Agenda 2019

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/25/junior-doctors-strike-defeated-jeremy-hunt#comments Hospitals braced for walkout as Hunt says doctors' strike must be defeated Hunt says doctors' strike must be defeated. At the general election, o nly 11.3 million people voted conservative out of the 30.6 million people casting a ballot (66.1%). To state that, “the British people”, voted for the manifesto promise, is stretching the boundaries of legitimacy a bit far . H ow many manifesto promises have been abandoned by governments the day after polling day should it be expedient to do so in any case . ? There have been two recent opportunities for Hunt to avert this strike and to resume negotiations, but both have been dismissed with the same arrogance and inflexibility on the part of the Secretary of State for Health that has been the case since this dispute started. A dispute created and engineered by a government with a hidden agenda. T he real reason...

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/24/nhs-hospitals-finalise-plans-to-cope-with-unprecedented-strikes?CMP=share_btn_fb#_=_ Jeremy Hunt rejects  another compromise Last week, Hunt dismissed a proposal from the BMA to call off the strike in exchange for the removal of the threat to impose the new contracts. I noted at the time that " As if his handling of this dispute were not incompetent enough already, Hunt compounds his ineptitude by rejecting a proposal from the BMA which would have allowed them and the Health Secretary to step back from an all out strike." Hunt now rejects a compromise proposal by an all party group of MP's ,which includes  the Lib Dem MP and former coalition health minister Norman Lamb; Dr Dan Poulter,(like Lamb a member of Hunt’s ministerial team until last May); and Dr Philippa Whitford, an SNP MP who is also an NHS breast cancer doctor. and which would have led to the strike being called off, with the extraordinary remark t...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/junior-doctors-strike-bma-tells-jeremy-hunt-walk-outs-will-be-scrapped-if-contract-imposition-halted-a6991101.html Jeremy Hunt rejects BMA offer to cancel walk-out if he halts contract imposition Jeremy Hunt: How long can he avoid the blame? As if his handling of this dispute were not incompetent enough already, Hunt compounds his ineptitude by rejecting a proposal from the BMA which would have allowed them and the Health Secretary to step back from an all out strike. However, Jeremy Hunt continues on the course which he has pursued from the beginning of this dispute. He has demonstrated a determination to pick a fight with the BMA and Junior Doctors and to take the most provocative position available to him on all of the disputed points. The latest aggressive miscalculation emanating from the Department of Health and seeking to impose by force, new contracts which had already been rejected by the BMA, was guaranteed...

 Resolution passed unanimously Dorchester Labour Party supports the Junior Doctors and urges the TUC to call on all its members and affiliates to support the BMA in the dispute with this government and with Jeremy Hunt in particular. The following resolution was passed unanimously at the meeting last Thursday. "This Branch condemns the actions of Jeremy Hunt the Health Secretary in imposing the disputed contract upon the junior doctors and calls upon the Labour Party National Executive Committee to express support for our National Health Service and the BMA in respect of junior doctors. Furthermore the Branch calls upon the TUC to offer full support to the BMA including but not limited to calling upon member unions to express their full support in rejecting the imposition of the disputed contract upon the junior doctors. Junior doctors demonstrate outside St Thomas's Hospital in London,  The TUC must now step up to the plate and ...

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2187025/Nations-surgeon-backs-plan-axe-A-amp-E-wards-claiming-SAVE-lives.html   Nation's top surgeon backs plan to axe A&E wards claiming it will SAVE lives   Professor Norman Williams insists that the closure programme is good for the NHS's future.   Williams said creating specialist ‘centres of excellence’ would force patients  to travel further but would improve levels of care. The "centres of excellence" argument, coupled with "forcing patients to travel further, but will improve levels of care", has always been a fallacious load of garbage. The overcrowded public areas  and the overstretched resources of facilities and staff demonstrate that closing facilities at many units to create one facility at another location is only for the benefit of dogma and cost saving.

  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2182388/Families-told-help-care-elderly-relatives-rely-NHS.html   Lord Darzi, said the state should ‘demand’ people take ‘greater responsibility’ for the health and social care of themselves and their families. The House of Lords, seems to be populated with pea brained morons who occasionally wake up from their almost  perpetual state of semi comatose slumber to issue words of meaningless, ill informed garbage, before slipping back into their torpid state to dream about their next method of claiming expenses. For the benefit of Darzi , to read on his next visit to the real world, the majority of families already help to care for their elderly relatives. For those families who do not, it is of little value for Darzi to stamp his foot and mumble that, " the state should ‘demand’ people take ‘greater responsibility" etc., without sharing with us what measures the state should use to ensure that this happens. If...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article- When it comes to generating hysteria, The Mail has few equals. Enough of this pompous hand wringing garbage about holding the country to ransom and the "they get more than others" nonsense.Take away the hysterical hype generated by the right wing press and the misguided populace who actually believe the distortions of the government and its supporters and look at the simple facts.  A, (BMA) freely enters into an agreement with B, (government) for a pension figure, the contribution to that pension and the age of retirement.2 years later B comes along and says (without any previous discussion), that your pension is being reduced by £20k, your contribution is being increased from 8 to 15% and your retirement age is being increased by 3 years. B is not prepared to even discuss the matter. It seems to me that A going on strike for only a day shows remarkable restraint. The dictatorial attitude of this (and other governments) in ...