13th July 2021
12 questions on GP ‘data grab’ answered. From ‘who owns my data?’, ‘can government force GPs to hand over data?’ to the misleading claim that opting out will affect your medical care, OpenDemocracy gives the answers.
“NHS” – a logo for partially privatised healthcare. The principles underlying the creation of the National Health Service exemplify solidarity: comprehensive care for all, without charge, publicly owned and provided, funded from taxation. Now we have an underfunded system bent on saving money and denying care. How did we get here?
NHS 73rd birthday protests. NHS campaigners call for end to underfunding. Chair of KONP said “The weakened NHS has been stretched to breaking point by Covid and the population has suffered. Staff are underpaid, overworked and their health put in danger. The new health bill threatens further large scale private contracting.”
Open letter from BMJ to Sajid Javid on pandemic. The British Medical Journal published an open letter advising our new health secretary on handling Covid. Llifting restrictions is a “colossal natural experiment which will put wave three into a super-exponential growth phase”, and the “chaos and waste that has been NHS Test and Trace show no sign of abating, with the government refusing to properly support people who need to self-isolate”.
Mass infection is not an option. A letter in the Lancet explains population immunity is unlikely to be achieved without much higher levels of vaccination than can be reasonably expected by 19th July 2021. More than 17 million people have no protection against Covid, particularly we must do more to protect the young.