2018 marks the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the NHS, but also the fiftieth anniversary of the 1968 Green Paper that marked the beginning of a series of attempts to reorganise the NHS that lasts up to today. What were these other reorganizations about, and did they work? A most basic organisational challenge the … Read more
Sustainability and Transformation Plans became Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships by dint of a statement in the March 2017 NHS England Five Year Forward View Next Steps document. As both terms reduce to STP acronyms it’s not all that helpful. For the sake of clarity I will use ‘STP’ in its original ‘plan’ definition in this … Read more
Jeremy Warner, an editor at the Telegraph, once said there are either ‘big state’ people or ‘small state’ people. I felt the same way following the reaction to the collapse of Carillion: there are either ‘private good, public bad’ people or ‘public good, private bad’ people. Of course, reality is somewhere in between. Carillion went bust because of cost … Read more
I wish to know Jon Ashworth’s plans to prevent the further privatisation and ‘Americanisation’ of our National Health Service as well as making the case for the need for a vital injection of capital. The whole country can now see the effect of austerity, lack of trained doctors and nurses , the reduction of hospital … Read more
“Our manifesto was a key reason for our gains in the 2017 general election. Now its ideas need to be developed and radicalized”. —Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell At the Labour Conference following the election result, emboldened delegates “voted historically and unanimously for complete renationalisation of the NHS in England” – in the words of Alex … Read more
Good integrated healthcare or neoliberal con? The Alzira Model is named after the town in Spain where the La Ribera hospital, the first hospital using this model, is located The Alzira Model: Goes beyond the PFI model of the building being privately operated to also include clinical services Paid for by a capitation fee The first … Read more
Introduction The Labour Party Conference have rejected Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships and American style Accountable Care Organisations and John Ashworth has declared his wish to work with campaigners , trade unions and Labour Party members to review the funding of the NHS and to work on a future Labour policy for the NHS. This paper … Read more
While the snow delights children and Instagram users, it is confirmation for our NHS staff that winter is most definitely here. Already hospitals have had to divert patients away because of over-capacity and 20,000 patients were stuck in the back of an ambulance for over 30 minutes in a period of just two weeks. The … Read more
I’m going to talk about Accountable Care Systems/Accountable Care Organisations today. My thesis is a simple one: that ACSs/ACOs are not new and they don’t work. They promise 20-30% savings but they cost at least an extra 15-20%. There are better ways of saving money and improving quality. I will look at them from two … Read more
1 – 4 pm at Chester Friends Meeting House Present: Alex Scott-Samuel (ASS), Alison Scouller (AS), Brian Gibbons (BG), Irene Leonard (IL), John Lipetz (JL), Mike Roberts (MRo), Vivien Walsh (VW), Helen Cranage (HC),Vivien Giladi (VG) Tony Beddow (TB), David Davies (DD), Judith Varley(JV), Martin Rathfelder (MRa) + Lesley Mahmoud, Corrie Lowry, Shaun McBride, Kathrin … Read more
The vast majority do not want the creeping privatisation, and the dismantling of the NHS as it was originally conceived by Bevan. At local level there is a growing resistance to the cuts to services. However local protest, without well-argued and transformative policy and legal changes at the national level, pose little threat whilst the … Read more
The SHA is committed to NHS care, free at the point of use and funded out of general taxation, provided by public bodies. We challenge austerity which we agree is a political choice not an economic necessity. We recognise that the devolved nations make their own policies. These draft policies apply mainly to England. A … Read more