24th October 2022

A “flawed model of heroic lendership”
NHS England has become preoccupied with leadership, that’s what the Kirkup inquiry concluded in its investigation into the East Kent maternity scandal. NHSE scrapes around for new leaders, even though we spend less on healthcare than all similar European economies (GDP % France 11.06, Germany 11.70, UK 10.15), and when things go wrong it fires the CEO.

£1600 a day for consultants
NHS England has approved requests for trusts to bring in temporary ’very senior managers’ and consultants on daily rates of up to £1,600. You can’t make it up.

“We believe that general practice is in crisis”
So says the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee, under the chairmanship of Jeremy Hunt, who plainly bears responsibility not only for the state of primary care but for the workforce crisis across the entire NHS. “The Government should provide the funding necessary to create 1,000 additional GP training places per year”….will they? (see page 39 of the report)

Eh? A&E patients to wards even though no beds?
Yes, this is the latest mad scheme, to move A&E patients to wards irrespective of whether there are beds available. So you spread the overcrowding around the hospital, to thin it out, so it doesn’t notice so much. Anything but analyse the NHS crisis, after a decade of Tory underfunding and extending privatisation.

Call handlers on strike, consultants next?
Even the Telegraph is saying that senior consultants may follow 999 call handlers who walked out for 24 hours