Health News Blog

Labour and private sector
Excellent article on the government's intention of greater use of private healthcare. A recent systematic review concluded that “outsourcing of services to the private sector does not seem to deliver both better care and cheaper care.”

Lansley Act 'seriously weakened' the NHS
Britain was hit far harder by the Covid-19 pandemic than other developed countries because the NHS had been “seriously weakened” by disastrous government policies.

NHS campaigner's view of way forward
"Simplistic view that technology, apps and AI are the solution wasted billions and ended in failure". The NHS, when funded to succeed, has been and would be again, one of the very best, safest and most cost-effective health services in the world.

Untrained strike breakers
A trust has been accused of putting patients at risk by bringing in ‘untrained strike-breakers’ from hundreds of miles away and paying for their hotel accommodation to ‘disrupt’ a week-long walkout by facilities management staff. There is no doubt that when out-sourced workers will get poorer terms and conditions of work, for example they will lose their NHS pension rights.

The MAPS dilemma
Here's a well-written assessment of the issue.  There's a new role into the health service, the medical associate professional (MAP). MAPs are usually degree holders who have undergone a two-year condensed and abridged programme of clinical studies. But is it safe? Does it actually reduce costs? Is the quality of care maintained? How much supervision is required and how can it be funded?

Labour must deal with social care crisis
Labour cannot avoid it, there's a crisis in UK care homes. Private equity has seen the profits to be made out of care homes while the wages of 1.6 million care workers are at rock bottom; half of them are below the legal minimum wage. A typical urban local authority has at least 40% less money to spend on social care than it had in 2010.

Another A&E death
Inga Rublite, 39, died after being found unconscious on the floor under a coat eight hours after arriving at A&E at Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham. The Labour government must resolve the under-funding of our health service. The signs are too stark to ignore.

How to rescue the NHS
It seems the new government is determined to echo the Tories’ grim commitment to austerity, while allowing the super-rich and corporations to get even richer. Regarding the NHS, no amount of 'reform' (code for privatisation) will avoid the need for substantial investment for Starmer’s Labour to make real progress.

Findings of Health Foundation report
1) The public’s views of the standard of NHS care and expectations for the future are already low; 2) waiting times of routine services to get worse in coming year: 3) Top priorities for the NHS are reducing the number of staff leaving the NHS by improving working conditions and making it easier to get appointments at GP practices.

Privatisation of mental healthcare
More than £1.4 billion has been spent on private mental health beds between 2019 and 2024 by the NHS in England. In that time, spending had risen by 68%.

Trust 'Too compassionate' to run services
...so East Suffolk and North Essex is out-sourcing its cleaning, catering and portering services. It plans to replace kindly and reasonable management with tough privatised exploitation. So staff are striking over the plan to privatise their jobs; please sign a petition of support.

Private sector not the solution
1) The private sector does not train and recruit its own workforce, it relies on NHS-trained health workers to deliver its services. 2) private sector delivery of care is commonly more expensive than when the NHS does it itself. It means our taxes are going out the door of the NHS and into the pockets of shareholders execs. 3) Private providers reject patients with more complex and therefore resource-draining needs; in other words they cherry-pick. For more click here.

NHS private profits: £10 billion a week
A new analysis by We Own It reveals that £6.7 billion, or £10 million each week, has left the NHS’s budget in the form of profits on all private contracts given by the NHS from January 2012 to May 2024.

Think Milburn is good for the NHS?
Then think again. Here's a run down of Alan Milburn's effect on the NHS, his support for greater private sector involvement, of expanding PFI in the NHS saying "[PFI] is cheaper, better, better value for money.. We know different don't we.

NHSE instructs trusts to use FDP
This article is behind a paywall. It tells us that a £330 million contract to provide the FDP was awarded to US firm Palantir last November. NHS England has told trusts they must begin to use the national Federated Data Platform and its analytic products within two years. The move to require its use marks a sharp departure from the approach taken at the platform’s launch. One comment added  "...[the FDP] program remains operationally unproven. It offers a tiny number of things that Trusts neither want nor need, Is delivered by a supplier they don’t trust..."

Two child benefit cap and hospital admissions
A study demonstrates that curbing child poverty by scrapping the two-child benefit cap would save hundreds of lives a year and avoid thousands of admissions to hospital.