquiry into the issue of PAs replacing qualified doctors. Doctors have been reporting instances where gaps in medical rotas are being filled by PAs.  

Thousands of foreign nurses leaving UK
New research by the Health Foundation shows that about 9000 nurses are leaving the UK to find better paid jobs abroad. UK nurses earn substantially less than many of their counterparts in Australia, New Zealand and US.

Repairing Tory damage to NHS
'Is Wes Streeting up to the task ...?' asks a Telegraph coloumist. Sir Michael Marmot says Streeting is half right, it might need reform but it must have comparable funding to equivalent European countries. 

The quality of care of privatisation
Based on the evidence, a scientific review challenges the justifications for health-care privatisation and concludes that the scientific support for further privatisation of health-care services is weak.

Physician assistants: the hidden agenda
We know that physician assisants are replacing doctors, but read about 'algorythmic medicine' - you cannot replace the skill of a real doctor.

British Social Attitudes: NHS Survey
Just 24% of people across England, Scotland and Wales, the fewest on record, are satisfied with the health service. However, 82% said that it should be funded primarily from taxation, 84% think the NHS has a major or severe funding problem, and forty-eight per cent want the government to increase taxes and spend more on the NHS.