Tag Archives: NHS

Help our MPs choose their Commons debate – last chance to have your say

By The Voice | Sun 8th July 2018 - 10:25 am

Lib Dem MPs have a relatively rare opposition day debate this week. They are approaching it a bit differently by giving you a chance to decide the subject.

What’s particularly brilliant is that you get to vote preferentially too. That’ll be useful for next year’s Ashdown Prize organisers to note.

An email from Alistair Carmichael landed the other day:

On Tuesday 10th July, our MPs have an opposition day debate in Parliament.

This means that we can pick one topic and have MPs debate and vote on it in Westminster.

And we want to hear what you think MPs should be

…

Posted in News | Also tagged brexit, donald trump and Parliament | 5 Comments

Happy Anniversary!

By Mary Reid | Thu 5th July 2018 - 5:01 pm

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It’s hot, and our regular supply of posts from you, dear readers, seems to have melted away. But we can’t let today go by without acknowledging the 70th Anniversary of the NHS.

Of course, we can’t do it justice in a short piece, but we can be proud that, for all its faults, we do still have a system that is not only valued at home but also admired by other countries. Indeed, many nations now have systems of health care which are universal and free at the point of delivery, even if they differ in the methods used to achieve that.

Yes, of course there are anomalies in the NHS – dental care and prescriptions are often not free, social care is still not integrated properly with medical care, treatment is rationed by Clinical Commissioning Groups, too many services are outsourced.

But what has always astonished me is the fact that this blatantly socialist project, vilified by many at the time (including the majority of doctors), is now seen as an essential component of British life by people from across the political spectrum. And what saddens me is that the American right still don’t understand why we love it, and have dismantled the progressive systems that Obama carefully constructed.

The challenge over the last 70 years has been for the NHS to keep in step both with research and with societal changes, and that challenge will go with it into the future.

So it is appropriate that Vince Cable has chosen today to highlight quite a niche subject – access to fertility treatment for female couples. He has written to Sir Andrew Dillon, the chief executive of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, about ‘shared motherhood’. This is a treatment that involves one partner donating an egg which is then carried by the other partner, so that both women are physically involved. At the moment it is only available privately at a cost of £6000 per cycle.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged vince cable | 14 Comments

With more money coming to the NHS do we need to rethink how it’s spent?

By Judy Abel | Mon 25th June 2018 - 12:42 pm

While some of the major health think tanks such as The King’s Fund say the announced 3.4% increase in annual NHS spending is not enough – and I would agree with that – can we at least use the additional NHS funding more efficiently? I would say it might be worth looking at changing some long-established patterns of patient care.

Let’s start by looking at primary care. Currently it is estimated that around half of all GP appointments are for just two kinds of conditions – musculoskeletal (MSK) problems (accounting for a fifth of all GP appointments) and mental health problems …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged clinical commissioning groups and health spending | 35 Comments

Gosport findings ‘shocking and devastating’

By Mary Reid | Thu 21st June 2018 - 2:24 pm

We have all be shocked by the revelations about the inappropriate treatment of elderly patients at Gosport War Memorial Hospital. Here is Norman Lamb talking about the way the NHS closed ranks when he was Health Minister, and how he called for the enquiry that has just been completed.

We also have some quotes from him:

Posted in News | Also tagged gosport war memorial hospital, norman lamb and stephen lloyd | 6 Comments

Theresa May shamelessly takes up discredited Leave campaign slogan

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 17th June 2018 - 7:07 pm

Most of my memories of the Leave campaign involve the blatant lies it told. 77 million Turks, we were told, would pretty much be here the day after we voted Remain, according to their literature. And the biggest lie of all was emblazoned on the side of a bus. £350 million a week for the NHS.

It was the thought of more money for our beleaguered NHS that prompted many people to vote Leave, something confirmed by Vote Leave’s director, Dominic Cummings.

Within hours of the referendum result, that pledge was in tatters. Nigel Farage distanced himself from …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged brexit, judith jolly, norman lamb and tom brake | 17 Comments

We’re turning away skilled workers

By The Voice | Thu 17th May 2018 - 10:21 am

6,000 skilled people were denied entry to the UK last year due to visa caps. The Campaign for Science and Engineering reported on a Freedom of Information request to the Home Office which showed that thousands of workers had been denied entry between December 2017 and March 2018.

The Government have refused over 6,000 applications for skilled overseas workers holding a job offer due to an arbitrary cap on visas, including engineers, tech professionals, doctors and teachers.

Many posts up and down the country are being left unfilled because overseas workers can’t get entry. …

Posted in News | Also tagged immigration, STEM, technology and visas | 14 Comments

LibLink: Sal Brinton: Ministers must protect our NHS against privatisation

By NewsHound | Fri 30th March 2018 - 10:25 am

This week, Sal Brinton and others argued in the House of Lords that action was needed to ensure that Brexit didn’t open the door to privatisation of the NHS.

She wrote about the issue for The House magazine:

If you asked most people what effect Brexit would have on our health service, regardless of how they voted in the Referendum, I suspect they will cite that large red bus from the Leave referendum campaign stating the EU costs the UK £350m per week, which on leaving could be invested in the NHS. Not only was this untrue, but there are now figures to show that the cost of leaving to our economy could be equal to £350m per week. And, at a time of unprecedented pressure on the NHS, it needs urgent and real investment to prevent it crumbling.

However, one of the lesser known pillars of protecting our NHS is also at risk with Brexit. With more and more parts of its services being put out to tender, the NHS has been protected by the EU Directive on Public Health Procurement. This directive governs the way in which public bodies purchase goods, service and works and seeks to guarantee equal access and fair competition for public contracts in the EU markets. It was approved in 2014 and includes protection for clinical services and more legal clarity on the application of procurement rules.

She also looked at some of the wider impacts on the Health Service that Brexit will have:

Posted in News | Also tagged sal brinton | 11 Comments

The dire state of mental health services

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 22nd March 2018 - 12:32 pm

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s recent report on mental health provision is damning.

Titled Maintaining momentum: driving improvements in mental health care, Rob Behrens’ analysis confirms what we already know: mental health services are in crisis and people are suffering and dying because of it.

The case studies are harrowing. Mr Behrens’ says:

The cases highlighted in this report starkly illustrate the human cost of service failures. These cases are not isolated examples. They are symptomatic of persistent problems we see time and again in our complaints casework and, moreover, they represent failings throughout the care pathway.

In the most severe cases,

…

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged camhs and mental health | 1 Comment

#TreatMeWell campaign launched today

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 15th February 2018 - 5:14 pm

Mencap has launched its Treat Me Well Campaign today, calling for those with Learning Disabilities to be given reasonable adjustments in hospitals.

The facts are shocking. Every year, 1200 people with a learning disability die avoidably in hospital care.

I blogged this morning on the disgraceful state of PIP and ESA assessments, many suffered by those with learning disability. This is another aspect of how people with learning disability are not listened to, are not enabled, and are sidelined in assessments. This video gives you a good idea of the issues:

I am on the Board of the Fragile X Society. Fragile X, a genetic condition, is the leading inherited cause of learning disability. Thousands of people with Fragile X will have had the experiences show in this video.

It is very easy to make modifications. Allow extra time for appointments. Use simple language. Break explanations down into smaller, understandable sentences. Allow time for mental processing. It’s what people with learning disabilities are asking for.

The Treat Me Well report is well worth a read. Mencap’s research showed (p.25)

Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged hospitals, learning disabilities and mencap | Leave a comment

Clever question from Vince shows Brexit threat to NHS

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 7th February 2018 - 8:03 pm

Theresa May’s non-answer to Vince Cable’s question at PMQs today about whether a future trade deal with the US will safeguard the NHS could end up as being one of the turning points of the Brexit debate.

One of the huge advantages of the EU is that you have a lot more clout if you approach a protectionist like Trump with 27 of your mates rather than if you show up on your own.

Watch the exchange here:

The text is below:

Sir Vince Cable

The Prime Minister knows that one of the key objectives of American trade negotiators in any future deal after Brexit is to secure access for American companies to do business in the NHS. Will she give an absolute guarantee that the NHS will be excluded from the scope of those negotiations? Will she also confirm that she has made it absolutely clear to President Trump in her conversations with him that the NHS is not for sale?

The Prime Minister

We are starting the discussions with the American Administration, first of all looking at what we can already do to increase trade between the US and the United Kingdom—even before the possibility of any free trade agreement. The right hon. Gentleman does not know what the American Administration are going to say about their requirements for that free trade agreement. We will go into those negotiations to get the best possible deal for the United Kingdom.

The BBC’s Norman Smith felt that this would not be the end of the matter.

Posted in News | Also tagged brexit, featured and vince cable | 9 Comments

An independent commission is the only cure for the NHS funding crisis

By Azi Ahmed | Thu 3rd August 2017 - 11:20 am

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When I stood as a Conservative parliamentary candidate in 2015, I remember preparing notes on every conceivable subject for my first hustings. But when it came to the NHS, I couldn’t bring myself to follow the party political line and just bash my opponents; no one has fixed it and no single party is to blame.

What I said, instead, was that we should have an independent commission to decide the future of the NHS and put it above party politics. It was a line that went down very well with the audience; when politicians throw numbers at each other we all get lost and a mature debate proves impossible.

So I strongly support the position Norman Lamb has developed as the party’s health spokesman, calling for an NHS and Health Convention to instigate a national conversation involving charities, professional groups and patients’ groups as well as politicians. In January, he was backed by 75 organizations and it’s a shame this policy attracted so little interest from journalists despite getting such widespread support from those closest to the health service.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged brexit | 29 Comments

Tory warnings about “bad Brexit” have one word too many

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 31st May 2017 - 11:55 am

The latest Tory tactic seems to be to warn against a “bad Brexit” and to say that only they, if they get a whopping enough majority, can make sure we get a “good” deal. On that majority point, think of the last time you said to yourself “Oh, Merkel has a huge majority, we need to do what she says.” The point is that we go into these negotiations in a weakened position anyway. There are 27 EU member states and 1 of us. Who has the power here? The Tory brexiteers needn’t bother trying to blame the EU for a situation that they created.

Jeremy Hunt is the latest to talk of the dangers of Brexit going wrong and what that will mean for our NHS. In fact, if Brexit happens, it will damage our NHS on various fronts. The crash in our economy that would result if Theresa May’s extreme Brexit goes ahead would cost the NHS dearly. And today a report says that the NHS could stand to lose an extra half a billion if returning ex-pats came back to be treated on the NHS in Britain. This was entirely predictable.

That is just one problem of several highlighted by the Nuffield Trust:

According to the Nuffield Trust, it may not be easy to continue with this agreement after Brexit.
If all of these pensioners decided to return to the UK – a big if – they could be expected to fill 900 NHS hospital beds a year, it says.

The NHS would need about 1,600 more doctors, nurses and other workers to provide the care, it estimates.

Also, hospitals could end up short-staffed if migration of workers from the EU slows or stops post-Brexit.
And access to medicines could also become more difficult if the UK leaves the EU’s medicine licensing system.

So, we have a crashing economy, extra people to treat with fewer staff and restricted access to medicines. All of these are en entirely predictable consequence of any Brexit. It’s not exactly what was written on that bus, is it?

In response to today’s report, Norman Lamb said:

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged brexit, general election 2017, nick clegg and norman lamb | 5 Comments

Will the last doctor to leave the NHS switch off the light

By Catherine Royce | Tue 18th April 2017 - 9:56 am

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Whilst the media concentrate on shortages of beds, longer waiting times and the increasing indebtedness of Trusts, all of which can easily be solved by investing more money, ie. a choice (or not) of the government of the day, something far more fundamental is happening – doctors are leaving the NHS.

This cannot be solved by money, or government dictat, because the goodwill of medical staff which successive governments have taken for granted has run out, and frankly, doctors have sufficient skills to go anywhere in the world.

From its inception, the NHS has relied on imported staff from abroad; in the ‘50s and ‘60s it was mainly porters, cleaners and cooks from the Caribbean. In the ‘70s and ‘80s it was doctors from the Indian subcontinent and nurses from south East Asia and since the ‘90s from Europe.

The UK has never produced sufficient home grown doctors, partly because of the idiotic insistence of the system in pretending that almost no-one is academically gifted enough to get into medical school. Getting 4A* has little to do with becoming a good doctor; it’s just an effective way of stopping perfectly good candidates getting into medical school. The medical school expansion programme in the ‘70s didn’t fix the problem and neither will Jeremy Hunt’s offering of 6,000 more places over the next five years; the problem is much, much worse than that.

Posted in Op-eds | 13 Comments

Baroness Joan Walmsley writes…150% rise in patients forced to move GP surgery as practice closures hit record levels

By Joan Walmsley | Fri 7th April 2017 - 11:55 am

One of the jewels in the NHS, for as long as I can remember, has been the family GP. My GP looked after my mother before I was born and looked after me until I moved away from home. In those days the GP’s long acquaintance with my whole family was important to us. Everyone had a “family doctor”. They even did home visits!

Things are very different now. We still have primary care and acute care, but many more community nurses, health visitors, therapists and care workers, not forgetting the wide range of services offered by community pharmacists and local authorities, where they can still afford it.

Demographic change and rising demand have put enormous pressure on GPs and, in some areas, people turn up at A&E rather than wait for an appointment. However, the role of the GP is still critical to the NHS and it is important that the system enables them to play their part in preventative medicine as well as diagnosis and signposting to other services.

Unfortunately, the demand for a seven-day service, without enough extra money to pay for it, and the enormous pressures on GPs time has made it a less attractive option for newly-qualified doctors. This has led to problems recruiting enough doctors to keep practices going and an increasing retention problem. Many GPs, especially partners who have extra duties and responsibilities compared to salaried GPs, are retiring early. In the last quarter of 2016, there was a net loss of 390 GPs in the NHS. This gives us no confidence in the government commitment to recruit 5000 more GP’s by 2020. According to the BMA, even the 5000 extra training places will only allow us to break even in GP numbers.

Posted in News | Also tagged GPs | 3 Comments

Will current NHS cuts raise prices and lower quality?

By Steve Trevethan | Mon 20th March 2017 - 5:19 pm

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Most, if not all economic and political decisions have two prime factors – price and quality. And this includes national healthcare. Decision making involves information. Most, if not all information can be placed on a continuum between the verifiable and the fake. (Ditto “News”!) Here are some verifiable items of information relevant to our NHS.

PRICE: Some national average healthcare costs/prices per person per year:

The British pay $3,364
The Japanese pay $3,713
The French pay $4,361
The Germans pay$4,920
The Americans pay $9,086

Source: OECD Health data 2013

QUALITY: Some healthcare rankings:

United Kingdom 18
Canada 30
Japan 10
Germany 25
France 1
USA 37
Cambodia 174

Source: The Patient Factor

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged healthcare | 19 Comments

LibLink: Norman Lamb: Time for honesty about future funding of our NHS

By NewsHound | Sun 19th February 2017 - 10:50 am

Liberal Democrats have been talking a lot about health and social care this week. In the Yorkshire Post, Norman Lamb argues for an urgent change of direction to give the NHS a sustainable future which meets our needs.

First he seems out the crisis facing the NHS.

But it seems this Conservative Government has become increasingly ambivalent to the state of our health service. In Yorkshire, vital A&E wards in Dewsbury, Huddersfield and Scarborough are all at risk of being closed or downgraded – it’s the same over the border at Darlington. Communities are set to face even longer waits for emergency care, including those in rural areas who may soon have to travel hours to receive treatment. These changes are happening for a simple reason – this Conservative government is failing to give the NHS and care services the cash they need to cope with rising demand. To make matters worse, local people on the ground are not being given a say into these decisions which will have a huge impact on their lives. The stark reality is that we are seeing the gradual downgrading of our health service taking place behind closed doors.

He attacked the use of well-paid consultancy firms drawing up cuts in services with no consultation of the public.

So what is the solution? It’s two-fold. First of all a cross party commission:

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged norman lamb | 17 Comments

Farron attacks Government plans to make patients pay upfront for NHS treatment

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 6th February 2017 - 5:56 am

Don’t make scapegoats out of foreigners for the crisis facing the NHS. That’s Tim Farron’s message to Jeremy Hunt as the Government says it is going to get hospitals to check upfront whether people are eligible for free NHS treatment and charge them before treatment Because NHS staff don’t have enough to do already. Tim said:

We all want to see the NHS recover money owed it to it, but this is a completely disproportionate response to what is a fairly minor problem. The Health Secretary is turning NHS staff into the Border Force, its unacceptable.

Asking people to show their ID before receiving treatment will mean longer waits for treatments and heap more pressure on already overstretched NHS staff.

The government must explain how much it expects the new system will cost to administer and what the impact on patients will be.

Instead of trying to blame foreigners for the crisis facing the NHS, Jeremy Hunt should take responsibility and give our health service the extra investment it needs.

Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged tim farron | 43 Comments

At some point the Tories will run out of people to blame for the state of the NHS…

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 15th January 2017 - 10:17 am

I went through just about every emotion there is watching BBC2’s new series Hospital which follows events and pressures at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington. Partly because some of what was shown is just a bit too close to my recent experience, partly because of the life and death decisions made every day with too few resources, I was in tears several times. One man awaiting cancer surgery is told at the last minute that they don’t know if they will be able to operate because there isn’t an Intensive Care bed available for him.

This comes as every news bulletin carries ever more harrowing accounts of the pressures in hospitals at the moment. What is the response of the Minister responsible? To blame the public. He talked saying that 30% of A & E patients don’t need to be there as if it is their fault that they have no other option. If people could get GP appointments or had community pharmacies to go to, they would never need to go to A & E. Whose fault is it that they have no alternative? Step forward Mr Hunt.

Posted in News | Also tagged GPs and jeremy hunt | 23 Comments

Norman Lamb leads calls for National Convention to resolve NHS funding crisis

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 11th January 2017 - 8:46 am

Norman Lamb has co-ordinateda cross-party group of MPs to call for a national convention on health and care to resolve the crisis in NHS funding.

Norman said:

The health and social care system in England is facing unprecedented challenges. Failing to find a solution to this crisis puts some of the most vulnerable people at risk – frail and elderly people in need of care services, disabled people who need support and people with long-term illnesses, particularly those suffering from mental ill health.

Building a sustainable health and care system that can provide high-quality care can’t be realised without putting aside party political point-scoring.

The public is sick and tired of the NHS and care system being treated like a political football. People have had enough, and are crying out for an honest discussion and bold solutions to these challenges.

It speaks volumes that so many Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum are backing this initiative. At Prime Minister’s Questions, I will urge Theresa May to recognise the gravity of the situation we are facing, and to agree to meet with us to listen to our proposal.

Norman has persuaded an illustrious group of MPs and former health secretaries to back his call. They include the Conservative former health minister Dan Poulter MP and Labour former shadow care minister Liz Kendall MP. It is also supported by four Select Committee Chairs – Sarah Wollaston MP (Health Committee), Meg Hillier MP (Public Accounts Committee), Clive Betts MP (Communities and Local Government Committee) and Frank Field (Work and Pensions Committee) – along with former Health Secretaries Stephen Dorrell and Alan Milburn.

The full statement says:

Posted in News | Also tagged featured and norman lamb | 24 Comments

How Brexit will harm our NHS and social care

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 30th November 2016 - 10:15 am

So, I’m drifting back to LDV slowly and gradually. My husband is now recovering from his heart surgery at home. It’s still quite incredible to think that only 10 weeks ago, he was enjoying his best health in years. All that changed with what we thought was Flu but turned out to be an infection in his heart which damaged one of his heart valves – a pretty complex one, too. My gratitude to the surgical team who sorted this out is unrivalled.

I have been more scared during this time than I have ever been in my life. That late-night phone call from Intensive Care when they said they needed to take him back into theatre was the point that I thought I really was going to crumble. The election of Donald Trump, terrifying as it is, 24 hours later was far from the most stressful thing I had to face that week.

The frenetic running about to and from the hospital and the intrinsic terror of the situation have now been replaced with a much less stressful but still very busy routine of drugging people, feeding people, cleaning, washing and other elements of domesticity which are a bit of a learning curve for me. My slovenly ways have been replaced by scrubbing everything in sight with anti-bacterial potions.

I tell Bob that I am basing my nursing style on Kathy Bates in Misery. He wasn’t really meant to agree that I was doing that well, but never mind. Yesterday was a bit of a milestone when he had his first wee walk outside in 9 weeks.

I’m clearly going to be pre-occupied with looking after him for a while yet. The likelihood is that I’m still going to be a bit slow to get back to people and not really engaged full time in the site until the New Year, so please continue to be patient with me.

My thanks go to the team who have had to do well more than they ever signed up for over the last nine weeks. Without them, there would have been no LDV at all. They have been absolutely brilliant.

I’ve observed much about our NHS and the stresses at its frontline. Bob had the most excellent care in hospital, but it was very clear to us how hard everyone was working and how there was so little give in the system. It’s a theme I will return to. For today, though, I want to think about the effects of Brexit on the NHS. The Leave Campaign’s jolly assertion that leaving the EU would mean £350 million a week extra for the NHS was consigned to history almost before the votes had been counted.

Posted in News | Also tagged Alex Cole-Hamilton, brexit, sal brinton and social care | 14 Comments

Profound Brexit implications for the UK’s Life Science industry

By Catherine Royce | Tue 4th October 2016 - 2:00 pm

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Last week I was hoping to hear Liam Fox speak on ‘Maintaining the UK life sciences’ leading position’ at a Royal Society of Medicine symposium ‘Brexit; the Implications for the UK’s Life Science Industry’.

He cancelled (what an (un)surprise). The implications for academia, industry and the NHS are profound.

Already universities, research institutes and individual researchers are feeling the chill, particularly for long term EU grants.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged Dr Liam Fox and life sciences | 7 Comments

Lib Dems to consider NHS tax #ldconf

By The Voice | Sat 17th September 2016 - 6:30 am

The Liberal Democrats are to set up an independent expert panel to consider the case for a dedicated NHS and care tax, Norman Lamb will announce in his Conference speech at Brighton later today.

Members of the ‘New Beveridge Group’ will include Dr. Clare Gerada, former President of the Royal College of GPs, Prof. Dinesh Bhugra, former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and current President of the World Psychiatric Association, Peter Carter, the former General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, and the chief executive of the Patients’ Association, Katherine Murphy.

It will report its recommendations to the party in six months’ time, presumably in time for Spring Conference.

Speaking to party members in Brighton, Lib Dem Health spokesperson Norman Lamb will say:

Posted in News | Also tagged autumn conference 2016, norman lamb and taxation | 15 Comments

What happened to sending £350million a week to the NHS?

By Anna Pitcher | Sat 13th August 2016 - 5:32 pm

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It’s been seven weeks since the British public were visiting polling stations to make the biggest vote of their lifetime. Seven weeks since naïve Brexit supporters believed that £350 million a week would be spent on the NHS if their vote won.

I’m from a small market town in Lincolnshire, where 59.9% of the population voted to leave the EU in order to ‘take back control of our country’ and yesterday (Wednesday) it was announced that, as of next week, our A&E department will no longer be open 24 hours a day. Instead, the residents of Grantham, as well as surrounding towns and villages, will now have to travel approximately 30 miles to Boston, Nottingham or Lincoln if they are in need of medical care at night.

The reasoning behind this is due to the hospital being understaffed, yet the United Kingdom has just voted to potentially stop EU workers – who make up 5% of our NHS and 10% of our doctors – to enter our country without needing a visa. It really seems worth it now.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged brexit | 45 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.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged health | 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.

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

Let’s make the UK a better place for those with mental health challenges

By Chris Key | Mon 30th May 2016 - 5:00 pm

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Imagine being in a situation where you have had months of no sleep, you have lost over 15 kilos in weight when you were already under weight and you cannot do anything but ruminate over problems. You go to your GP, he gives you some shiny pills then tells you to book an appointment in a few weeks, and offers you no therapy or treatment. A few weeks later your mental health deteriorates to a point where you consider self-harm.

That was my story and I am lucky because I am here to tell it. I paid privately for treatment as the only other option was being sectioned under the Mental Health Act, which could have had devastating consequences for my financial and employment prospects. Luckily this episode is well behind me and my life has moved on to a much better place.

Sadly many cannot because they do not have the financial means, or support of family or friends to get through it. Around 4400 people end their own lives in England each year – that’s one death every two hours – and at least 10 times that number attempt suicide.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged mental health and norman lamb | 2 Comments

Op-eds

Josh Babarinde writes…The Lib Dem Summer of Strategy (Josh Babarinde)
Mathew on Monday: “We need to be bold” (Mathew Hulbert)
As a party we must be better defined for the 2029 general election (Chris Bowers)
From national averages to local realities: inequality in our communities (Tom Walker)
We do have a two tier system, Part 2 (Neil Hickman)

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Josh Babarinde writes…The Lib Dem Summer of Strategy

Alison Suttie writes: Thank you to our volunteers

What’s going on with party strategy?

A strange but welcome feeling

Tag Archives: NHS

Help our MPs choose their Commons debate – last chance to have your say

Happy Anniversary!

With more money coming to the NHS do we need to rethink how it’s spent?

Gosport findings ‘shocking and devastating’

Theresa May shamelessly takes up discredited Leave campaign slogan

We’re turning away skilled workers

LibLink: Sal Brinton: Ministers must protect our NHS against privatisation

The dire state of mental health services

#TreatMeWell campaign launched today

Clever question from Vince shows Brexit threat to NHS

An independent commission is the only cure for the NHS funding crisis

Tory warnings about “bad Brexit” have one word too many

Will the last doctor to leave the NHS switch off the light

Baroness Joan Walmsley writes…150% rise in patients forced to move GP surgery as practice closures hit record levels

Will current NHS cuts raise prices and lower quality?

LibLink: Norman Lamb: Time for honesty about future funding of our NHS

Farron attacks Government plans to make patients pay upfront for NHS treatment

At some point the Tories will run out of people to blame for the state of the NHS…

Norman Lamb leads calls for National Convention to resolve NHS funding crisis

Profound Brexit implications for the UK’s Life Science industry

Lib Dems to consider NHS tax #ldconf

What happened to sending £350million a week to the NHS?

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

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

Let’s make the UK a better place for those with mental health challenges

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Josh Babarinde writes…The Lib Dem Summer of Strategy

Alison Suttie writes: Thank you to our volunteers

What’s going on with party strategy?

A strange but welcome feeling

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