Tag: National Health Service

The Story: This spring the United Kingdom, like much of the rest of the world, imposed significant restrictions on the movement of its residents in...

The Story: Imagine a scale of possible health care systems, with an entirely private, unsubsidized system at 0 and with a public sector, top-down planned...

A message on the side of a bus will inform Brexiteers that Britain has now left the EU while the rest of the country hopes they fall for it again. The original Brexit bus claimed that Britain sent £350 million a week to the EU, money we would be able to spend on the NHS instead. While that message was a load of old bobbins, plenty of people fell for it. That is why a new bus message will tell Brexiteers that Britain has now left the EU while sane and rational people cross their fingers and hope they fall for the same trick again. It appears the scheme is already working as a picture of the bus has been shared over 10,000 times on social media, with Brexiteers leaving celebratory messages. ‘Missed the big news but if it says it on the side of a bus it must be true!’ posted @AreKuntry on Twitter. The Brexit bus will tour Britain until every Brexiteer believes we’ve left the EU, the country will then return to business as usual.

The Labour party’s general secretary has told colleagues she has been diagnosed with breast cancer and will start treatment this week. Jennie Formby said she would continue to work as much as possible. Formby said: “I have been diagnosed with breast cancer and will be starting my treatment this week. Before that she was a long-serving union official with Unite and its predecessor the TGWU. “Breast cancer has had so much investment that outcomes are really positive, but I know that other cancers have less funding for research and treatment and that access to such good cancer care isn’t the same all across the country,” Formby said. I will continue to work as much as I can. For those days when I can’t, the executive directors and my direct team will make sure everything carries on as usual.” Corbyn tweeted: “All my love to you Jennie … I know you will cope and deal with this in the admirable way you cope and deal with everything else.” Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) All my love to you Jennie, our wonderful General Secretary. My heart goes out to you. https://t.co/KkdNcOwdc7 March 25, 2019 A Labour spokesman said: “Jennie Formby has told colleagues today that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer and will be starting treatment this week. Jennie will continue to work as much as she can, but is taking a realistic approach towards her treatment.

For the Conservatives, it was a year which had uncanny parallels with today – a prime minister facing questions about her leadership, a party split over Europe and the threat of cabinet resignations over the issue. Thatcher would survive the year but the resignation of Lawson in October, over the influence of her economic adviser Alan Walters, came, in hindsight, to be seen as the beginning of the end for the Iron Lady. Lawson was at loggerheads with Thatcher and Walters over the exchange rate mechanism (ERM). Thatcher recorded his departure in a private memo in terse terms: “Early Thursday morning – hair set 8-8.30 Andrew [Turnbull] came up to say Nigel Lawson wanted to see me. This seemed to me an absurd, indeed reprehensible proposition … in my view no one could possibly resign on the basis of such a flimsy and unworthy proposal.” She said she urged him to think again, concluding: “I then put the matter out of my mind.” The papers reveal that the following month she told the Sun’s editor at the time, Kelvin MacKenzie, in an off-the-record interview, that after taking a comforting “we love you” call from her children on the day of the resignation, in characteristic no-nonsense fashion she then prepared supper for her and her husband, Denis: “Someone’s got to do it … I just had to get on.” But Chris Collins, a historian at the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, said the PM’s anger came through in her memo, in contrast with her public stance, in which she affected bafflement. “She would have loved to have really punched hard, I think,” he said. Collins said: “You can see that events in 1990 would not have happened as they did had it not been for 1989 ... The Lawson resignation is actually the one that makes [Geoffrey] Howe’s resignation so damaging.” In June of 1989, Howe had teamed up with Lawson for the “Madrid ambush”, when Thatcher’s then chancellor and foreign secretary threatened to resign if she refused to state a date for Britain joining the European exchange rate mechanism (ERM). She did not accede and although they did not quit immediately, when they did – Howe, then deputy prime minister, resigned in November 1990 – it would ultimately have devastating consequences for her. By contrast to the ERM, Thatcher was a fan of the single market.

All the evidence points to not leaving the EU, and the reasons given for leaving are generally vague or false. Should the new party that will surely follow the formation of the Independent Group, continues to promote a “people’s vote”, it will likely be quite attractive to people like me. Just as many feel that Brexit makes no sense, I felt that austerity, which started in 2010, went against all our knowledge and evidence. That analysis begins my book based on the blog I started as a result of austerity. But austerity was not Brexit’s main cause. To see what the cause was, we need to look at the second period in which I felt similar to how I today feel about Brexit: the run up to the 2015 general election. In reality the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s caused by a Global Financial Crisis had pushed up the deficit, but the media had pushed, or accepted, the idea that the Coalition was clearing up the mess that a profligate Labour government had left. The fact that people thought the Conservatives were strong on the economy only confirmed the media’s narrative. Brexit would not have been possible without the UK media. A large part of the press pushed anti-EU propaganda, and the broadcast media balanced the view of the overwhelming majority of experts against the lies of a few.

The defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, was at the centre of a growing cabinet row on Saturday night as senior government sources blamed him for offending the Chinese and causing the cancellation of a crucial trade visit to Beijing by the chancellor, Philip Hammond. Senior Conservatives said it was time to rein in Williamson, who has earned the nickname Private Pike in Whitehall after a series of gaffes. Treasury insiders said comments the defence secretary had made in a speech last week about sending the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth to the Pacific had caused such “clear irritation” in Beijing that the trip scheduled for this weekend could not take place. But sources confirmed that Williamson’s clumsy and undiplomatic language had caused real upset that had been relayed back to London by the Chinese authorities. The result was that a visit that been planned for many weeks – and that would have focused on opening up Chinese markets to UK exports – has been put off until the diplomatic damage is repaired. The remarks incensed the Chinese just days before Hammond was due to arrive for a series of meetings, including one with the Chinese vice premier, Hu Chunhua. Williamson said in his speech that the UK was prepared to use lethal force to deter countries that flout international law – an apparent reference to China’s expansionist ambitions in the South China Sea. Lord Patten said China should be welcomed to the global economic community, although it should play by the same rules as everyone else. He stressed that a careful diplomatic balance had to be struck: “You don’t win deals by cowering whenever China gets cross, nor on the other hand does stamping a foot persuade the Chinese that we are more important than we are.” Another senior Tory said Theresa May should issue an order to “pipe down, Private Pike”. The chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on China, the Tory MP Richard Graham, said: “The crucial thing is that we do need to engage with China, and we do need to be sensitive with the tone, and I suspect that is where the issue is at the moment.” Steve Tsang, the director of the School of Oriental and African Studies’ China Institute, said: “It is a silly thing for Gavin Williamson to have said, particularly when there is no compelling reason to say it now and the ship he was referring to is not even ready to send.” But he added that there was nothing wrong, in principle, with a navy vessel sailing in the South China Sea.

Much has been made of the need for Jeremy Corbyn to listen to pro-Brexit voters in Labour’s northern heartlands. Among the activists was Ryan Simms, 26, who works in procurement for the NHS in Leeds and has been a Labour supporter for six years – but only joined the party after Corbyn became leader. “Corbyn wants an election, but it’ll be one where we have the choice between a Tory Brexit deal and some magical unicorn Brexit deal promised by Labour,” Roberts said. She usually supports Labour, but next time she’ll vote Green unless Corbyn backs a people’s vote. More young activists were out demonstrating in areas including Bristol, Leicester, Warwick, York and Edinburgh. “He can enable a Tory Brexit or back a public vote. The large majority of Labour members want a public vote, with 88% saying they would vote to stay in the EU if there was a public vote.” Imagine the proportion of young Labour members who want to stay – 90, 95%? Of the 1.6 million young people who have joined the electorate since 2016, who say they are certain to vote in a future EU referendum, 87% would vote to stay in the EU. “We beat the expectations of the establishment in 2017 because they didn’t pick up my generation’s appetite and enthusiasm for change. But that was when a better Brexit deal was possible, and two years before exit day.

The government has set up a team of troubleshooters to tackle problems in the NHS in the event of a no-deal Brexit, including drug shortages and the loss of key staff. The health secretary, Matt Hancock, disclosed this week that he was arranging for special flights to bring medicines from the Netherlands to beat anticipated shortages, and he urged NHS bodies in England to buy fridges in which to stockpile drugs. The troubleshooting team started work this month, before the government stepped up its no-deal preparations as a result of the political deadlock over Theresa May’s Brexit deal and the approaching 29 March deadline. No-deal Brexit 'may mean cancelled NHS operations and staff shortages' Read more It is made up of civil servants from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and officials from NHS England and NHS Improvement, which together oversee the 240 health trusts and 197 clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in England. They will deal with problems with the supply of drugs, staffing shortages, fridges in hospitals not working – all of the scenarios that could arise from a no-deal Brexit,” the source said. “The DHSC has strengthened its national contingency plans for no-deal,” he wrote. “With just over three months remaining until exit day, we have now reached the point where we need to ramp up no-deal preparations.” Wormald said the centre “will lead on responding to any disruption to the delivery of health and care services in England that may be caused or affected by EU exit. [It] will coordinate EU exit-related information flows and reporting across the health and care system.” NHS England and NHS Improvement will set up local, regional and national teams “to enable rapid support on emerging local incidents and escalation of issues into the operational response centre as required”, the letter says. Wormald said some problems may end up “impacting across the health and care system at a national level”. He told the NHS bodies: “I recognise the uncertainty that you face.”

Representatives of more than 70,000 doctors have urged ministers to suspend regulations that force hospitals to charge overseas visitors upfront for NHS care. Three royal medical colleges and one faculty say the charging regime is harming people’s health by deterring them from seeking NHS help when they fall ill. Payments in advance are “a concerning barrier to care”, they say. They have voiced particular concern about pregnant women being denied care and children missing out on treatment for life or death illnesses. Their plea is the strongest opposition yet from the medical community to hospitals in England being compelled to charge migrants up to tens of thousands of pounds before they treat them. The statement has been signed by the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Faculty of Public Health. They want Matt Hancock, the health and social care secretary, to suspend regulations brought in in 2015 and 2017 that specify when overseas visitors should be charged for receiving NHS care. Charges should not be enforced until a full independent review is undertaken of how they are affecting migrants’ access to healthcare, the four groups say. Citing evidence of mothers-to-be and children being left without medical aid, the colleges say: “We do not believe that regulations that lead to such situations are appropriate. They are having a direct impact on individual health and have potential implications for wider public health. “Early diagnosis and treatment are vital to improve patients’ outcomes and – in the case of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV – to protect public health.” Some patients have been wrongly charged because they could not prove they were entitled to free care, the statement adds.