Nhs

Is the Sunni-Shia conflict in the Middle East making a new great war ever more likely? On this week’s podcast, Douglas Murray discusses the battle involving Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arbia with Tom Tugendhat, a former solider and advisor to General David Richards. Why has the West failed to control the region? Can anything be done to save the situation? And how likely is it that the Sunni-Shia battle will end in a nuclear standoff? Do the men of Westminster also suffer unwelcome advances? Former Lib Dem advisor Miranda Green and Guido Fawkes’ Alex Wickham discuss the culture of Westminster’s wandering hands. How endemic is the problem for both

I blamed the pheasant casserole, but I did it an injustice. Its only contribution to the drama behind my disappearance in mid-December was a residue of lead shot in the small intestine that briefly confused the radiologist. The real villain revealed by the scan was my appendix, which had taken on the raging, bull-necked, bug-eyed appearance of Ed Balls faced with a set of improving growth figures. And so it was that I spent a week in the Friarage at Northallerton, a small ‘district general hospital’ that has survived every NHS restructuring to date and is cherished by the citizenry of rural North Yorkshire. For someone who hasn’t been hospitalised since

I blamed the pheasant casserole, but I did it an injustice. Its only contribution to the drama behind my disappearance in mid-December was a residue of lead shot in the small intestine that briefly confused the radiologist. The real villain revealed by the scan was my appendix, which had taken on the raging, bull-necked, bug-eyed appearance of Ed Balls faced with a set of improving growth figures. And so it was that I spent a week in the Friarage at Northallerton, a small ‘district general hospital’ that has survived every NHS restructuring to date and is cherished by the citizenry of rural North Yorkshire. For someone who hasn’t been hospitalised since

Everybody wants to support cancer charities, don’t they? Take Maggie’s Trust, which ‘empowers people to live with, through and beyond cancer’. The Maggie’s approach is defined by their cleverly designed modern care centres, which welcome not just people battling against cancer but their families and those who care for them. Maggie’s now plans to build a new centre, only the second in London, at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in Smithfield. We desperately want to stop them. Before you start shouting at the screen, let us explain. We represent another group, one that was set up to protect the heritage of Barts, rather wordily calling ourselves ‘The Friends of The Great Hall

Home The government announced proposals for the National Health Service, including a law to criminalise wilful neglect by doctors and nurses, and a scheme to post online the numbers of nurses on wards. By the end of October, 219 households had seen work completed to insulate their houses under the government’s Green Deal, launched last January. Nick Boles, the planning minister, suggested that David Cameron, the Prime Minister, might like to revive the National Liberal Party, an organisation affiliated to the Conservative party from 1947 to 1968. The Foreign Office summoned the Spanish ambassador after a Spanish ship entered waters off Gibraltar and undertook surveying activity for 20 hours. A

Jeremy Hunt has delivered his response to the Francis Report. It was as expected: monthly staffing figures on a ward-by-ward basis, minimum standards of safety for staff levels, a national safety website, and further safeguards against ministerial interference in independent regulation. listen to ‘Jeremy Hunt’s ‘blueprint for restoring trust in the NHS’’ on Audioboo

Ministers have described the deal on GP contracts, negotiated by the government and the British Medical Association (BMA), as a return to the days when GPs were family doctors. Certainly, it is a step in that direction. The contract, which will come into force next April, revives the personal link between doctor and patients aged 75 or over, and makes GPs responsible for out of hours care. The Department of Health says that GPs will also be: offering patients same-day telephone consultations; offering paramedics, A&E doctors and care homes a dedicated telephone line so they can advise on treatment; coordinating care for elderly patients discharged from A&E; regularly reviewing emergency

Home EDF Energy said it would put up prices by 3.9 per cent. BT Sport spent £897 million on the rights to show Champions League football for three years, provoking a 10 per cent fall in BSkyB shares. The rate of inflation fell from 2.7 per cent to 2.2, as measured by the consumer prices index; as measured by the retail prices index, it fell from 3.2 per cent to 2.6 per cent. Unemployment fell by 48,000 to 2.47 million. Barratts, with 75 shoe shops, went into administration. Flybe, the Exeter-based airline, announced plans to cut 500 jobs. Plans were published for an airport on an artificial island off Sheppey in the Thames Estuary,

Sir Bruce Keogh’s anticipated review into accident and emergency has been published today to a chorus of praise and boos. The Mail describes it as a ‘sticking plaster’. The Independent is cautious. The Guardian is critical. And the Telegraph and the Sun are more positive. Sir Bruce Keogh gave a masterly performance on the Today programme, which may go some way to calming fears in the press. He said that the current system, which was designed in the 70s for the 70s, is unsustainable. At the root of his analysis is the belief that the present system is inefficient because patients have to go to the NHS to receive attention,

Though the NHS made a welcome change from endless bickering about energy bills at today’s PMQs, the exchanges were just as unedifying. There is very little gain in the sort of fact war that David Cameron and Ed Miliband tried to indulge in, as there is no killer fact that can silence an opponent on the NHS. Instead, the exchanges descended very quickly into ‘let me give the right honourable gentleman the facts about the NHS under this government’, ‘we have a Prime Minister too clueless to know the facts’ and ‘once again, the right honourable gentleman is just wrong on the facts’. Each man used his own ‘simple facts’

It’s been a while since we had a nice big fat NHS row, but those who enjoy watching Andy Burnham and Jeremy Hunt fight over the ‘party of the NHS’ crown can rest assured that there’s a really bitter one coming up this autumn. NHS England has spent the past few months consulting on a change to the way clinical commissioning groups are funded that could end the current arrangement where more money per capita is spent on patients in deprived areas. The formula currently being considered would make the number of elderly people in an area a more important factor in the size of the grant that each CCG

On Monday morning, Jeremy Hunt’s diary secretary rang me to arrange a time for me to speak to the Secretary of State over the telephone. I had already received an email from his special adviser the previous week, saying, ‘The two points which the independent research make clear are central to what you’ve been saying for a long time; namely that health tourism is a huge problem with a substantial cost to the NHS and the current system is an unfair burden on frontline staff.’ When Jeremy rang, he was charming, full of praise, and eager to tackle the issue of health tourism — the exploitation of the NHS by

The Daily Mail appear to be avid readers of The Spectator but we’re pleased that they now follow our weekly podcast, the View from 22, just as closely. It yesterday ran a story based on the comments of one of our podcast guests, Professor J Meirion Thomas, saying that £200 NHS levy on foreigners ‘will attract more health tourists’: Top cancer surgeon claims move would be a ‘disaster’. What the Mail had to say about Thomas’ take on Jeremy Hunt’s efforts to tackle health tourism is powerful stuff: ‘Professor Thomas, a cancer specialist, was one of the first whistleblowers to expose the financial impact of non-British residents seeking free healthcare on the

Remember the name Simon Stevens. He’s is the new chief executive of the NHS in England and is going to be absolutely crucial to whether the government can make its health reforms work. Stevens is a former Labour special adviser. However, he comes from the reformist wing of the party. He used to advise Alan Milburn and Tony Blair on the NHS. But a profile in today’s Guardian reveals just how impressively radical Stevens is. Denis Campbell writes that Stevens favours local pay in the NHS. He is also, Campbell says, keen on the idea of independent GPs competing with existing GP surgeries for patients, in the hope that this

In February, an NHS surgeon came to The Spectator’s offices to discuss a piece he felt it was time to write. He wanted to blow the whistle on health tourism. Professor J. Meirion Thomas knew he was taking a tough decision, given the hostile reaction of the doctors’ unions and civil servants to anyone who makes the slightest criticism of the NHS. But the Francis Report into the Stafford Hospital scandal had just come out, reminding GPs of their ‘statutory duty of candour’. The professor said that he would like to expose what he regarded as the systematic abuse of the NHS. His Spectator article was read at the highest