Is the NHS safe in Tory (or Labour) hands

Just had this sent in an email. Hope it's not true.

"A confidential source has given me the 'heads up' that major 'voluntary' redundancies are starting in NHS England.

Over 200 properties have been auctioned off for a fraction of their value by Jeremy Hunt under the guise of its private company NHS property services Ltd. There are plans to sell off its facilities management section to any willing provider.

Charming!"

This is interesting. I agree with the first sentence. How many of you know that your hospital trusts are fined for not hitting targets?

"Few patients realise that if their local A&E misses its waiting time targets, or receives too big an increase in the number of its A&E patients, it is hit with huge fines. Just one hospital, Royal Stoke, this month revealed it has had to set aside £2million for fines for missing targets (including a £3/4 million fine for long A&E waits). Imposing such fines on already struggling hospitals is a singularly stupid policy, when A&Es are mostly just the frontline to which problems elsewhere in the NHS back up.

Unsurprisingly, hospitals play whatever tricks they can to avoid missing targets. Last year nearly 300,000 patients waited more than half an hour in the back of an ambulance before being allowed through the door to start the A&E clock. As well as endangering patients, this messes up the ambulance service’s targets - but in the fragmented (or ‘competitive’) modern NHS, that’s another Trust’s (or company’s) problem (and fines)."

This is one reason why competition in the NHS should be done away with.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/andy-mcsmiths-diary-the-tories-missing-reports-on-weaponising-mass-distraction-10009264.html?origin=internalSearch

Why is mine not to the point? The hospitals are telling the government that the hospitals will not be safe if they have to implement more cuts next April. I think that is very much to the point. The thread title was is the NHS safe in Tory hands.
It was on the BBC news as well.

Not sure about all of this pre election propaganda doing the rounds at the minute. My mum is a dialysis patient and is being bombarded with shit rubbish from the various ambulance ( patient transport not paramedic)drivers ,on whom she relies for patient transport. They are moaning on a daily basis that they have had to drive from A to B and back from B to A etc. She is becoming quite distressed about it!

Well I'm sorry but isn't that their job?

More to the point (of this thread)

blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/01/andy-burnhams-car-crash-interview-shows-why-labour-cant-be-trusted-with-the-nhs/

A good thing happened today, too. Hospitals are at last telling the government they have had enough.

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/29/englands-biggest-hospitals-refuse-nhs-budget-patient-safety-fears

You're safe to go to hospital tomorrow.

Fingers and toes crossed none of us need to!!
(better uncross my toes in case I fall over!)

Not in Wales they weren't...

Better than it would have been, though. They were asking for doctors to drive them!

But don't hold your breath if you're waiting for an ambulance in Wales! (Won't bother posting a link, but waiting times are down yet again...)

One good thing happened today.

www.onmedica.com/newsarticle.aspx?id=efbc2c1e-4362-44f5-adde-16561e6dd787

You're safe to go to hospital tomorrow.

I managed to do it, fingers crossed
www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/11750288.Welsh_waiting_times_too_long___audit_office_report

Apparently (I cannot do links easily on the tab, so cannot confirm in the post):

The Welsh Audit Office had found that NHS performance in Wales has been getting worse, whereas England and Scotland are performing better against tougher targets.

According to the report, 1 in 10 patients in Wales had to wait more than 26 weeks for treatment and 3% more than 36 weeks in March last year.
A Welsh Government spokesman welcomed the report saying it shows that 9 out of 10 patients are waiting less than 26 weeks for treatment.

It's the way you tell'em. !

I must say that a young family member has received excellent emergency treatment in a Welsh hospital this week.

I did a poll ana

There was one participant - just me

The English NHS is patchy, some excellent, some not good.
The Welsh NHS is patchy, some excellent, some not good.

I am speaking from experience of both.
Like the curate's egg, good in parts.

QED (or not whatever you wish to think)

Thank you, rosequartz...

Not only unscientific, but positively misleading IMO.

It isn't a report, is it. It's an opinion poll.

The answers will be based on people's experiences, thoughts and hearsay.
Not at all scientific in fact.

Yes, but I think you've missed my point loopylou. How can a random sample of Welsh residents possibly give a considered opinion as to whether the NHS performs better or worse in Wales than in England?

ICM Research interviewed a random sample, of 1,004 adults aged 18+ by telephone on 8-13 January 2015. Interviews were conducted across Wales and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.
It says at the end so I guess is as representative as any other poll?

But it's basically just the results of an opinion poll. They don't say who was polled, whether they'd had experience of NHS treatment in England as well as Wales, or even at all!

I just don't understand how it can be given any credibility at all.

Perhaps the Welsh figures have been 'massaged' ? Possibly by a foreign nurse. Doing overtime.

Or rather, whether the NHS performs better in England than Wales, or vice versa.

I find the results of the ICM/BBC Wales poll puzzling. Unless the people who responded have had experience of treatment in both Wales and England, they're just guessing as to where treatment is better.

The most up-to-date report yet about NHS Wales.

t.co/xMHxjR7IU6