Hospital building repairs now £14 billion
The cost of eradicating the total for NHS building repairs reaches a new high, almost £14 billion.

No Palantir in our NHS!
NHS England has given a £330 million contract to handle unprecedented amounts of health data to an American spy-tech firm currently supplying the Israeli military with advanced AI weaponry.  Health worker campaign group Medact has launched a campaign to highlight exactly who Palantir is, and what it does.

Private healthcare invests in Streeting
Good Law Project research shows that more than 60% of the money invested in the new health secretary since he entered parliament in 2015 has come from companies and individuals with links to private health.

Permission to go to toilet?
Staff at University Hospital Southampton were told to ask for permission to go to the toilet, with women having to request extra time if they had their period. The Unite union, which represents 59 porters at UHS, opened a ballot for strike action.

Community care handed to private equity
By paying a fixed population budget, regardless of numbers of patients and treatments, the ICB transfers financial risk to the prime provider, Health Care Resourcing Group, formerly known as Virgin Care, and its subcontractors. What standard of care will a profit-making firm provide?

BMA vote to phase out PAs
Very often patients in GP surgeries, are seen by who they think is a doctor but is in fact a physician assistant. PAs have been introduced owing to a shortage of GPs. But a recent tragic misdiagnosis has contributed to concern and now the BMA has voted to phase out PAs. But will surgeries that employ them respond?

SOS NHS: Why privatisation isn't the answer
Join a meeting in person or online here to consider the pros and cons of NHS privatisation. All we have to do is look across the pond to see the dangers of privatised healthcare; medical bankruptcy, patients denied essential care for lack of insurance.

Private provider takes over community care
HCRG Care Group (formerly known as Virgin Care) will be the "lead" provider (which implies sub-contracting) for Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire. The trust decided in 2022 not to extend the contract to Virgin Care following its acquisition by private equity firm Twenty20Capital, but then reversed the decision.

Say "No" to using NHS budget to private healthcare
If you are concerned by the news that Streeting is considering plans that would guarantee private health companies public money and contracts for the long term, in exchange for promises that they'll invest £1 billion into building up their own facilities, then send him an email here.

Labour must learn from the past
...when they last took over from the Tories. Then, hundreds of billions of additional spending was invested in the NHS, to recover from austerity, and bring health spending on a par with comparable countries in Europe.

Wes considers using private sector...So?
Streeting says he'll use the private sector to cut waiting times, but what is the evidence? In its research  the Health Federation says "...ISPs’ [independent sector providers] ability to increase capacity was limited. Care was often just displaced from NHS hospitals to private hospitals, rather than increasing the overall volume of care." And The Lancet says "...our research raises doubts about whether the current extent of private sector use is optimal for the quality of care and ... further increases in for-profit provision would be a mistake."

PFI firm: "We'll close down if fines imposed"
A private finance initiative company has warned it may go bust if a hospital imposes any more fines after “severe” fire safety defects were found at its community hospital run by the firm.

How "efficiency savings" impacted the NHS
Here's a bit of history but it's worth a look. So called efficiency savings meant cuts, cuts and more cuts!

NHS data: Overseas patients fear privacy invasion
A new data category called Overseas Visitor Charging would be created in national NHS records under government proposals. Doctors of the World, which runs clinics for undocumented migrants said: “Major data-sharing arrangements like this one make it very difficult for us to reassure patients that hospitals are safe places."

Breaching care homes are privately run
Over recent decades there has been a growth of private for-profit provision; yet public and third-sector providers consistently outperform for-profit providers on quality measures by industry regulators. Public and third-sector adult care homes and children's homes show higher regulatory inspections ratings.

"Offer GPs a contract like consultants"
A trust chief executive has said GPs should be brought into the NHS by offering them a contract similar to hospital consultants who are employed by their hospital trust. Currently a GP surgery is a stand-alone entity with one of three types of contract.

What are Labour's "unthinkable" NHS reforms?
This article suggests some, for example changing GP employment as above, raising prescription charges, it even says "using the private sector" but it admits it doesn't have the capacity (which is correct so why suggest it?) None of these will make much difference ....Or we could even fund our health service to the extent that similar european countries do!