Is the NHS really safe in Tory hands?

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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".

No Matter what the filthy Tory slags do to the NHS, Labour should make returning it to what it should be their second priority, the first being the economy. Lets not forget, thanks to the pox ridden Tories we (Labour) will have a full 5 years at least in office to deal with the crap we will inherit from the previous Tory led Coalition Government.

Possibly the shadow Chancellor Ed Balls could subscribe to the European Millions Lottery in the name of HM Treasury. It's the only way an incoming government might be able to afford a reverse of current Tory Policy.

The Coalition notoriously "took over a substantial deficit from the previous administration" - and still have most of it left.

All this about having a foreign "wing" in the NHS has me a wee bitty puzzled.

NOt so long ago, just before parliamentary recess, Cameron was saying the NHS was dead in the water, now it is a profitable business, to be shared with one and all worldwide it would seem.
Brits have always been providing medicines - when regiments go on maneouvres in Africa, people gather at the sqaddies' base for medicines, some having come 20 miles and more! Where do these medicines come from?
The Royal Navy is never far away when a natural disaster strikes, where do these medicines come from?
Then there is Ms June Gloag - Stagecoach Bus company, who funds Africa Mercy, a ferry converted on the Tyne to a Hospital Ship (probably where the Tories got the idea in the first place)

The last 4 years of incessant slagging off of the NHS by the Tories just shows how unprofessional they really are.

NHS franchising: the toxic world of globalised healthcare is upon us

Extracts from an article by Allyson Pollock:-

"Under the government's franchise plan for the NHS, shareholders and equity investors will use the service's logo as a Trojan horse to prise open the budgets of other countries' health systems and to front up their unethical, fraudulent and inequitable activities. However, prospective customers will be buying neither NHS services nor the NHS model of care.

Since 1948, the NHS has been the model for universal heathcare on the basis of need and free at the point of use. In 2012, Parliament in England passed a law effectively ending the NHS by abolishing the 60-year duty on the government to secure and provide healthcare for all. From 2013, there will be no National Health Service in England, and tax funding will increasingly flow to global healthcare corporations. In contrast, Scotland and Wales will continue to have a publicly accountable NHS.

NHS hospitals and services are being sold off or incorporated; land and buildings are being turned over to bankers and equity investors. As for public accountability, there is none. Commercial contracts are redacted so that crucial financial information is not in the public domain. Government departments and companies refuse to release the necessary information on the grounds of commercial confidentiality and allow companies to sequester their profits in offshore tax havens. NHS staff transferred from the public to the private sector see their wages and benefits eroded. But all this is nothing compared with what is in store for patients. Patient charges will become commonplace."

For the full article:-
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Which labour government minister (Andy Burnham) for those incapable of doing their own research had a bill passed to do just what the tories are saying the NHS should do? I wouldn't dare say that labour started to sell off the NHS in their tenure, ah well, such is life. Does anybody here really believe the NHS was set up to cover what it tries to deliver today, do you really believe that a system set up to serve a post war world should/can carry on regardless. If we reverted to post war conditions and illnesses possibly, unfortunately those days have long gone and people carry on living with illnesses that would have killed them as little as 20 years ago. The system is bust and the majority of spend is for those over retirement age, a problem not forseen in the good old days. Personally I'd make more people pay for the services they receive, perhaps then they would appreciate the good value they get.
Bye the bye 1 in 8 people don't bother to turn up for an appointment, imagine if they had to pay for the privilege, that could be a start.

"Great Expectations" is what presents the NHS with an insuperable problem. Every citizen expects to be provided with either perfect health, or unlimited medical resources. It's our right. We're entitled, even if the treatment costs £2000 a month.

Nobody in their senses would now institute the National Health Service which all of us enjoy if it weren't already there, and no government can ever balance the books in an open-ended situation. The very wealthy already vote with their wallets and the only sensible improvement will come when the General Public accept that totally free medicine is a moving target.

The Government has rejected a warning by the new leader of Britain's doctors that the health of NHS patients was being put at risk because they were being denied access to operations and drugs.

Dr Mark Porter, the British Medical Association's recently elected chair of council, said rationing of access to procedures not considered to be worthwhile meant the NHS could no longer be considered a "comprehensive service".

In an interview with The Guardian, he said local restrictions would become increasingly widespread as the financial squeeze on the health service intensified.

"You see it happening in examples now, but it's when it becomes service-wide in a few years time, if the current policies continue, that the population will notice in the wider sense," he said.

"It's no longer a comprehensive service. We can see the effect of people to whom we have to say 'I'm sorry, this treatment is no longer available'."

Dr Porter also condemned the practice of offering financial incentives to some GPs' surgeries if they sent fewer patients for tests and treatment in hospital.

"It's morally wrong and professionally wrong," he said. "Doctors' minds should be on what's best for the patient, not on whether the PCT (primary care trust) will sub them for certain types of financial behaviour."

However the Department for Health insisted the Government's reforms to the NHS in the Health and Social Care Act were designed to safeguard the future of the service.

"Last year we made it clear that it is unacceptable for the NHS to impose blanket bans for treatment on the basis of costs. That is why we banned PCTs from putting caps on the number of people who could have certain operations," a spokesman said.

"The NHS is treating more people and we are increasing the NHS budget in real terms - investing an extra £12.5 billion in the NHS over the course of this parliament." MSN.

The principal opposition to an efficient National Health Service is the vested interest of various levels of administrators, allied with the understandable self-interest of Consultants who really run the show.

"Piece-work" is an expression that died with the decline of our Manufacturing Industry, but in essence it rewarded employees for work actually produced, as opposed to time spent at the coal-face.

Would such a practice improve matters in the NHS? Money-by-results?

The Friarige Hospital

The Friarage Hospital is in the town of Northallerton which is the old county town of North Yorkshire and also the former North Riding County, and oddly enough it is the largest town in the parliamentary constituency of Richmond.

The member of Parliament is a certain Mr William Hague

As with all hospitals, health authorities and NHS trusts, money and resources are precious and making money go around to support local health provision is getting harder and harder.

It comes as no suprise that the new shadow clinical commissioning group for the Friarage Hospital (set up as a result of Lansleys reforms) are proposing to downgrade maternity and peadiatric services.

Naturaly the local MP ( William Hague ) has criticised the plans, well of course he has to sound as though he is concerned, though the cutting of services at his main constituency hospital is as a direct result of HIS GOVERNMENT.

Under normal circumstances the closing or scaling back of services simply means travelling a bit further, but in this instance a "bit further" means as much as 60 miles from the little market towns and communities on top of the pennines to Middlesbrough.

Its becoming more and more evident that the NHS is moving towards becoming a basic service, the original principal of a universal health care service for the people, in your local community is going out of the window.

Today, doctors organisations have warned that many NHS services are "on the brink of colapse", these professional bodies give increased preasure on resources as a key reason, but when demand for a service grows, so should the resources ( funding ), our NHS is expected to treat more people with less and less money.

When will the British people wake up ? - this coalition government is destroying our NHS.

The New Health Secretary Speaks Out...

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" As soon as I have digested my instructions from Mr Murdoch, those troublesome hospital waiting lists will be down to a matter of a few years..."

Number of hospital trusts in the red more than double in just one year
More than one in 10 NHS trusts are now in the red
Follows unprecedented efficiency savings drive across all hospitals
South London Health Care Trust is NHS organisation with highest deficit

An increasing number of NHS organisations are struggling financially with the number of debt-ridden trusts doubling in a year, a study has revealed.
According to the Audit Commission report, trusts and foundation trusts in the red rose from 13 in 2010/11 to 31 in 2011/12. This is more than one in 10 trusts in the NHS.
Thirty-nine NHS trusts reported a poorer financial position in 2011/12 than in the previous year and 18 NHS trusts and foundation trusts received financial support from the Department of Health, the report states.
However, it only gives the figures for the 10 debt-ridden NHS trusts that it audits. The other 21 organisations are Foundation Trusts which are regulated by Monitor. Monitor does not publish annual figures because it says many of these organisations intentionally run up a deficit as part of a longer-term plan. They argue that annual figures are an 'out-dated' form of monitoring.
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The financial difficulties are in direct proportion to the idealism of the NHS which attempts to provide excellent health for all applicants. An economist in charge would recover the cost of treatment from those who could easily afford it, from foreign "Health-tourists", from victims of their own stupidity like mountaineers, potholers, motorcyclists and drivers of superfast cars. Why is the taxpayer meeting the costs of treating drunks, druggies and smokers? With exceptions for the needy, the "Hotel" element of a stay in hospital should be payable by those who currently benefit from free meals and accommodation.

A decision needs to be reached about care costs for the elderly. What is the justification for protecting personal assets on behalf of family inheritors, at a cost to the general public?

OW are you advocating a US style of healthcare.........If you can afford it you can have it if you can't afford it tough.........

astradt1 wrote:OW are you advocating a US style of healthcare.........If you can afford it you can have it if you can't afford it tough.........

I'd be interested to hear any suggestions for having the things you CAN'T afford to pay for, Astradt.

Until 2008, the Nation previously thought the answer was to be found in Credit Cards and Mortgages.

North Yorkshire and York NHS Trust faces £10m budget cuts

Other measures include changes to opening hours in the region's minor injuries units and the closure of some beds in community hospital and reviews of expensive medical treatments and mental health care.

Dr Richard Vautrey, deputy chair of the British Medical Association's GP committee, said: "If you cut in one area it puts pressure on another area.

"Everybody in the health service is working flat out, and [GP] practices are particularly.

"Take away any resources from practices and it makes their job doubly hard."
[BBC York & North Yorkshire]

Amongst recent proposals put forward were the closure of and ending of various services at The Friarage Hospital in William Hagues constituency.

A plan to close maternity services triggered a public campaign which was supported by local MP William Hague.

H Y P O C R I S Y H Y P O C R I T E

Athens was today again the scene of a demonstration against austerity measures imposed by the EU Central Bank.

Among those interviewed was a hospital employee who said they were continuing to work overtime for €3 an hour (below the statutory minimum wage) to help the sick, but were running desperately short of essential medical supplies. Which won't be provided by Demonstrations.

Update:

Panorama on BBC1 today investigated "medical tourism" and found that few NHS Hospitals recovered the cost of treatment to foreign visitors.
We also pay double the amount to the EU for treating Brits abroad than we recover for traffic in this direction. Irish people in receipt of a British Pension can get their (Private) Irish healthcare paid for by the NHS.

The problem seems to lie in the ethos that the NHS is a free service, so there is little formal organisation to collect for those treatments which should not have been free.

The privatization of the NHS and the cutting of services must be top of the agenda as we head towards 2015 and the next general election.

The NHS can very easily become to Cameron what the Poll Tax became to Margaret Thatcher, and it is the responsibility of all those people who realy care about our NHS to drive the message home.

It is estimated that as much as one fifth of the NHS budget will end up as profit in the pockets of the shareholders of private health providers, some of these same companies are donors to the Tory party.

There is something completely incompatable with the hypocratic oath and people making money out of a public service which cares for the sick.

In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction [ taken from the Hypocratic Oath ]

If the estimates are correct, that 20% of the NHS budget will eventualy end up as profit for private health providers, then I have to ask why cannot the NHS remain a totaly public service where 100% of its budget goes towards care, and not 80%.

The changes to our NHS are driven purely by political dogma based upon a Tory in-built hatred of anything publicly owned and of all public services.

If the Labour Party wish to be taken seriously as Socialist reformers, they might well announce now "corrections" that they will enact within a short period of taking office after a General Election and a repeal of the NHS Bill as has already been floated. Such "corrections" to include a clawback of profits from "investors" in the Tory Bill.

Having been forewarned, vultures will have no right to resist forfeiture of their ill-gotten gains.

New Secretary of State for Health one Jeremy Hunt has refused to continue the ring-fencing of NHS budget......

You all know the man who wanted to give Murdock Free reign with the British Media........Then blamed his Special Adviser......

The man who just happen to bump into the same Murdock at the Olympics......


Now is the NHS safe in Tory hands?

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The above link is to information contained within a website called "The Green Benches", this particular story is a real revelation and should be read by anyone concerned with what is happening to our NHS.

It explains (in detail) how private drug and health care companies who are donors to the Tory party are set to make huge and grossly imoral profits from the NHS.

HEADLINE
---------
Tory Donor's drug company to hike crucial MS drug treatment by 2000% in price to make £237,000,000 profit from the NHS.

This scandal should be posted as many times in as many places as possible on the internet so that people can see what is happening.

Manchester hospitals spnt £187 million last year on treated drink and drug related illnesses.

Come on witchfinder do you think the government of the day makes the slightest difference to what a pharmaceutical charges?

Big Pharma operates by direct contact with GPs and with Hospital consultants.
It's a natural function of democratic capitalism. Get used to it!

Repost of my blog from Monday. This one is full of links to sources, including legal cases establishing precedent, but those don't copy over so please visit the original for those if you want to check sources:

Start quote:

As has been covered many times on this blog and by others, the government is going as fast as it dares, and in as subtle a way as it can, to do as much damage to the NHS as it can during its probably single term in office.

At the same time, Labour has committed, via Ed Miliband as well as through Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham and Shadow Health Minister Andrew Gwynne, to repealing the Health and Social Care Act once Labour returns to power. Called upon to make a clear statement regarding Labour's intentions, Burnham tweeted "I'll repeal the act. Full Stop."

However, both activists and politicians fear that the damage done to the NHS will be largely irreversible by the next election in (presumably) 2015. In particular, the concern - as articulated by Andrew Gwynne at a 'fringe' event at the recent Labour conference - is that because the government is awarding long contracts to private health providers. the next Labour government will have its hands tied and will be unable to bring the contracted services & facilities back into the NHS until those contracts expire.

Circle's contract to run Hinchinbrooke hospital in Cambridgeshire runs until the end of 2021, and Circle - on the back of vastly inflated claims of improvements and in spite of failure to hit financial targets - is demanding more NHS contracts. Virgin's contract to "run seven hospitals along with dentistry services, sexual health clinics, breast cancer screening and other community services" runs until 2017, as do various other contracts it has won, and the length of its contracts to run 25 GP surgeries appear to vary. Interserve recently won a 7-year contract for NHS facilities management. Serco - a company that has admitted deliberately misleading regulators about the performance of its GP services - bought the principle NHS pathology service in expectation of £800m profit over 10 years and in March won a 10-year, £180-million contract to provide facilities services in Kent, just two of its many NHS 'conquests' (which already include a contract to run a whole hospital). In total, contracts worth billions of pounds have already been put up for auction and are almost certain to be won by private companies.

These examples represent a tiny percentage of the government's massive NHS give-away. The consensus of opinion among politicians, activists and commentators appears to be that nothing can be done to bring these contracts, which will represent a vast portion of NHS spending, back into public hands until they expire.

However, I've been doing a little reading and I'm not so sure that's correct. I believe there is a route by which a Labour government could invalidate the contracts and take control of the NHS back into the hands of the British people as soon as it feels ready to do so: retrospective legislation.

'Retrospective legislation' means a law that the government passes which applies to a period before the law was passed, as well as to afterward. Such laws are made rarely and are usually controversial because of the principle that someone committing an action in the past wasn't aware that it was going to become illegal in the future, so penalising them retroactively would be unfair.

However, there is precedent and legal judgment that creates an exception to this rule - and continued under this current (excuse for a) government.

On 27 Feb of this year, the Treasury, under pressure to do something about tax loopholes, announced that it was going to implement legislation to close off key tax-avoidance opportunities. Not only that, but it explicitly included retrospectivity in the law, with David Gauke, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, saying:

"The Government wants to ensure that the tax system is fair for all and we will not allow those who seek to benefit from this aggressive avoidance to get an unfair advantage. We do not take today’s action lightly, but the potential tax loss from this scheme and the history of previous abuse in this area mean that this is a circumstance where the decision to change the law with full retrospective effect is justified. The Government is committed to creating a competitive tax system and we have brought in a range of corporate tax reforms, but we are absolutely clear that business must pay the tax they owe when they owe it."

The principle of retrospectivity where there is financial consequence to those affected by the law has been tested and upheld. Section 58 of Labour's Finance Act 2008 contained retrospective elements against tax avoidance which were challenged in court by an individual who claimed that changing section 58 retrospectively was depriving him unfairly of his own money. The court ruled against him and the appeal court denied his appeal. I'll summarise afterward, so bear with me, but if you can bear to read them the key points in the judgment were:

"93. The judge was not wrong to conclude in his comprehensive, clear and excellent judgment that the retrospective provisions of the 2008 Act are proportionate and are compatible with Article 1 (of Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights). There are no grounds which would entitle this court to disturb it.

94. In the circumstances of this case, the liability of the claimant under the retrospective legislation of s.58 to pay the UK income tax that he would have had to pay, if he had not participated in the tax avoidance scheme, is no more an unjustified interference with his enjoyment of his possessions than the ordinary liability that his fellow residents in the UK are under to contribute, by way of UK tax on their income, towards the costs of providing community and other benefits for the purposes of life in a civil society.

95. In summary, the crucial points on examination of all the relevant circumstances of this case are that the retrospective amendments were enacted pursuant to a justified fiscal policy that was within the State's area of appreciation and discretionary judgment in economic and social matters. The legislation achieves a fair balance between the interests of the general body of taxpayers and the right of the claimant to enjoyment of his possessions, without imposing an unreasonable economic burden on him. This outcome accords with the reasonable expectations of the taxation of residents in the State on the profits of their trade or profession. The legislation prevents the Double Taxation Agreement tax relief provisions from being misused for a purpose different from their originally intended use. There has been no conduct on the part of the State fiscal authorities that has made the retrospective application of the amended legislation to his tax affairs an infringement of his Convention rights."

In short, the court decided that the government was acting proportionately and that Mr Huitson's 'loss' was only in line with what he would have had to pay if he had not used the avoidance scheme to dodge it. If you want to read the full article on the decision, you can do so here.

I believe that this precedent opens a massive gate for Labour not only to halt the progress of the Health and Social Care Act in whatever's left of the NHS in public hands by the next election, but to make null and void every contract awarded to private companies to provide 'NHS' services.

All Labour would have to do is use its Parliamentary majority to pass a law that declared the award of the contracts to have been illegal and invalid. A Labour government would have the right to make this retrospective legislation. There are ample grounds to block any legal challenge to this in the known actions of private healthcare providers in making payments to the Tories in return for favours, in the multitude of MPs and Peers who stand to profit personally from the awards and in the documented actions of those health providers in orchestrating press coverage and unduly influencing ministerial pronouncements in order to get the NHS Bill through Parliament in the first place.

This foreknowledge and deliberate action would, in my opinion, bring Lansley's NHS Act, and the contracts awarded under it, under the precedent established by Huitson v HMRC, because those health companies and the politicians doing their bidding, could be reasonably expected to have acted differently and to have known that they were contravening the reasonable expectation of the British people - to protect the NHS and act in the public interest instead of lining their own pockets at our expense and to our detriment.

If this is correct - and no doubt someone with greater legal expertise will comment - then Labour has an open avenue not only to repeal the Act and halt further progress in the privatisation of our NHS, but to undo the vast majority of the damage done and of the Tories' intent in trying to make the damage irreversible.

All it would require is the political will to do it. Does Labour have that will? We'll see - but we can influence that rather than just waiting. If enough people demand loudly enough that it be done, Labour will be able to claim a strong mandate for taking the step when it is elected.

So write to your Labour MP, write to Andy Burnham and to Ed Miliband, and demand that they investigate this opportunity and, if legal advice confirms it can be done, that they make it a key election promise that they can act on when elected.

"The NHS will continue to exist for as long as there are folk left with faith to fight for it."
Aneurin Bevan, founder of the NHS

End quote!

All grist to the mill, and fascinating reading.

Why are Cameron/Osborne/Clegg apparently so relaxed about the UK Corporation tax which is skilfully being minimised by the likes of Google, Amazon, Vodafone and Facebook on the £Millions of sales enjoyed here, but recorded in Dublin or Luxembourg offices?

Not to mention Starbucks, whose low tax paid over several years is down to poor performance!

One more reason why we should tax (at a lower rate) turnover, which is hard to hide, rather than profit, which isn't:

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Good post Bobby!

I was back in A&E yesterday, and was surprised to see that the name tags on the doctor's breasts, were hanging from lanyards espousing the name of the PRIVATE comany who employed them!

Red, today's copy of The Independent suggests that private medicine is very grateful for NHS-referred business in these hard times. Which also shortens NHS waiting-lists.

(Copied from UK Politics)

It has recently been announced that dozens of ambulance stations may close here in North Yorkshire to save money, englands largest, most rural and most remote county.

"I will cut the deficit not the NHS" David Cameron

Today ( 7th Nov ) it has been announced here in North Yorkshire that several minor injuries units accross the county face either been axed or having their services reduced.

"I will cut the deficit not the NHS" David Cameron

The NHS in North Yorkshire has warned it is so cash-strapped that it may not be able to pay for basic services.

In a paper to be discussed on Tuesday, officials will be told that "unpalatable actions" are needed. [ source: BBC York & North Yorkshire ]

"I will cut the deficit not the NHS" David Cameron

The "biggest shake-up of health provision in a century" is set to take place in North Yorkshire as NHS bosses make "radical" cuts to save money.
[ source: BBC York & North Yorkshire ]

We realise that in the coming two years we will be faced with the challenge of making dramatic savings (improving productivity), and we will require all practices to support us on this. [ from the website of the Hambleton, Richmondshire & Whitby Clinical commissioning body ]

"I will cut the deficit not the NHS" David Cameron

The knee-jerk Tory reaction to overspending in any public-sector department is always to slash staff numbers.

It's not easy to think of any activity more labour-intensive than the NHS, and unfortunately the Nation has not been adequately prepared for the Robot-Nurse concept.

Oh, gosh, so happy about Obama getting back in in USA, I forgot I live in GB - need a day or two to readjust

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I watched with great interest today the Opposition Day debate on regional pay within the NHS. I had the privilege of some small involvement in the debate, as Andy Burnham’s office – having read my blog on a few occasions – had asked me if I could provide information on which Trusts in the UK were considering moving away from the nationally-agreed Agenda for Change (AfC) terms and conditions. I had supplied information on 31 Trusts, including the south-west cartel (SWC) and the two Teesside trusts – Andy Burnham mentioned 32, so presumably he’d found another from somewhere else, but it was great to feel I’d made a small contribution.

There’s lots to comment on in the debate, from Burnham’s robust defence of the NHS and attack on the government’s duplicity, to Jeremy Hunt’s insistence that the Tories have increased NHS spending in real terms even though their own Treasury office says they have not, and much else in between.

But I’ll write on those another time, because something happened which I think deserves attention all on its own:

Did the government change the official record of a Parliamentary debate in order to cover up its involvement in the setting-up of the South West pay cartel?

My analysis follows – but if you want to read both the Commons debate this afternoon and the Westminster Hall debate this morning, you can do so by following the links. The extracts are just a little lengthy, but please bear with me and read them, because I believe they’re absolutely crucial to understanding the government’s actions and attitudes, and its readiness to take any measure to achieve its aims.

In the Commons debate this afternoon, there were a couple of very interesting and revealing passages concerning the contribution of Under-Secretary for Health Anna Soubry to the earlier Westminster Hall debate, which had been secured by Labour’s Exeter MP, Ben Bradshaw. The first was initiated by Mr Bradshaw early in the debate, as he advised Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham of a key point from the morning’s debate:

Ben Bradshaw: My right hon. Friend may not have been able to catch up with this morning’s Adjournment debate in Westminster Hall, but it is more than “silence from Ministers”. The Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who responded to the debate, admitted that the Department had known about the south-west cartel when it happened, and that she supported it. [Interruption.]

Andy Burnham: This debate is flushing out the Government’s position, is it not? The Under-Secretary of State keeps heckling from the Front Bench, but we now know—[Interruption.]

Mr Speaker: Order. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to resume his seat. [Interruption.] Order. Let me say once and for all to the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who has been conducting a running commentary since she sat down on the Front Bench at the start of the debate, “Stop it.” I do not wish to hear it, and neither does the House. The Secretary of State will respond in due course. If the hon. Lady is dissatisfied with what has been said, her right hon. Friend will have a chance to respond. I do not want the sedentary chuntering, the finger-wagging and all the rest of it. The hon. Lady can say “pooh” if she wants, but she will accept the ruling of the Chair, and either behave or get out of the Chamber. I do not mind which it is.

The second, some time later in the debate, was by Labour’s Bristol MP, Kerry McCarthy. Having pointed out independent findings that regional pay would suck up to £9.7 billion out of regional economies, here’s what she said, and what ensued:

Kerry McCarthy: For my constituents, today’s debate is even more important because, as we have heard, trusts in our region have been developing the NHS south-west pay, terms and conditions consortium. This morning, I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry)whether the Government knew about the consortium before it was established and whether they encouraged the trusts to set it up, and it was interesting that she said, “My understanding is we were involved”—[Interruption.]

Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab): That is a fascinating answer because it is at odds with the one I received from the Secretary of State during Health questions.

Kerry McCarthy: I very much hope that when the Government—[Interruption.]

Mr Speaker: Order. Let me say to the Minister once and for all—[Interruption.] No. I say to the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry)—perhaps she will have the courtesy to listen when she is being spoken to from the Chair—that it is not acceptable for any Member of the House to treat the debate as a private conversation between himself or herself and the Member on his or her feet. If the Minister is dissatisfied with what is being said, other people on her Benches can pick up those points. It is totally unacceptable to behave in this way and it will stop straight away. I hope the Whip has noticed it, and I will be speaking to others about the matter.

Kerry McCarthy: There is some confusion. When I wrote to the Health Secretary to get some clarity—I shall try to move on. When I wrote to the Health Secretary, the response I got back was very ambiguous. It referred mysteriously to when the document was first leaked to the public, rather than saying what the Government were aware of in relation to the consortium.

Kerry McCarthy: In the debate earlier today, the Minister definitely said the words, “Yes, we were.” The civil servant behind her was shaking his head and saying, “No, we weren’t. No, we weren’t,” so I hope that we get some clarity on the matter and a firm answer when the Government respond to this debate. To what extent did they know about and encourage the south-west consortium to start?

So, we have 2 Labour members, separately and independently, including the member who secured the debate, both stating, clearly and emphatically, that Anna Soubry admitted, on the Parliamentary record, that the government was involved in the formation of the SWC.

Both of these members would know full well that, if they claimed this falsely, the earlier debate was on the record and they could be censured. Anna Soubry was reprimanded twice by the Speaker for interrupting the Commons proceedings, and could have claimed a point of order had she wished to, in order to get her comments on the record, but declined to do so.

And yet, checking the record of the morning debate tonight, I found the following:

Kerry McCarthy: When did the Department of Health first find out about the formation of the consortium? When I have written to Ministers in the past, all that I have been told by way of response was factual information about when the document was leaked to the press. They have refused to answer that question about whether they were involved in setting up the consortium, or encouraging people to set it up before it was formed.

Anna Soubry: I believe we were not, but I will make further inquiries of my officials, and we will write to the hon. Lady and give her assurances about that. If I am in any way wrong I know that I will be corrected, and will be happy to say so.

Now, Kerry McCarthy’s own Twitter feed tonight says that she and Mr Bradshaw have been to the Hansard office to listen through the tape about 6 times and concedes that Ms Soubry ‘may have said weren’t not were‘.

I’m far from sure that she’s right. I’ve listened to the recording 10 times, and it sounds to me, every time, like ‘were’. You can listen to it (and watch it) here – fast-forward to 11:14:50 on the clock.

Now listen to the following 30 seconds or so of Ms Soubry’s response – and notice how she pronounces her ‘T’s at the end of words. Every time, the ‘T’ is clearly enunciated – Ms Soubry appears to have excellent diction. Yet we’re to believe that – on the one crucial word and only on that word – she opted to turn Cockney and swallow the ‘T’?

Not only that, but re-read the transcript of the debate again. Ms Soubry supposedly pronounced ‘weren’t’ so badly that 2 members of Parliament stated emphatically in the House that she had said ‘were’, and yet the official transcript has a very clear ‘we were not’.

Think about it: Ms Soubry was asked a question by an opposition MP, to which the answer was potentially very explosive – and yet she chooses to say a very sloppy, almost undetectable ‘I believe we weren’ in response, rather than a clear ‘we were not’.

Look at the syntax, too – not ‘I don’t think we were’, or ‘I think we were not’, either of which would have been much clearer. It looks 'off'.

Hansard Transcripts are typically published about 3 hours after the words are spoken. I’ve re-watched the Commons debate just now, and interestingly, Ms Soubry is on the front bench, visible having a few tete-a-tetes with Health Minister Dr Daniel Poulter, until about 13.20hrs, then disappears – in time to ‘clarify’ her response to the Hansard office before the 3-hour publication deadline. Then, at the end of the debate at around 3.50pm, Dr Poulter rounds on the Labour MPs for their ‘mistake’, saying he has in his hands the Hansard transcript.

Time enough to make the ‘clarification’ and deliver an amended record to Dr Poulter for his closing remarks. Job done.

I’ll leave it to you to look at the evidence and decide for yourself, but personally I’m certain that Ms Soubry said ‘I believe we were’ – it would have been completely out of character for her to swallow the final 2 letters like that, and even more unlikely given the incendiary nature of a misunderstood answer.

Besides, I have it on record that the cartel was briefing health ministers by July at the latest, and they were giving their approval – see this post for more information.

So, what do you think?

I would respectfuly like to draw posters attention to the National Health Action Party, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] which was set up in reaction to this governments so called Health Review which will soon be privatizing many areas of the NHS.

The National Health Action Party was founded by senior health professionals including doctors, consultants and health academics in order to fight plans to turn the NHS into easy meat for profiteering vultures who s main aim is to make money.

The party will be officialy launched next wednesday ( 15th November ) and you could do your little bit to support the party by pasting links on the web, by joining the party on Facebook and promoting / supporting it.

I have said before on cutting edge that the health reforms will probably be this governments "Poll Tax" in that it end up been one of the prime reasons why this government will be ousted - help to make sure that this happens.

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Sometimes described as The tip of the iceberg.

Someone remind us, please, why Parliament is stuffed to overflowing with Businessmen and Barristers.

I think it's because they understand the uses of power (and of course how to abuse it)