NHS

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?

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

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 !

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.

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.

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

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."

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

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

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

The NHS staff on the inside of the crisis.

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.

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

People on Question Time agree with me about Virgin.
Andy Burnham brilliant on it. If you know anyone wanting to be a nurse, tell them to go and train in Manchester.

Primrose, they don't have Virgincare stamped all over the surgery. That's one problem.
They have the NHS logo, but take the money out of the NHS and take profits overseas so they don't pay tax on them.
Obviously you don't live in the same world as me if you don't mind paying £55 to jump the queue, which is what you are doing if you go to see a GP privately.

Jen, you do realise that many GPs are not directly employed by the NHS don't you?
It would be more historically correct to say Virgin Care are as NHS as a GP.

It is complex but GPs are contracted by the NHS and paid by the NHS to provide services. I don't believe Virgin Care has the same contract. I am not sure the fact that they are not directly contracted is that relevant - although I appreciate it is to you though.

I am not sure we will be any the wiser after reading this but it does explain (?) how it works.

It's difficult to say how much the NHS pays per appointment on average, as GPs are paid per patient, I believe, whether they see their GP or not. But they are paid by the NHS, some are salaried now, but most are not.
Comparing private services offered by Virgin is not the same as them contracting to the NHS - like GPs do.

I don't have a problem with this at all - GPs have always worked this way. Doesn't matter to me if a GP works in a surgery that looks like a house or in a building that has 'Virgin Care' stamped onto every wall or is Skyping me from their living room. They're still my GP and the service is paid for by the NHS in the same way.

My husband died at 65, Morgana, but his mum lived to 95.

D.J. He does not think he will make old bones ! And quite apart from his many narrow escapes and his medical problem, I believe that his age group are not forecast to live much past their mid seventies.

private.virgincare.co.uk/private-gp

£55 for an appointment with a GP.

What rubbish, primrose.
Try having a look on Virgin Care's website.

Jen, you do realise that many GPs are not directly employed by the NHS don't you?
It would be more historically correct to say Virgin Care are as NHS as a GP.

Two things happening at the same time, Nfk, demand going up and beds and numbers of staff going down.
That's the perfect storm.
No way was the NHS prepared for this, as May and Hunt claimed.

Just seen the percentage rise in demand. No wonder the NHS can’t cope.

A result of the health and social care act is that private companies are allowed to use the NHS logo. Virgin uses it all the time.