Looks like it could soon be 'RIP the NHS'?

It's the sort of thing that is going to happen with only 44 TPs and A&E departments between 40 and 70.
I said earlier that if there was only one in my STP, it could quite easily mean people having to travel over an hour to an A&E. It means that already in Northumberland. Berwick or Haltwhistle to Cramlington will take over an hour in an ambulance.
They've already moved the air ambulance to Teesside.

No, it doesn't make me happy. What would make me happy would be if Hunt was sacked, and the government took notice of what they are doing to the NHS, before it's too late.
Cameron's legacy.
I wonder if he will get a job in a private healthcare company.

That's a post I can at least respect Durhamjen.

If you or any other has to use black humour talking about the death of an individual to make a point then I don't think the point is ever made.

"Stevens had been knocked unconscious and the Health Secretary had a compound fracture of his thigh bone that was already bleeding heavily. He was semi-conscious and rambling.

Their conversation was interrupted by the single tone of the cardiac monitor.

"Looks like we're going to need a new health secretary.”

Reminds me of the idiots who thought it funny to mock the terrible death of the poor boy killed by the Polar Bear. Why do it, it seems to follow a certain 'group' of people like s--t on a stick.

So what about the lack of A&Es, and the point that his spad did not know that private hospitals do not have A&Es?
That's the point of it, surely.
Are you bothered about the fact that in a couple of years many people will have to travel at least an hour to an A&E?

I would probably have died the weekend that NHSE came into being if that had been the option.

I heard on the radio this morning that there was a list of 50 things that the British were proud of.
Don't know where it was from, but number 1 on the list was the NHS.

I felt quite pleased at that. Then I went to get my newspaper.
This was front page of the i.

inews.co.uk/essentials/news/health/doctaly-online-private-gp-appointment-service-expand-across-uk-2018/

That's not the NHS that we are proud of, surely, people who have money being able to jump the queue at the GPs.

nhaspace.com/2016/09/08/newspeak-and-the-nhs/

A practice in Banbury has handed back the contract.

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/hot-topics/stop-practice-closures/18000-practice-set-to-close-as-gp-partners-hand-back-contract/20032801.article

On the pulse today website there is a map of surgeries that could be affected by closures.

It was the firstday today of the inquiry into Hunt's imposition of the junior doctors contract, and whether he acted illegally.

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/19/jeremy-hunt-acted-illegally-junior-doctors-contract-court-hears

I thought this, in The Guardian this morning, was quite extraordinary:

Theresa May is more trusted than Jeremy Corbyn to tackle the most urgent problems in post-Brexit Britain, including safeguarding the NHS, according to a new poll seen exclusively by the Guardian.

The story was actually headed : Poll: May is more trusted than Corbyn on NHS
I note that it has a different header in the on-line version

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/22/theresa-may-more-trusted-than-jeremy-corbyn-britains-key-issues-poll

How, when the Conservatives appear to be hell bent on destroying the NHS ready for privatisation can people trust May over Corbyn? I can't help feeling that responses were based more on personalities than on the policies of either politicians' parties.

Just read the article.

My theory is that people trust May more than Corbyn to limit immigration. They blame immigrants for the NHS's woes, therefore they trust May more than Corbyn on the NHS. A strong opposition would destroy that argument.

You could be right about immigration connection daphnedill. I was speaking to a neighbour about local CCG meeting I have just attended. They are 14.5 million in debt rising to possibly 31 million by end of next year, unless they make drastic cuts in services. They term "cuts" "disinvestment" and decommissioning"! My neighbour said that it was possibly due to all the immigrants putting strain on services. I replied "hang about, there are very few immigrants in our leafy area of Shropshire, and those there are, are running the health service"....

It's the same in many of the areas which voted Leave. They have the lowest percentage of immigrants, yet complain that they're using hospitals and schools and stealing jobs. Doh!

The UK has total control over immigrants from outside the EU and most EU immigrants are young and fit and don't put a strain on the NHS. It's more likely their taxes are going towards paying for it.

Trouble is daphne people don't want "facts".

What else would you expect of focus groups in Harlow and Leamington Spa?

There are far too many overpaid managers in the NHS now. The pyramid needs to be turned the right way up!

What's wrong with Harlow?

@bluebellwoods

There are too many NHS managers doing the wrong jobs, such as commissioning and analysing targets. There aren't enough managers where it really matters - in hospitals, etc.

Nothing wrong with Harlow, daphne. It's just that if you are going to have focus groups and claim they are representative, it's best not to have them all in Tory strongholds.
Robert Halfon, MP.

I agree with you about NHS commissioning. The amount of NHS money spent on admin now compared to before the new system is phenomenal. It was this government that said it was going to get rid of all the admin, and put more money into the front line. Now they are reorganising the NHS again into 44 footprints, it will need even more organising, so less money for the frontline.

www.kingsfund.org.uk/topics/nhs-reform/mythbusters/nhs-managers

Here's an interesting fact.
If the NHS was a country, it would be the 31st largest in the world. In this country, only BP and Shell are bigger than the NHS.

@dj

You obviously don't know Harlow!

Harlow is a bellwether constituency. It was built as a new town for London overspill in the 1950s. It still has a high number of council houses and a much higher than average (for Essex) unemployment rate. I think it has the highest crime rate in Essex and certainly has a major drugs problem. Pockets of Harlow have some of the highest levels of multiple deprivation in the country. It has quite a high percentage of EU immigrants.

The constituency includes some of the leafier more rural areas surrounding the town.

Harlow was a Labour stronghold until the mid 70s, when I guess some people sold their vote for the opportunity to buy their council house. It was Labour during the Blair years and then was a marginal. The MP was Conservative Jerry Hayes, who is on the left of the Conservative Party. The current MP is Robert Halfon, who is a popular constituency MP and pretty decent (for a Conservative ). He wrote an article about deprivation, which showed more knowledge of grassroots problems than I think I've ever read in anything by a Labour MP.

PS. Despite the social problems and pockets of poverty, which should make Harlow a Labour seat, I can't see the population voting for a Corbyn-led Labour Party. If anything, Ukip will gain votes. Labour needs to win back seats such as Harlow, if it's going to form a government.

I don't know Harlow, and never pretended to, but it sounds very much like Peterborough, where I lived for ten years in the 70s and 80s, another London overspill newtown, with a high immigrant population, which now has a Tory MP.
Doesn't get over the point that to choose two places with Tory MPs as focus groups looks a bit biased to anybody who notices these things.

He might have written an article about deprivation, but he voted with the government on anything to do with the welfare bill.
The main thing he voted against the government on was same-sex marriage.

Maybe because his constituents live jeek and jowl with a highish percentage of people on benefits. I live in the neighbouring authority and we send our homeless to Harlow. Harlow is becoming slightly gentrified, but it still has many working class voters with traditional values of working hard. Thatcher appealed to those kind of voters.

I know Peterborough reasonably well too and Harlow has more deprivation and problems. It's a bellwether seat. If the poll was just people in the town itself, they were probably fairly evenly balanced.

PS. Apologies to anybody on here from Harlow. I've made it sound bad, but it isn't really.

Had to laugh there, daphne. It makes it sound like your homeless gentrify Harlow. Just my sense of humour.