Is the NHS really safe in Tory hands?

First topic message reminder :

Here is a news item from North Yorkshire which never made it onto the national headlines

A York-based practice has written to its patients offering them a range of minor treatments privately, claiming they are not funded by the local NHS.

Doctors' leaders said this could be the start of a worrying trend due to the squeeze on finances and NHS overhaul.

The letter, seen by the BBC, said local health chiefs had stopped funding a range of services, but added they could still have them done privately at a number of clinics, including one owned by the practice.

These included removing skin tags from £56.30 to treating benign tumours for £243.20.

Dr Richard Vautrey, of the British Medical Association, added: "The dire finances of many trusts means that many more NHS treatments are likely to become unavailable in the future".

bobby wrote:Now must be the time to issue Herr Cameron and Lansley a proscription, and I don’t mean the type issued to sick patience by their GP. I mean the sort written by Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Marcus Antonius, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus. In Rome 1 BC, anyone on the proscription list was fair game for anyone to attack, kill and keep their goods and property.

Oh what fun.

When your having lots of fun bobby please keep me in mind I would wet myself laughing if I was allowed to join in.

Hello bobby

You are 100% correct here--QUOTE "Tory Ideology at its worse. They privatise industries knowing it will be very difficult and costly to re-Nationalise. So instead or re-Nationalising existing company’s, why not re construct only this time Government owned, and let them go into direct competition with the existing private company’s. To re-Nationalise the existing company’s would not be viable as each and every one of them where run down before the sell off, making the original share prices very attractive, and set to rise very quickly, as they indeed did."

Tory ideology--- PRIVATISE EVERYTHING IN SIGHT.....

Writing in 'The Daily Telegraph' today, Rebecca Smith says that the extra money pumped into the NHS by Labour was not wasted, and Tory claims of a reduction in productivity are a myth. Or as some of us would put it, a lie.

Dr Richard Horton, the editor of 'The Lancet', says that the main reason put forward for NHS reform was that the system was wasteful. He adds: "That's a myth. The government should kill this damaging and dangerous Bill."

Professor Nick Black of the Department of Public Health and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has said that "declining NHS productivity in England between 2000 and 2009 is just one recent myth in healthcare policy."

Apparently, Coulson warned Cameron not to discuss Lansley's plans during the 2010 election campaign because they were "too toxic". Michael Portillo told us that the Tories didn't reveal their plans for the NHS because they would never have been elected if they had (and of course, they weren't elected anyway). I wonder how many of the 36% who voted for the Tories would have done so if they'd known what the bare-faced liars were planning to do to the NHS?

Cameron won't drop the bill, he can't afford to. If he did, presumably all those private healthcare companies lining up for some rich pickings would want back the donations they made to both Lansley's private office and the Tory Party. This is nothing short of corruption, and the NHS is being destroyed by the biggest liar ever to become Prime Minister of this country.

Hello Mel. Just continuing something you mentioned prior to your forced break.

It certainly suggests incompetence when a Tory Government can't even carry out its wrecking strategies for the NHS efficiently.

Makes you wonder just what else they are cocking up.....

The main plank in the Tory platform has always been their "Survival".

How are they doing so far?

William Hague

Foreign Secretary and former leader of the Conservative Party, the member of Parliament for Richmond, but did you know that there is a strange anomaly with the Richmond constituency, because the constituency is not named after the largest settlement or town which it covers.

The largest town in the Richmond constituency is Northallerton, and its Northallerton where the areas District General Hospital is situated - The Friarage Hospital, which covers a vast rural area including Richmond.

Recently the health authority which runs the Friarage hospital announced that maternity services there would be downgraded and that patients would have to travel to either Darlington, Middlesbrough or Harrogate.

This is a cost cutting measure to save money, the 2011 / 2012 budget settlement was just about the lowest in the history of the NHS, and health authorities everywhere are having to slash services and cut staff.

The MP for Richmond "William Hague" has asked the local health authority to reconsider its proposals, perhaps Mr Hague should pose the same question to his fellow cabinet minister, Andrew Lansley.

The Friarage Hospital in Northallerton covers a vast rural area including all the way up Wensleydale onto the high pennines, some areas of the hospitals catchment area are over 40 miles away.

No doubt Mr Hague will claim the cuts have nothing to do with either Andrew Lansley or the government.

Whatever the ultimate fate of Lansley and Cameron's Health Bill, certain parts of the NHS have already been dismantled.
GPs will have responsibility for commissioning most NHS services, working either for the patients of their own practices or for wider populations as part of commissioning consortia.

Responsibility for commissioning specialist and tertiary services will pass to a new NHS Commissioning Board; which has accrued more and more powers as the government’s plans have emerged.

Out with the Old, and in with the New - whatever it costs.





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Can this Government be declared illegal (or some fancy word)


We need Guy Fawkes, Ollie Cromwell, Ofa (he of the Dyke) and Robin Hood all in one meeting!

We'll see whether the Writ of the Coalition runs as far as the British Medical Establishment.

You can lead a horse to water .........

The Tories are involved in the biggest cover up in a generation over NHS reforms.

Labour MP Grahame Morris, a member of the Commons Health Select Committee has said: “The arrogance of Andrew Lansley knows no bounds. Not only did he conceal the scale of his privatisation plans before the general election, he is now covering up the potential risks they pose in an attempt to quash any informed democratic debate on the matter.”

For the full story:-
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Cameron and Lansley should be "outed" for the scheming liars that they are.

They promoted every lie possible to get into Downing Street and have carried on regardless of opinion.

They have the tunnel vision
They have the crazed looks
They have the Bulldozer behaviour
They display the shouting and not heeding others -

Which is the behaviour displayed by the first two creatures through the door at a Harrod's Sale!

It's not necessarily correct to ascribe devious methods to this Coalition, which is learning to govern in much the same way as a toddler learns to walk. You might call it "work in progress".
Someone has noticed that their necks have been stuck right out by jumping the gun on closing entire levels of strategic management in the NHS on the assumption that the Bill's going through anyway.
Parliament is likely to turn hostile if ignored too conspicuously.

There's obviously a remnant of nostalgia within the Tory Party for those good old days of the John Major government when they knew exactly where they stood. EVERYBODY disliked them.

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Nursing and care home tycoon Dolar Popat has given the Conservatives £209,000. He has amassed an estimated £42 million fortune as founder and chief of TLC Group, which provides services for the elderly. Cameron made him a peer shortly after entering No 10 in May 2010, and Lord Popat’s donations include a £25,000 gift registered a week after the Tories’ health reforms were unveiled in July 2010.

So why no "cash for honours" investigation, I wonder?

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How can Lansley make some of his pronouncements without either corpsing with laughter or blushing furiously? He wants to close the successful telephone help line staffed by qualified nurses, known as NHS Direct, and replace it with a "111" service manned by call-centre staff. The reason he gives? .....

"People can't remember the number for NHS Direct."

The number is 0845 4647

Lor, lumme, Guv, 'ow d'you 'spect a body to remember the population of China?

Morning OW

Morning All (OK OK! It's afternoon,)


IS IT ME?

It is WELL WITHIN lansleys remit to change the NHS direct number to 111


Think of the cash he would save


We need an inquiry - NOW!!

Tonight’s YouGov poll for the Sunday Times has topline figures of CON 37%, LAB 41%, LDEM 7%, Others 15%. It’s a four point lead for Labour and a very low score for the Lib Dems, the lowest since last month.

We should not read too much into these polls as the Tories were deemed to be slightly ahead a few days ago. However, with the unrest growing over the NHS and the Tory dogmatic attitude towards implementing just what they wish, perhaps Ed wont have to work too hard to push these hard line birds off their high perch.

Cameron's Challenging NHS Session

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" I've invited all of you potential Honours recipients here so that you can tell me just what a great idea my NHS reforms are..."

When 75-year-old June Hautot wanted a 'quiet word' with the Health Secretary in Whitehall: "Codswallop - don't lie to me, Mr Lansley."

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Source: leftfootforward.org

does'nt he look stoooopid!

Like a little boy being told off by a next door neighbour for stealing her apples!


He is not in the least bothered.

Bad publicity does not bother this lot - roll it on!

To be fair (though I can't honestly think of a single reason to be so), Lansley cannot possibly hint at being "bothered". If the NHS Bill fails, with it so also dies his political ambition. It'll be over and never again will he have a Ministerial car.

Cameron has painted himself and his appointee into a corner, but it won't be DC that's forced to resign.

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The short answer must be yes.

The last thing they want is its total destruction. They want the NHS just as much as we do, the only thing is, they want it for different reasons. We want it as a necessary service to keep the population in good health and we don’t even mind the rich using it (how magnanimous of us). They want it as its probably the best goose they have laying golden eggs. We pay, they get. No one can tell me that should the NHS reforms go through and the private health care clinics start to cash in, the likes of Lansley, Herr Cameron and Ian Dumkopff Schmidt have already done share deals with them, so as soon as they leave their jobs, they will have a lump of back pay and a bleeding good quarterly earner ever after.

Without the public funded NHS none of this could happen and Herr Cameron would have to live on his paltry 30 million, I mean how will the poor bugger manage, he wouldn’t be able to tip hard working Italian waitresses or anyone else for that matter.

So Feel safe, the NHS is here to stay, its just in what form.

When you look at the sheer volume of money sloshing through the NHS, it's no surprise that the Business Vultures are circling to see what morsels they might be able to snatch from the pile.

Where's the smelling salts WENCH er wife, dear-heart!!


Bobby's just given a party political broadcast fer the henemy!

Watcha V. If you feel I have changed sides, Its the Italian in Me.

If he fails not only his political ambition dies but so will his backhanders and future excutive participation with one or several of the very private health companies that have already greased his palm with £25k prior to the election.

"bothered" pha!!!! not in the very slightest. Too much personal wealth to be aquired. Worth all the flak to be taken at ALL costs.

Your post is ofcourse correct.

It is the giving of vast wadges of wonga to the hopeless, underqualified, self serving, stuck up GP's (I don't like/trust ANY of them!) that gets right up my nose!
A newly qualified doctor, can leave the training regime, and start RIGHT AWAY as a GP (Not a mere locum! OH no straight to the "big job". They have had training, but what experience do they have? NONE.
The "flash" cars are already rolling up in the GP's only car park, jealousy? ME? When people are WORTH what they earn then I have no problem. And that goes for the street cleaner as well as the brain surgeon
Ask your GP to take a Blood Test from you! I bet he backs away interror
Ask your GP to show you haw to change a baby's nappy. He will back away in disgust

The record for the number of attempts taken to get a blood sample from me, is held by a 'DOCTOR' When the 7th attempt failed, I had had enough!

Mrs Hautot, who claims to have shared a cell with Arthur Scargill’s wife during a long career in Left-wing campaigning, shouted: ‘Codswallop, you’ve been privatising since 1979. Don’t you dare lie to me.’

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Hmm yes Ivan.......It seems many people think she made a fool of herself. You can smell the political agenda of this women a mile away. It would have been more believable if she had acted the same way when New Labour were happy to part privatise certain parts of the NHS, but I guess she wasn't so concerned then hey?!

But as you know I am not defending the reforms or Lansley, because I dont agree with them either

I seem to recall that when Blair or Brown were confronted by some carefully-placed big-mouthed loony outside a hospital or similar, the Press were very quick to suggest that they had been skilfully humiliated by an articulate and wronged worthy protestor. Suddenly such people confronting a Tory politician are seen as less palatable. How can this be...?

blue.
This woman is now 75 and long retired as a Union official, Are you trying to say, she now has no rights as an individual to make a fair and honest protest.

Of course you Tory’s would prefer that we plebs knew our place, and stayed there. Sorry blue, it just aint gonna happen. You join a crap party, you must expect a bit of sticky stuff to fly around.

You can smell the political agenda of this women a mile away. It would have been more believable if she had acted the same way when New Labour were happy to part privatise certain parts of the NHS, but I guess she wasn't so concerned then hey?!

Hello blue. Haven’t we all got “political agendas”? Haven’t the Tories, who hid their ideological hatred of the NHS from the electorate?

The good thing about June Hautot’s outburst is that it made the news. She wasn’t locked in a room, like the journalists in a hospital which Cameron visited, and she wasn’t confined to her bed like the patients. She’s retired, so she isn’t frightened of losing her job if she speaks to the press, as the staff of that hospital in Newcastle were. This country is drifting into fascism under Cameron and his thugs, and it’s very frightening.

Labour allowed NHS hospitals to have 2% private patients, Lansley is increasing that to 49%. Slight difference, wouldn’t you say? Labour used the private sector to reduce waiting lists, to supplement the NHS not to replace it as Lansley plans.

On the subject of protests, I wonder what happened to all those fuel protesters who used to block roads when Labour was in power? Fuel prices haven’t come down, so could they have had a political agenda, do you think?

Cameron’s top ten lies about the NHS

1. “We will stop the top-down reorganisation of the NHS.” The Tories are pushing through the biggest top-down reorganisation of the NHS in its history.

2. “We will increase health spending every year.” A Nuffield Trust study shows "a real terms reduction of 0.5% over the next four years”.

3. “We’ll ensure waiting times are kept low.” Patients waiting longer than Labour’s 18-week guarantee are up by 34%.

4. “We will save the maternity and A&E units at Chase Farm Hospital, London.” Lansley announced the units would be downgraded last November.

5. Cameron claimed that Royal Colleges of General Practitioners, Physicians and Nursing “all supported” his health reforms. All three oppose the reforms.

6. “We will increase the number of midwives by 3,000”. The government has cut the training places for nurses and midwives.

7. “We will not endanger universal coverage — we will make sure it remains a National Health Service.” The NHS has already begun breaking up into local GP commissioning groups.

8. “Reforms are needed as there were 5,000-10,000 needless cancer deaths a year compared to other EU countries.” The NHS has helped achieve the biggest drop in cancer deaths among 10 leading countries.

9. “We are not reorganising the bureaucracy of the NHS, we are abolishing bureaucracy.” The NHS will be saddled with more bureaucracy, with hundreds of new bodies set up to replace sacked managers.

10. “The government is fully behind the Health Bill.” Three Tory Cabinet members have come out against it.

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blueturando wrote:

But as you know I am not defending the reforms or Lansley, because I dont agree with them either



That I find quite hard to believe, if that was the case, why do you constantly attack the very people who are prepared to do something about those health reforms, why do you believe any lie Herr Cameron comes up with yet decry anything Ed Milliband has to say. I have said it before, you agree with something’s the Labour party want, you are against several things the Tory’s stand for, yet you still pin your flag to the Tory flag pole, and still cant tell us, what the Tory’s have done for the good of Britain.
You are a Tory, I dont know what makes you a Tory, but that is exactly what you are. Even when the truth is staring you in the face you will chose the Tory statement over a Labour one irespective of how much evidence is on display.
The Tory's day will come, and if the poll Tax etc kept your lot out last time, that aint nuffin to what the lies, deceit and the underhand manner in which the/our NHS will do to you. If you think 13 years was a long time. I can only hope you are a very patient person.

Things have come to a pretty pass when Cameron is only telling ten lies about something. He can generally do much better than this....

Phil, if you log in to 'Twitter' you might still be able to see some of the exchanges I had earlier today with a Boris Johnson sycophant. When confronted with a string of facts, she just resorted to a few lies and smears and then vanished.

Ivan : Lies and smears are the stock in trade of the Tory . But what else do they have with which to trade? The prospect of a few facts must be as welcome to them as a pork sausage is to a rabbi ...