Nhs

Thursday

Steerpike

Has a Tory MP been editing his Wikipedia page from the Houses of Parliament?

Thanks to the internet, it has become increasingly difficult for politicians to hide any past indiscretions. However, this hasn’t put some MPs off from trying. Mr S has noticed some edits have recently been made to Tory MP Craig Whittaker’s Wikipedia profile. The page has had some interesting amendments, with two negative references to the MP for Calder Valley being deleted. First, an edit in December saw all reference taken out to an incident in 2011 where Whittaker was arrested for an alleged attack on his son outside a petrol station. A second change was then made which saw a line deleted regarding claims that he had misled his constituents over cuts to the NHS. Whittaker has

Saturday

James Forsyth

National parties no more

All the election forecast models agree, the next election result is going to be remarkably tight. On these models, neither Labour nor the Tories are going to come close to winning a majority. They would both be about 40 seats short. Now, events could intervene to change things. But, as I argue in the magazine this week, one of the reasons Labour and the Tories are finding it so hard to win a majority is that they are not national parties anymore. Compounding this is that no party is aiming for full spectrum dominance in this campaign. Rather, they are trying to talk up the issues that are best for

Thursday

Melissa Kite

My request to see my medical notes has sparked all-out panic at my GP surgery

My request to see my medical notes has sparked all-out panic at the GP surgery. ‘What do you mean?’ said the receptionist who answered the phone when I called to ask. She sounded even more furious than the time I rang to ask if I could possibly have an appointment to see the doctor. On that occasion, she affected her best Lady Bracknell impression, ‘The doctor? You want to see the doctor?’ ‘Well, yes if it isn’t too much trouble,’ I spluttered, as she audibly bashed her keyboard in ill-disguised rage at my impertinence. On this occasion, she was horribly icy. ‘I mean,’ I stammered, ‘I want to see my

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

The footprint of Britain’s immigrants – and emigrants – is important

Half a million people. That’s quite a lot, isn’t it? I mean, half a million here, half a million there, why, soon you’re talking a million, which is even more of a nice round figure. But that’s the statistic we should be talking about when it comes to the migration stats today from the Office for National Statistics. The crucial figure tucked away in there is in fact 542,000, which is the number of people who came to Britain in the year up to September 2014, excluding returning Brits. And of these foreign immigrants, non-EU citizens were the majority, 292,000 of them. That, I think, is more significant than the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why are the Lib Dems spending so much time talking about mental health?

Nick Clegg is to hold an hour-long phone-in next week on mental health. The Deputy Prime Minister will host the session himself on LBC on Monday. This is part of the emphasis that the Lib Dems are placing on mental health in their election campaigning. Now, there are lots of good reasons why the Lib Dems might want to campaign on mental health, including that it jolly well needs campaigning on because it is, as Clegg says, a ‘Cinderella service’ that suffers from long waits, poor research and less funding, yet one in four people will suffer from some kind of mental ill-health. But there are sound political reasons too.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Labour unsure about health policy its own councils support

The announcement today that Greater Manchester will receive full control of health spending – worth £6bn – has left Labour in a rather interesting position. On the one hand, it is easy for Andy Burnham to say that this sounds ‘like yet another NHS reorganisation’. But on the other, Greater Manchester includes a number of Labour councils who appear pretty happy to sign up to the provisional deal. Indeed, one of those councils is Wigan, which covers Burnham’s own constituency. Now one of the reasons that spending has been devolved to this area is that councils in Greater Manchester are keen, forward-looking and ambitious. George Osborne has long been a

Thursday

The Spectator

Let Greece leave the eurozone

To listen to Greek government ministers addressing the outside world during their breaks from negotiations with eurozone leaders this week, it would be easy to form the impression that Greece had a mighty economy upon which all other eurozone countries were pathetically dependent. ‘Europe is going through the difficult process of understanding that Greece has a new government committed to changing a programme that has failed in the eyes of everyone who doesn’t have a vested interest,’ said finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. The reality is that Greece is the dependent country, propped up by its creditors, and it is Greek government ministers who are having trouble in understanding the situation

Saturday

James Forsyth

The Burnham message

Andy Burnham’s interview in The Times today lays down several markers. He praises Len McCluskey, declares that trade union funding is best for Labour, slates Alan Milburn, criticises Peter Mandelson for being relaxed about people getting filthy rich and distances himself from the Blairite mantra that ‘what matters is what works.’ It will, to put it mildly, do nothing to discourage speculation that he is preparing to run for the leadership on a left-wing ticket if Labour loses the election. To be fair, Burnham is frank in this interview that he has changed his mind on various subjects. As he puts it, ‘There was a period in the 80s and

Friday

Matthew Parris

To reform the NHS, use the politics of envy | 6 February 2015

‘Let’s make the rich pay more.’ Does that sound so right-wing? To me it has a positively socialist ring. It should appeal to egalitarians: to those who call themselves socially concerned and seek new ways to redistribute wealth. So why not apply it for the NHS? Let’s make the rich pay more for health care. I’m no health policy wonk. I chip in with just this one small suggestion, which is not really about market-based reform of our health service, but about how to sell the idea to a deeply reactionary electorate. The British are positively neuralgic on health. They shudder at the use of words like ‘profit’. Expressions such

Thursday

Matthew Parris

To reform the NHS, use the politics of envy

‘Let’s make the rich pay more.’ Does that sound so right-wing? To me it has a positively socialist ring. It should appeal to egalitarians: to those who call themselves socially concerned and seek new ways to redistribute wealth. So why not apply it for the NHS? Let’s make the rich pay more for health care. I’m no health policy wonk. I chip in with just this one small suggestion, which is not really about market-based reform of our health service, but about how to sell the idea to a deeply reactionary electorate. The British are positively neuralgic on health. They shudder at the use of words like ‘profit’. Expressions such

Sunday

James Forsyth

Labour MPs’ minds wander to a post-election contest

With the opinion polls so tight at the moment, we’re having to look for other ways to try and work out what the general election result will be. One indicator worth watching is which party is spending more time thinking about the leadership contest that would follow an election. Now, there has been plenty of speculation about this on both the Tory and Labour benches in recent times. But in the last few weeks, I’ve picked up more of it from the Labour side. One Labour frontbencher calculates that the focus of ‘half the party is on what happens next’. Last week’s Labour kerfuffle over NHS policy was driven, in large

Wednesday

Sebastian Payne

Andy Burnham’s car crash interview shows why Labour can’t be trusted with the NHS

If Labour is weaponising the NHS, maybe it needs to sharpen its tools. Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham had a difficult and ill-tempered interview on Newsnight yesterday about what he actually thinks about private sector involvement in the NHS. When asked about the role he sees for the private sector under his reshaped health service, Burnham said private companies would not be entirely excluded: ‘There is still a role for private and voluntary providers but I also did say very clearly that the market is not the answer.’ Presented with a graph (below) showing how private sector outsourcing grew to four per cent under Labour — but rose two per cent

Wednesday

Sebastian Payne

Labour’s new political broadcast uses a veteran to promote NHS scare stories

Now we know what ‘weaponising’ the NHS looks like: a World War II veteran. Labour has released an emotive party political broadcast via Mirror Online starring Harry Leslie Smith. The 91-year old received two standing ovations at the Labour conference last year for his strident defence of the NHS — a theme continued in this video. The purpose of the PPB can be summed up in two words: emotional blackmail. Labour appear to have used Leslie Smith, telling a very moving story about his family and how much the NHS has done to improve our quality of life, to point to the notion that the health service is somehow in

Sunday

Bill Morgan

The coalition government is not blame for the latest NHS ‘crisis’

Of all the accusations thrust at the Conservatives by Labour over the NHS in recent weeks, their weakest has been the attempt to blame the Government’s reforms to the NHS for the pressures it is facing. Some will recall that we have been here before. In winter 2010, waiting times lengthened as the NHS was shaken by a serious flu outbreak. On that occasion, a shortage of critical care beds in the [pre-reform] NHS inherited from Labour meant that huge numbers of operations had to be cancelled. Though the problem was rapidly rectified, that did not stop Labour calling out a ‘crisis’ on the NHS, and blaming the reforms even

Thursday

The Spectator

Spectator letters: A GP’s cry of distress and a defence of Stephen Hawking

Dreadful treatment Sir: I worked as a GP through the Thatcher, Major, Blair, and Brown eras, apart from a spell as an A&E doctor, and never experienced such a depressing and worrying time for the NHS as now (‘Wrong diagnosis’, 10 January). There was frequently strain on the service from underfunding, but not the crisis we are now experiencing across the country, proving to me fundamental mismanagement and policy errors. When this government finally revealed its NHS ‘reforms’, which were kept quiet before the 2010 election, I was convinced the health service was under great threat, and that the electorate was being deviously misled. This crisis was predicted in the

Tarek S Arab

Obesity a disability? Only lawyers will benefit from the ECJ’s farcical classification

Real disability is humbling for those who have to live with it and those who care for the disabled. A true disability — degenerative neurological disease, for instance — involves the equivalent of a daily war to live in the way that most of us take for granted. We shouldn’t mock the truly disabled by misusing the word. Yet the European Court of Justice has classified obesity as a disability, meaning that we are all now expected to view those who, in the majority of cases, attained morbidly-obese status by determined and unrelentless bad-lifestyle choices as deserving of our understanding and admiration as those who battle real disability everyday. The interesting

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

The real reason GPs are grumpy: the robots are coming for them | 15 January 2015

There’s something wrong with the relationship between patients and their GPs. I’ve spent much of this winter in my local surgery, what with one thing and another, sitting among the stoic and snivelling, drifting between different doctors. They’re pleasant, if perfunctory, but with each visit I became more sure that something fundamental is awry. The docs seem ill at ease, as if their collective nose is out of joint, and I don’t think it’s overstretching or underfunding that’s the problem. My unprofessional diagnosis is that there’s a change under way in the balance of power between patients and medics; the status of GP as unimpeachable oracle is under threat, he

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

The real reason GPs are grumpy: the robots are coming for them

There’s something wrong with the relationship between patients and their GPs. I’ve spent much of this winter in my local surgery, what with one thing and another, sitting among the stoic and snivelling, drifting between different doctors. They’re pleasant, if perfunctory, but with each visit I became more sure that something fundamental is awry. The docs seem ill at ease, as if their collective nose is out of joint, and I don’t think it’s overstretching or underfunding that’s the problem. My unprofessional diagnosis is that there’s a change under way in the balance of power between patients and medics; the status of GP as unimpeachable oracle is under threat, he

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

The Tories are likely to ‘weaponise’ in the lead up to the election

David Cameron did, as James says, manage to avoid debating the rather more electorally damaging issue of the A&E crisis at Prime Minister’s Questions today because Ed Miliband chose to talk about the TV debates instead. But he still had a good opportunity to raise the Labour leader’s refusal to confirm or deny that he had said he wanted to ‘weaponise’ the NHS as an issue. When Labour’s Toby Perkins asked him whether he was ashamed of what happens when the Tories run the NHS, Cameron replied: ‘Now he quite rightly says it’s very important that we conduct this debate in a very good and civilised way. Now at the

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Tories drop weak policy areas for ‘six election priorities’ launch

Why have the Conservatives left out immigration and the NHS – two of the three issues that voters consistently cite as the most important in forming their decision about who to back in the General Election – out of their list of six priorities? Among the deficit, jobs, taxes, education, housing and retirement there is no room for the health service, immigration or Europe: which also tend to be the things David Cameron and Ed Miliband fight most vehemently over at Prime Minister’s Questions. Labour is very pleased about this, and is pretending to be very cross that the Prime Minister is ignoring the NHS. Presumably Ukip will be similarly