NHS

Lots of very sad and angry nurses in the audience tonight but a very good QT.

D.S. reckons that the numbers of older people will decline over the next 20 years, so the pressure on the system should slowly decline (not much use for most of us!)
There have been other peak periods for birth rates, I think the mid-1960s was one, which 'boom' will be reaching 'old age' perhaps after most of us have popped our clogs - and whose children will again produce a boom of elderly people at some time in the future.

But we should have robotic nurses by then anyway.

The NHS staff on the inside of the crisis.

Corbyn has been very active on the listening front with regard the difficulties being experienced. Yesterday he was in Lincoln NHS hospital.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWQy1epRJ-4

Two for the price of one. Richard Murphy and Bob Gill talking about the Great NHS Heist
There is also one with Bob Gill discussing an interview between Russell Howard and Richard Branson.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EYjNPbMnQo

For anyone who didn't see Question Time last night an audience member tells the Tory MP that she was talking rubbish.

twitter.com/thepileus

There is also a letter here from Sarah Wollaston to Hunt to tell him to delay the introduction of ACOs until the health committee has heard all about them. It seems strange that they haven't already. I didn't think we lived in a dictatorship.

www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/Health/Correspondence/2017-19/Letter-to-Secretary-of-State-for-Health-and-Social-Care-from-Chair-of-Committee-18-January-2018.pdf

Hunt having the mick taken out of him again.
He praised Ipswich hospital for its use of technology and tweeted this chart.

pbs.twimg.com/media/DT2eIiEXkAAEYCn.jpg:large

"Really clever use of technology at @IpswichHosp to ensure safe staffing levels are maintained throughout the day. Thanks to staff who came for a constructive discussion on safety."

Comments include,"You do know what the pretty colours mean, don't you?"

"Red alerts everywhere; patient safety at risk; 19 student nurses working, none of them being paid."

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-hunt-blasted-for-dim-tweet-revealing-nhs-staff-shortages_uk_5a61d07ee4b0125fd635ae89?utm_hp_ref=uk-politics

May has just given this dimwit another department on top of the NHS, and he can't even understand what is going on in the NHS.

Tories planning to hand private firms ’10-15 year NHS contracts’ to stop Labour from renationalising

Hope I'm not repeating this. Does anyone know how seriously we should be taking this? It came up on my FB page from a source I would usually respect.

Slightly off piste, but still can't get my head around Drs doing private operations ,thereby adding waiting time to those who cannot go private !

That's what Wollaston's letter is about, GracesGran.

www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/Health/Correspondence/2017-19/Letter-to-Secretary-of-State-for-Health-and-Social-Care-from-Chair-of-Committee-18-January-2018.pdf

Thanks Jen. I had read the letter but I don't think I took in quite what it meant. I definitely think it serious in that case and very underhand. How can they do this? I thought there were all sorts of rules about what you can commit future governments to?

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/justin-madders/nhs-privatisation_b_11388948.html

It's been known about since 2016 at least. MSM seem content to ignore it.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/stephen-hawking-nhs-privatisation-lawsuit-jeremy-hunt-a8100931.html

Stephen Hawking has joined doctors to sue Hunt.
It's being crowdfunded.

www.crowdjustice.com/case/jr4nhs-round2/

Anyone on facebook or twitter please share it.

The crowd-funding seems to have reached it's second target but I do think this needs watching. The Conservatives don't seem to understand parliamentary democracy.

Yes, haven't quite worked out whether they can stop him.
He was going to start ACOs this month. I hope he has been stopped until it goes to court. Sarah Wollaston's letter should help, but I don't think he's ever taken any notice of the health committee.

You'd hope the Carillion crisis would have an impact on other current plans for privatisation, but the serious drawback to Carillion having an impact on the NHS changes is the use of secondary legislation.

Major - and I mean major - changes to the NHS under consideration will be implemented using secondary legislation i.e. delegated legislation (usually Statutory Instruments (SIs) introducing new regulations or amendments to existing regulations) .

Delegated legislation is intended to allow the Government to make a small change to the law without having to introduce an entirely new Bill to Parliament. But Hunt is using secondary legislation to push through changes to the NHS and these don't go before Parliament. It's all done in Committee.

The increased use of secondary legislation is one of the reasons why the Queen's speech didn't contain as many new Bill for big pieces of new legislation.

*Bills

And it's well camouflaged by the Brexit furore.

"Is cross-party working on the NHS a pipedream? Yesterday, the PM sent what appeared to be a ‘thanks but no thanks’ response to a pre-Budget letter from Tory Sarah Wollaston, Lib Dem Norman Lamb and Labour’s Liz Kendall, calling for a non-partisan convention to look at funding of the NHS and social care. Some 90 MPs had signed the letter days, from former Tory policy chief George Freeman to Treasury select chair Nicky Morgan.

The PM yesterday said Jeremy Hunt would write to set out the next steps but revealed little other than ‘we are committed to engaging with all parties’. Yet what most struck me yesterday was the vehemence of the Tory responses to May’s response. Johnny Mercer said it was ‘disappointing’ and warned his party would get “a reality check at the ballot box” unless it sorted the health service. Heidi Allen added “We have waited since 18 November for this reply? Not good enough”. Wollaston called on May to ‘reconsider’.

Ex minister Nick Boles last night piled in to say he shared the dismay. And Boles spoke for several Tories disillusioned at the way the year had started, with this Friday evening Tweet: “There is a timidity and lack of ambition about Mrs May's Government which means it constantly disappoints. Time to raise your game, Prime Minister”. Boles pointed to reports that the PM’s chief of staff Gavin Barwell felt the Tories couldn’t compete with Labour on NHS funding. Boris Johnson thinks he has backing from Hunt, Gove, Grayling and Mordaunt in demanding £100m extra a week for health post-Brexit ahead of a Cabinet meeting on the issue tomorrow. Philip Hammond has been notably quiet on Hunt's 10-year funding idea, though that doesn't mean it won't happen.

On Radio 4’s Westminster Hour last night, ex party chairman Grant Shapps said ‘nothing’ had changed his view since conference that May should go (he also, intriguingly said that vice chair Ben Bradley’s controversial blogposts were ‘an issue’ and his continued role was ‘for him to consider’). Another former minister Ed Vaizey added: “It won’t harm the prime minister if she comes out more boldly with what she wants to see”. Matt Hancock is being radical with plans to slash fixed odds betting terminal stakes from £100 to £2 (bookies’ shares all plunged this morning). But on the really big stuff like the NHS, perhaps the real reason for No10 timidity is simple: the last time the PM really was bold, and went for a snap election and backed a radical social care manifesto idea, things didn’t turn out too well."

From Huffpost.
Doesn't sound too good, does it? For the NHS or the Tories. Maybe they think if we go down we'll take the NHS with us.

The increased use of secondary legislation is one of the reasons why the Queen's speech didn't contain as many new Bill for big pieces of new legislation.

That makes a lot of sense WMKF. It is just so undemocratic and I worry they will actually get something through without enough people noticing in time to stop them. We have so much more 'news' these days but it is all headline stuff. This needs a good presentation of some good investigative journalism.

The Breit effect ensures that the good investigative journalism hardly gets a mention.
Allyson Pollock has done a lot of that, but rarely gets a mention, even in the Guardian.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/01/03/the-threat-to-the-nhs/

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/01/21/theresa-may-faces-cabinet-demands-pledge-100m-extra-per-week/

After Brexit will be too late.
Gavin Barwell showed MPs a chart that put Labour well ahead on the issue of the NHS. I am surprised he needed a chart.