Tag Archives: health

Does Vince look fat in this?

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 1st March 2018 - 4:30 pm

Not a question I’ve heard, but I got your attention!

The way we view men and women is still fundamentally flawed. I imagine our Lib Dem male MPs have several suits they use in cycle, only having to choose a shirt and tie.

But our women MPs? It’s a different matter, though it shouldn’t be. I imagine hair, makeup, matching shoes, accessories and the right outfit for the right occasion are all things our women MPs think about. Why??

As a prospective parliamentary candidate, one of the women-only training sessions I attended was on image. I …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged eating disorders, gender equality and mental health | 10 Comments

Sick absence figures reveal extent of strains on NHS staff as 45 million hours lost in Scotland alone

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 27th December 2017 - 12:53 pm

Last year, my husband spent 51 days in hospital. He received excellent care from compassionate and skilled staff at what was an absolutely terrifying time for us.

That experience gave us an insight into the strains and stresses that the NHS faces. The most common refrain from staff was that it was so stressful and the Winter hadn’t even started yet.

He spent a just over a month in a medical ward in our local hospital and a further three weeks in a specialist centre in our nearest city. On only one occasion in the whole 51 days did I see staff going home when they were actually supposed to. There were times when I was shocked to see the same members of staff on their 5th or even 6th 12 hour shift in a week. One day I arrived at the hospital in the afternoon to see a health care assistant who had been on night shift the previous night. Because the ward was so under-staffed, she had gone home, slept for a couple of hours and come back in for the busy stretch around lunch and dinner.

During their shifts, the nurses did not stop. They were dealing with multiple stressful situations at a time. They were stretched to the limit.

Obviously a situation like that is not sustainable. It’s going to affect people’s health in some way or another. Alex Cole-Hamilton now has evidence of that.

He revealed that more than 45 million hours have been lost by Scottish NHS boards to staff ill health during the past four years and said the immense pressure staff are under could account for rates rising.

Data obtained from health boards under the Freedom of Information Act reveals that the number of hours lost to illness increased from 11.4 million hours in 2014-15 to 13.1 million hours in 2016-17, with the number rising year on year.

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged Alex Cole-Hamilton and Scotland | 1 Comment

Lamb: Government failing abysmally on GP target

By The Voice | Thu 31st August 2017 - 6:55 pm

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Last week a study highlighted that almost a million EU workers could leave the UK after Brexit simply because they “feel less welcome and valued” in the country and in their jobs.

The impact that is going to have on our health service and the wider economy is severe.

Today, it emerged that the Government is going to spend £100 million recruiting GPs from abroad .

More than half of the Government’s 5000 targeted increase in the number of GPs are going to be recruited in this way. Other health workers will also be sought.

As well as the £100 million, each GP who comes from abroad will cost taxpayers £1000 per year because of the Immigration Skills Charge. Surely the sensible thing to do would be to exempt the NHS when we need these people so badly. In fact, why have it at all? It seems to me like a silly nonsense to convince the Daily Mail that we’re doing something about immigration.

Norman Lamb said that the whole thing was absurd.

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Posted in News | Also tagged brexit, GPs and norman lamb | 6 Comments

The Press Pack: A round-up of Lib Dem media comments – 22 August 2017

By NewsHound | Tue 22nd August 2017 - 8:18 pm

Here’s a roundup of media comments made by Lib Dem parliamentarians and spokespeople today.

GP numbers

Norman Lamb slammed the Government for failing to deliver more GPs:

The government’s promise to recruit 5,000 more GPs by 2020 lies in tatters, with fewer GPs now than when this pledge was first made.

“The pitiful increase we have seen in recent months is nowhere near enough to cope with rising patient demand.

“This failure to recruit enough doctors will inevitably have a damaging impact on the ability of patients to access the healthcare they need.

“We are already close to breaking point, with people in many parts of the country struggling to get appointments with their GP.

“More doctors are urgently needed to guarantee a fully-staffed NHS that provides everyone with the care they need.

Swinson criticises UK support for Trump Afghanistan move

The government didn’t really get round to condemning Donald Trump’s appalling remarks in the wake of Charlottesville, but they were quick off the mark to support him sending more troops to Afghanistan. Jo Swinson said:

For once, sense seems to have prevailed in the White House.

“But to succeed in Afghanistan will require winning the hearts and minds of its people and working closely with neighbouring countries.

“On that front, Donald Trump has already done untold damage through his proposed refugee ban, Islamophobic comments and cack-handed approach to foreign affairs.

“The government’s rapid statement of support for Trump today contrasts with its failure to swiftly condemn his divisive views and actions in the past.

“Simply pouring more troops into Afghanistan will not work without a broader strategy involving careful diplomacy and redoubled efforts to build a stable government.”

Even Brussels must be tired of this waffle

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Posted in News | Also tagged brexit, business and Scotland | 7 Comments

LibLink: Paddy Ashdown: Tories’ Royal Marine cut plays fast and loose with UK defence

By NewsHound | Sat 27th May 2017 - 12:55 pm

It makes sense that Paddy should write for the Plymouth Herald on defence given the city’s strategic importance.

He took the Government to task for cutting the Marines – about which he knows more than most people:

For more than three centuries – from Gibraltar and Trafalgar to Normandy and Afghanistan – the Royal Marines have epitomised those qualities. They have fought in more theatres and won more battles than any other British unit. In our nation’s hours of danger, they have been, as Lord St Vincent predicted in 1802, “the country’s sheet anchor”.

So the news that the Government is cutting 200 Royal Marine posts – at such a volatile time in world affairs – should concern us all. They are committing this folly in response to a crisis of their own making.

The cost of Conservative foolishness doesn’t end with the Royal Marines. They’ve cut personnel numbers, breaking their manifesto promise not to reduce the Army below 82,000. Troops on the frontline are deprived of basic equipment and combat training has been slashed, putting soldiers’ lives in greater peril. Warships sit idle at quaysides. No wonder top generals have accused the Government of “deception” over defence.

The Tories are very practised at talking tough on defence in elections. But look at the history: it’s always Tories who cut most on defence in government. It’s now clear that Mrs May will get back in because of the hopelessness of the Labour Party. But it would be very dangerous to give her a big enough majority to ignore us again.

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged defence, education, general election 2017 and paddy ashdown | 2 Comments

WATCH: Tim Farron say he’ll reinstate student nurses’ bursaries, give nurses a pay rise and invest in NHS

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 16th May 2017 - 8:49 am

“I will not have it.” said Tim, saying that the Tories treat nurses like dirt.

He was talking to the Royal College of Nursing conference.

Watch this clip here:

He told them:

The Government’s decision to abandon bursaries for nursing students was clearly wrong.

The evidence has shown a drastic fall in the number of people applying to study nursing following this dangerously short-sighted cut.

We should be supporting more people into these vital professions – but instead this Government are putting up greater barriers.

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Posted in News | Also tagged general election 2017, nursing and tim farron | 6 Comments

Lib Dems would boost mental health care with £1 billion investment

By The Voice | Thu 11th May 2017 - 7:48 am

Liberal Democrats have stated that £1 billion of the party’s additional health funding would be spent tackling the “historic injustice” faced by people with mental ill health.

Last weekend, we unveiled a Five Point NHS and Care Recovery Plan to increase funding for health and social care services, including a penny on income tax to provide a £6 billion funding boost.

Today we are saying that £1 billion of this extra money would be ring-fenced as dedicated funding for mental health services.

This would help to deliver on 12 key priorities, including improving waiting time standards for mental health care on the NHS and providing support for pregnant women and young people suffering from mental health problems.

We would also set out to end the inappropriate use of force against people with mental ill health, end out of area placements for mental health patients and prioritise national action to reduce the number of suicides.

Norman Lamb said:

The Liberal Democrats are committed to ending the historic injustice against people with mental ill health.

Under the Conservative government, services have been stretched to breaking point at a time when the prevalence of mental ill health appears to be rising.

Neither Labour nor the Conservatives have outlined how they will fund mental health services. We’ve made it clear that our priorities will be funded from our ambitious plan to inject £6bn a year into the NHS with an additional penny on income tax.

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Posted in News | Also tagged general election 2017, mental health and norman lamb | 1 Comment

Yesterday’s Press Releases in review: 1 May 2017

By NewsHound | Tue 2nd May 2017 - 8:07 am

It may have been a Bank Holiday, but the Press Team never rest. Here are some of the releases they sent out yesterday that aren’t covered elsewhere in our pages;

Farron: FAZ report on May’s Juncker dinner show this Govt has no clue on Brexit

According to damning reports in the German press on Theresa May’s dinner with Juncker last week, EU sources believe there is now more than 50% chance of a disorderly Brexit, while May has made clear to the European Commission she fully expects to be re-elected as Prime Minister.

Liberal Democrat Leader Tim Farron commented:

These reports blow a

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged brexit, norman lamb, nuclear power, press releases, tim farron and vince cable | 26 Comments

Norman Lamb’s speech in health debate at Liberal Democrat Conference

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 18th March 2017 - 7:45 pm

Here s Norman Lamb’s speech from this afternoon’s health debate:

First, we condemn Theresa May for her refusal to guarantee the rights of EU citizens working in our NHS and care services to stay in this country.

We value the vital contribution you make.

We demand that their right is guaranteed.

The Budget completely failed to address the dire financial situation facing the NHS and care.

Whatever your politics, it makes no sense to spend a reducing share of our national income on the NHS as demand rises at 4% every year

Whatever your politics, it makes no sense that in 2018/19 spending per head in real terms will actually fall as pressures grow

Whatever your politics, surely we can’t tolerate over a million older people with care needs left unmet.

Yet this is the reality today.

And it’s not just numbers or statistics – it’s the impact on people which is so disturbing. There are real consequences for families up and down our country.

This is what the brilliant charity, Young Minds, reports from its Parents’ Helpline:

‘The helpline receives calls every day from parents who are desperately trying to get support from Children’s Mental Health Services. We regularly hear from parents who can’t even get a referral or who have been waiting months for an initial assessment and whose children’s conditions have got worse during that time. Children who have started to self harm or become suicidal during the wait – or who’ve dropped out of school, which not only has a big impact on their own education but also means that one of the parents has to give up their job to look after them.

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Posted in News | Also tagged norman lamb and spring conference 2017 | 7 Comments

Can anyone tell me what is wrong with this story in the Independent?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 5th February 2017 - 7:19 pm

This is the picture of a story from the Independent.

It concerns shocking figures unearthed by Scottish Lib Dem Health Spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton which show the terrible lengths of time people can wait for discharge from hospital in Scotland for “health and social care reasons”, There was one example where one person had to wait for almost a year and a half.

Alex said:

In November I asked the First Minister about a constituent of mine who had spent 150 nights in hospital due to delayed discharge.

Nicola Sturgeon described the situation as unacceptable.“What then are we to make of patients in hospital for up to 500 nights, perhaps because carers can’t be found to visit them at home or there isn’t a care home place available?

Under the SNP, 1,000 beds were lost from Scotland’s hospitals during the same three years. Our under-pressure NHS can ill afford delayed discharges on this extreme scale.

Our social care spokesperson, Karen Clark added:

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Posted in News | Also tagged Scotland | 3 Comments

1250 days to save the NHS: A new approach

By Jon Taylor | Sat 3rd December 2016 - 9:55 am

First a little about myself. I am 53 years old and have worked in health care for over 22 years. I have voted Liberal, latterly Liberal Democrat, for nearly 40 years now. I, like others, have been frustrated by the ongoing swing politics that has affected the United Kingdom since the last war. Whilst like many others I am saddened by the outcome of the referendum I know as a party we are committed to be outward looking and pro-European. This will mean maintaining and fostering close links our European neighbours. However we need to plan now as to how we can win the next General Election in 2020, and in doing so protect to NHS as a public service.

The voting public must be made aware what is at stake and we must put forward a radical but costed vision for the health service. In 1997 New Labour came to power and pumped money into the NHS whilst establishing targets for waiting times. This was a sensible approach, but in recent years this has evolved into ever-increasing ‘fines’ for failing to meet those targets. Therefore, despite the Conservative government’s much lauded promise ‘to increase funding’ for the NHS, the reality is that year on year hospital trusts fall ever further into debt, leading to cuts in staff & frontline services in real terms. This is neither a responsible or sustainable approach to meeting the needs of the public or the NHS.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged ohs | 22 Comments

We need to reform prescription charges

By Mohsin Khan | Mon 21st November 2016 - 6:00 pm

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Over the last few years, we’ve seen rise after rise in English prescription charges.

Yet the list of illnesses giving you free prescriptions was set in the 1960s, with cancer being the only recent addition. Shockingly, it excludes mental health outright.

At this autumn’s South Central Regional Conference, a motion by the author was passed calling for reforms to remove the inequities of the current charging regime.

Take two hypothetical examples.

Jon is 40 and has a weak thyroid. Although he has a well paid job, Jon does not have to pay for his thyroid medication, or for any other medication, no matter what it’s for.

25-year-old Samantha works part time, with an income of £17,000. This takes her over the financial thresholds for free prescriptions. She has asthma, but often cannot afford to fill her prescriptions. Samantha ends up in hospital with asthma several times a year, with frequent GP visits too.

As a doctor, I know that there are many real patients like this.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged prescription charges | 17 Comments

Lord Malcolm Bruce writes… Liberalism revitalised

By Malcolm Bruce | Thu 22nd September 2016 - 12:00 pm

I want to respond to the challenges issued by Paddy and Vince during our conference.

Paddy said the party was “intellectually dead.” Vince said our position on another referendum was disrespectful to the electorate.

Let me take on Vince first. We and our predecessors supported UK membership of the European Community from its inception. The SDP was created largely because of Labour’s equivocation over British membership. We campaigned unstintingly for Remain and we remain convinced that the UK ‘s interests are best served by being a key member of the European Union.

Yes, by a narrow margin the country voted Leave but we have not changed our view and, given that there is no clear idea of what kind of relationship people want – in or out of the single market – let alone the hundreds of cooperative agreements built up over the last 43 years.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged brexit, education, liberalism, paddy ashdown and vince cable | 76 Comments

Baroness Joan Walmsley writes…Will new PM’s actions speak louder than her words?

By Joan Walmsley | Wed 20th July 2016 - 11:55 am

On Tuesday, just two days before parliament starts its recess and less than a week after Theresa May first addressed the commons as Prime Minister, Sir Simon Stevens, CEO of NHS England, wrote about his priorities for the NHS.

For most of us his comments and overall strategy will seem eminently sensible. The question I ask myself is this: Will Theresa May’s government pay lip service to Simon Stevens’ strategy or will they actually commit to the funds and action needed to carry it through?

You might say I am being unduly cynical and that I am not giving this new PM a chance. You may be right, although keeping Mr Hunt as her Secretary of State for Health does not strike me as very smart, given that he is so toxic to the doctors.

Stevens expresses concerns about two policy areas in particular – obesity & mental health, both of which are not getting the focus they deserve.

He points out the vital importance of effective action on obesity. This is not a matter of the nanny state lecturing people on how much they should eat. This is a critical health issue that affects the whole health service, not just in terms of funding but through the need to treat a whole range of different diseases. Financially the cost to the Treasury is now more than the police and fire services combined. One result of the separation of our health care services into NHS, on the one hand, and local authority social care and public health responsibilities on the other, is that it is your under-funded local council’s job to prevent obesity but it is the NHS that has to treat the myriad of diseases that arise from it. However, there are strong rumours that the long-awaited obesity strategy has been weakened because of business lobbying since it was first mooted by the government last year, while the LGA reports that funding cuts are threatening councils’ ability to be effective in this and other areas of public health.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged NHS | Leave a comment

Norman Lamb MP writes…Disastrous A & E figures emphasise need for independent commission on NHS future

By Norman Lamb MP | Fri 3rd June 2016 - 1:15 pm

Every day seems to bring new crushing evidence of the immense strain facing the NHS and social care. Missed key targets have become the norm rather than the exception; A&E is bearing the brunt of cuts to preventive and community services; and few were surprised when NHS trusts recently revealed a record deficit of £2.45 billion.

After hearing anecdotal accounts of ambulances queueing up outside A&E departments due to a lack of available beds in my own county of Norfolk, I decided to investigate the true scale of the problem across the whole country by submitting Freedom of Information requests to each Ambulance Trust in England.

What I discovered was far more shocking than I had feared. More than 10,000 patients were stuck in an ambulance for more than two hours waiting to be handed over to hospital staff last year – a staggering four-fold increase over just three years. The number of people having to endure waits of more than an hour before being admitted has almost trebled in the same period.

In total, almost 400,000 hours were wasted in the last year alone due to handover delays of more than 15 minutes, the national target for getting patients out of the ambulance and into the care of A&E staff. That’s equivalent to 16,554 days of patients waiting in limbo while ambulance crews and vehicles are unnecessarily tied up, unable to respond to new emergency calls.

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Posted in News | Also tagged featured and NHS | 12 Comments

LibLink: Kirsty Williams: Cancer care in Wales

By NewsHound | Sun 17th April 2016 - 12:55 pm

All the parties in Wales have been asked to write a blog for the Tenovus Cancer Care charity’s website. This is what Kirsty Williams had to say:

Cancer is something that will touch the life of everyone in Wales at some point. So when it does, the system needs to be ready to step up and give the treatment and care patients, and their families, need.

Yesterday the Welsh Liberal Democrats launched our manifesto for the next Welsh Government which contained a number of commitments that would transform cancer care. Cancer causes more than one in four deaths, yet Wales is the only UK nation without a cancer awareness campaign and there are huge variations in cancer outcomes within Wales, we must address this.

In government we would develop an all-Wales Individual Patient Funding Requests panel and remove the ‘exceptionality’ hurdle which prevents many patients’ access to drugs that their clinician thinks could help them. Your clinician should choose your medication, not your postcode.

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged cancer, kirsty williams, tenovus cancer care, Wales and welsh assembly elections 2016 | Leave a comment

Do you agree with Floella Benjamin on mandatory sugar reduction targets?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 13th January 2016 - 9:39 pm

Embed from Getty Images

Here’s a bit of controversy to liven up a Wednesday evening.

Floella Benjamin has written for Politics Home’s Central Lobby arguing in favour of mandatory sugar reduction targets. It’s another of these issues that you can use liberal principles to argue both for and against:

Many overweight children grow up to be obese adults and there are often serious health consequences for those affected, leading to tremendous pressures on the NHS, through the dramatic rise in type 2 diabetes, heart problems, some cancers and a wide variety of other conditions that require treatment. High sugar consumption is resulting in early tooth decay and is by far the highest cause of hospital admissions amongst 5-to 9-year-olds.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged floella benjamin, Food, obesity and sugar | 45 Comments

Kirsty Williams blasts cuts to student nurses’ financial support

By The Voice | Wed 30th December 2015 - 3:55 pm

One of the worst elements of the Governemnt’s Comprehensive Spending Review was the proposals to cut bursaries for student nurses. This is particularly reprehensible given that nursing students spend so much of their time actually working on wards. In fact, there are many wards that would buckle under the pressure if they weren’t there.

Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Kirsty Williams, who has led the way in proposing a bill that would guarantee safe nurse staffing levels in Wales, has blasted the proposals and written to health secretary Jeremy Hunt to express her concerns. She said:

The UK already has a shortage of nurses; it’s outrageous that the Tories are now scrapping the valuable support available to student nurses. This will likely only exacerbate the problem by putting people off training to be a nurse.

This ill thought-out decision will badly impact student numbers in England, which would then no doubt have consequences for Wales’ ability to recruit too.

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Posted in News | Also tagged kirsty williams and nurses | 7 Comments

LibLink: Nick Clegg: My family are up in arms over ham but I’m raging over sugar

By NewsHound | Sat 14th November 2015 - 10:25 am

View image | gettyimages.com

Nick Clegg’s been on a bit of a journey on his views about sugar consumption. In an article for the Evening Standard last week, he outlined the dangers of consuming too much hidden sugar and said that he now favoured strong action to reduce our sugar consumption:

Now, finally, we are beginning to have a proper debate about what we can and should do about it. A recent report by Public Health England proposed a number of measures, as has the ever- compelling Jamie Oliver.

Reducing two-for-one deals, clamping down on advertising targeted at children, reining in the marketing of high-sugar food and drinks, reducing sugar content and portion sizes, and introducing a tax on sugary drinks and food have all been called for.

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged evening standard, nick clegg and sugar | 15 Comments

Jim Hume MSP: SNP risks making GPs an exclusive service that many can’t access

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 2nd September 2015 - 1:52 pm

I was interested to see this report in today’s Scotsman which featured Labour and the SNP slugging it out over cuts to GP training posts. People are finding it more and more difficult to get an early appointment with their GPs. You would think that the service that is the most common way for us to access the NHS would be better funded, but primary care now accounts for just 7.8% of healthcare funding, down from 9.8% in 2011.

It is causing a fairly massive amount of concern. You’d think that they’d want to discuss it in Parliament.

Oh wait – they did, but the Scotsman didn’t feel the need to talk about the debate initiated by Liberal Democrat health spokesman Jim Hume just yesterday afternoon.

Jim warned that the failure to recruit and train sufficient GPs risked the service becoming inaccessible to many people. He cited a survey carried out by the Scottish Liberal Democrats which showed that 4 in 10 respondents found their workload unmanageable and a third would choose a different career path. An SNP MSP typically intervened to blame Westminster for increasing contributions to public sector pensions. In fact, it was day to day work concerns that upset GPs most:

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged GPs, jim hume, Scotland and willie rennie | 2 Comments

Opinion: Conservative health policies are short on detail

By Mohsin Khan | Thu 21st May 2015 - 9:13 am

What have the Conservatives said on health so far? Their manifesto makes big promises – but is vague on detail.

NHS England’s Five Year Forward View called for £8 billion more annually by 2020 (alongside £22 billion efficiency savings) to maintain NHS standards.

Liberal Democrats were the first to sign up to this – and we set out clearly how to fund it. The Conservatives matched this – but give no details on funding this other than the ‘recovering economy’.

Lamb also called for a (much-needed!) cross-party Review of NHS & Social Care funding.

David Cameron yesterday proposed 7-day hospital services and 7-day extended hours GP access, offering 5,000 extra GP’s.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged NHS | 5 Comments

38 Degrees get it badly wrong on Lib Dem funding for NHS – but don’t do nearly enough to put it right

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 31st March 2015 - 9:15 am

Everyone makes mistakes. That’s a fact of life. However, when you do, you need to properly acknowledge it and make amends.

One of the key Liberal Democrat priorities for this election is that we would fund the £8 billion that the NHS in England needs. In fact, we’re spending more than that on health because there are Barnett consequentials giving about another billion to Scotland and Wales. It’s not difficult to understand.

Last Thursday, campaign organisation 38 Degrees put up a graphic on its Facebook page which compared party’s pledges against what the NHS needed. The figure cited for the Liberal Democrats was just £2 billion, a mere quarter of what we intend to spend. This has now been shared by over 1400 people and has been seen by many, many more.

Many people have pointed out the glaring error in their graphic. To each comment, the organisation has made an individual reply:

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Posted in News | Also tagged 38 degrees and featured | 44 Comments

Opinion: Plain Packaging: Will Tobacco Be the End or Just the Beginning?

By Judy Abel | Thu 26th March 2015 - 8:55 am

While I think I was pleased to see the vote by MPs earlier this month, introducing plain packaging for tobacco products, it did also set off faint alarm bells – with me at least. There is something rather drastic about passing a law that requires legally produced and distributed goods to be wrapped in plain card or paper – even if the move was approved by Parliament based on medical evidence. I almost feel it would have been better to actually ban tobacco products altogether.

To be honest, obesity is not that far behind smoking as a leading cause of early death. We know that obesity is partly fuelled by attractively-packaged foods, high in sugar and fat, freely available on every supermarket shelf in the UK. High-street fast food chains – whose rise has been, seemingly, unstoppable – are another contributor to the problem. Britain now spends over £45 billion each year dealing with the health and social care costs associated with an increasingly overweight population.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged obesity and plain packaging | 34 Comments

Opinion: Time to dump the 4 hour A & E target

By Catherine Royce | Thu 29th January 2015 - 3:49 pm

View image | gettyimages.com

To be frank, as a doctor, I have been underwhelmed by our Liberal Democrat offering on health issues over the years; certainly we are not as strong on health as we should be.

The almost daily drip feed from the right wing press on NHS shortcomings and failures is demoralising to staff and frightening to patients and designed to be so. It serves no-one except those who want to undermine the public’s confidence in the NHS. The service treats three quarters of a million patients every day of the year, and for most people there is no alternative.

So I am relieved that at last we have something distinctive to offer with Norman Lamb’s ideas on mental health; parity of access and delivery, more research and funding. This is important, and we need to ‘own’ it as Liberal Democrat policy.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged accident and emergency, featured, mental health, NHS, norman lamb and suicide | 17 Comments

UKIP’s official health spokesperson: “I have no experience in health whatsoever”

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 24th January 2015 - 4:05 pm

Louise Bours MEP, UKIP’s health spokesperson, made a startling admission to the Independent in an interview published today. She said:

One thing that irritates me more than anything, and you see so much of it the higher up the political hierarchy you go, that’s it’s full of a load off… people who aren’t particularly honest, let’s put it that way,” says Louise Bours, Ukip MEP for the North-west and the party’s official health spokesperson.

I like people to be straight with me, I don’t like all this…shenanigans in the background, I’d rather people be honest and up-front and I always try to answer things very honestly.

So, honestly, I have no experience in health whatsoever, she says.>

On one of the key battlegrounds of the election, UKIP’s designated spokesperson is basically saying she’s sorry, she doesn’t have a clue.

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Posted in News | Also tagged louise bours, ross finnie and ukip | 23 Comments

Clegg’s letter to Burnham: “you may have inadvertently misled” Commons on Labour’s NHS privatisation record

By The Voice | Wed 10th December 2014 - 6:30 pm

Nick Clegg fielded Prime Minister’s Questions today, during which he noted that Labour’s shadow health secretary Andy Burnham is “the only man in England who has ever privatised an NHS hospital”. Mr Burham complained that Nick had misled the House of Commons over the issue of Hichingbrooke Hospital, accusing him of “sheer inaccuracy”. The Lib Dem leader lost no time in responding:

Dear Andy,

I see that you raised a Point of Order in the House of Commons and that you accused me of “sheer inaccuracy”. I am always happy to confirm the accuracy of what I have said.

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Posted in News, Parliament and PMQs | Also tagged andy burnham, featured, hitchinbrooke hospital, NHS and nick clegg | 32 Comments

Liz Barker leads first ever Lords debate on Lesbian, bisexual and transgender women’s health

By The Voice | Sun 7th December 2014 - 10:42 am

Last Wednesday, Baroness Liz Barker, who made one of the most fantastic speeches of the entire debate on same sex marriage, led the first ever debate on health services for lesbians and bisexual and transgender women.

The ignorance and even ridicule LBT women have faced from health professionals in the accounts Liz and others shared during the debate is truly astonishing. There does not seem to be a widespread understanding of even the very basic issues they may face.

The Minister’s reply was a bit frustrating because he basically agreed with everything that was being said but didn’t offer any actual, concrete proposal to make things better.

You can read the whole debate here, but Liz’s speech in full is published below:

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Posted in News | Also tagged bisexual, house of lords, lesbian, liz barker and transgender | 5 Comments

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Op-eds

How Lib Dems have made the news this week – Gosport, upskirting and cannabis oil (Caron Lindsay)
Co-operation with the Greens – debunking the arguments against (Chris Bowers)
Dick Newby: We will not rest until we have stopped Brexit (Dick Newby)
Two years on…. (Caron Lindsay)
Kate Pickett to speak at SLF Conference (Helen Flynn)

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Mon 25th Jun 2018

18:30

LIBG and NLC Annual Diplomats Reception

20:00

Brexit and the Pharmaceutical Industry

Sat 7th Jul 2018

12:30

Better In: Reclaim Your Future

Thu 12th Jul 2018

Elmbridge BC, Oxshott and Stoke dâAbernon by-election