Agenda 2019

  http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/02/labour-nhs-sumemr-campaign_n_5550849.html?utm_hp_ref=uk Ed Miliband To Make NHS Centerpiece Of Labour's Summer Campaign Ed Miliband Cheap promises in respect of "saving", "improving","giving more importance to"  or any of the other cliches concerning the NHS trotted out by politicians on both sides of the political spectrum, have been around for decades. The reality when the new government has come to office is always the same. More management, more "targets", another reorganisation, more red tape, longer waiting times, more privatisation (to a greater or lesser extent depending on the party in government), more money, albeit that in real terms the funding has been reduced and a general decline in standards of service provided for patients. Trotting out vague promises for the NHS in the expectation of attracting votes, is a well worn and exhausted policy option.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/one-nhs-trust-in-five-is-in-bad-financial-trouble--and-department-of-health-is-failing-to-plan-for-bankruptcies-8231603.html Administrators appointed to oversee the crisis-hit South London NHS Healthcare Trust recommended that it be broken up and run by neighbouring NHS trusts, or offered to private companies.Thirty-nine organisations have expressed interest in running parts of the trust, including Circle, Care UK, Serco and Virgin Care. South London NHS Trust The crass stupidity of a policy which considers that the NHS is a business in all respects the same, as a business selling cans of baked beans. No doubt the real agenda is to create the conditions where a "failing NHS Trust", can be privatised and sold off to Tory party contributors. The covert campaign by the Tory right against the NHS, is not a conspiracy theory. The evidence of their systematic destruction of health a...

    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 ...

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics There are, of course, exemptions to the proposals for regional pay. Executives and senior managers working in the new "Lansley" bodies for the NHS reform programme will not be subject to  these divisive and ideological proposals. . It seems that these executives are extra special because of the need to "attract and retain high-calibre leaders and staff responsible for transforming delivery". It also seems, to me at least, that Lansley is a dangerous bonehead, embarking on another measure  aileanate working people, perpetuate and increase division between North and South and harden divisions between the well paid and everyone else. Lansley should have been fired for his disastrous handling of the NHS Reforms package, otherwise known as Privatisation, and for his arrogant behaviour during and since the debates. He must have some hold over the cabinet in order to retain his position.

Ever since the 1980's the Government have been lying in their presentation of unemployment figures. It was then that anyone claiming benefit would only be counted for 12 months. After 12 months they would be removed from the unemployment figure and moved into another category. Not because they had actually found a job, but because the figures would look better for the Government of the day.Each month since then, thousands were removed from the figures and initially at least were placed on the "Claiming Incapacity Benefit" list which does not count as unemployed.The real figure of unemployed in this country can only be guessed at, but which by now, must be running at close to 4 million.

nick-clegg-shirley-williams-nhs-health-bill   It seems to me that the reason that the leadership lost the debate is that the delegates recognised that the NHS bill is a bad bill, badly drafted and conceived with the intention of privatising the NHS. The delegates of course are not alone. The vast majority of health professional bodies, the nurses, the Trade Unions, most sections of the media and perhaps most importantly of all, the general public are opposed to this vexatious piece of proposed legislation. Only Clegg and the perfidious Williams lean over backwards to placate the Tory dogma. Having lost this vote they will now presumably seek to force the parliamentary party, regardless of the opinion of conference, to join them in their duplicity to enable Clegg to retain his seat at the cabinet table

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/liberaldemocrats/9135890/Liberal-Democrats-reject-vote-on-NHS-reforms.html Shirley Williams will probably remember the times when the Conference Arrangements Committee, aided and abetted by the Compositing Committee, sought to remove any possibility of embarrassment to the Party leadership or difficulties for the Parliamentary Party, due to Party Conference passing or even debating contentious matters. It was, in part, this gagging of dissension, coupled with a number of other Party procedures, which prompted a number of us to campaign and work for changes to the Party structure and mechanisms and bring about a more democratic party. It could have been this campaign that ultimately led to Shirley, now Baroness, Williams together with initially, three of her colleagues to reach the view that the party leadership would always have a monopoly of wisdom and party activists should follow, lemming like, in whatever direction the Parliamentary part...