Tag Archives: welovethenhs

Labour aren’t being hypocritical on NHS Direct

Within milliseconds of the Coalition announcement of the plan to replace NHS Direct with a new non-emergency NHS service, Labour politicians were up in arms.

Because this plan from the Coalition obviously bears absolutely no relation to Labour’s plan, as spelt out on page 35 of the party’s 2010 manifesto.

A new national 111 telephone number will make nonemergency services far easier for people to access and book.

This, we need to understand, is totally different to replacing NHS Direct. What Labour had in mind, as they planned their £44 billion savings, must have been to keep NHS Direct just as …

Posted in News, Op-eds | Also tagged | 19 Comments

Second day for #welovetheNHS

Yesterday we brought you news about the bizarre battle between American rightwingers spreading misinformation about the NHS, and British users of the NHS who were actually quite proud of it.

24 hours later and Tweetminster (which monitors the twitter updates of MPs and PPCs and provides a service where you can search them) reports

65 #welovethenhs tweets from MPs & PPCS. 8 from @UKLabour MPs & 4 PPCs, 3 from @LibDems MPs & 3 PPCs, 1 from @Conservatives PPC

Our own Nick_Clegg was amongst them, as was Prime Minister Brown (whose tweet looks like it’s had help from …

Posted in Online politics | Also tagged , , , , | 15 Comments

Here at LDV, #welovetheNHS

One of Obama’s key pledges in the US Presidential elections was major healthcare reforms.  The US is a deeply divided nation on health as in many other policy areas – it is simultaneously home to some of the planet’s best hospitals, the best research in medical advances and the best healthcare practioners – and also home to some of the worst poverty and barriers to healthcare, the worst developed-world child mortality rates.

Without being facetious, almost all of my knowledge of the American healthcare system comes from my knowledge of US TV.  And whilst House has access to an amazing battery …

Posted in LDVUSA, Online politics | Also tagged | 17 Comments