Medic Attacks Tory Claims to Have Built 18 New Hospitals as Misleading

This weekend’s edition of the I carried a report that a leading medic, Dr Susan Crossland, had said that the Tories were misleading the public by claiming that they had built 18 new hospitals. The report by Paul Gallagher, ‘Tory claim to have built 18 new hospitals ‘misleading” ran

A leading medic has accused the Government of misleading the public after it claimed 18 new hospitals had opened in the past 10 years.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) made the claim in documents released under an I Freedom of Information request, but the figure includes existing hospitals either refurbished or redeveloped.

At least 11 of the projects are redevelopments, refurbishments or changes to existing hospital sites, such as integration or relocation.

Dr Susan Crossland, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said “The conflation between new hospitals and refurbishment of existing hospitals is misleading to the public.

“Whilst investment in the crumbling infrastructure of the NHS property portfolio is welcome, at the time we are seeing unprecedented demand on hospital beds we call into question whether this will ease the current pressures we see. And we call on the Government to be honest and account to the tax-paying public. Are there going to be any more beds in the system, or are we going to continue to see further reductions?”

Pressed on how many of the 18 projects could be described as “whole new hospitals” the DHSC did not respond.

NHS staff union Unison said the lack of “whole new builds” was “shocking”. It said “at least half” of the projects are a legacy of the previous Labour government, so there has been “next to nothing” under the Tories.

The revelation calls into question the Government’s ability to honour its manifesto pledge to build 40 hospitals in the next 10 years. The Tory manifesto promised the NHS “its biggest ever cash boost, with 20 hospital upgrades and 40 new hospitals.”

According to FullFact.org the Government has committed the money to upgrade six hospitals by 2025. Up to 38 other hospitals have received money to plan for building work between 2025 and 2030, but not to actually begin any work.

Mr Johnson has been criticised for refusing to say how much the promised new hospitals will cost, where they would be, or where the money involved would come from. The only detail given in the six NHS trusts that would receive £2.7bn to rebuild existing acute hospitals in England by 2025, and £100m “seed money” to 21 other English trusts to work up plans for similar projects. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that if most were new hospitals in city centres containing state-of-the-art equipment, the cost might be between £12bn and £24bn.

A DHSC spokesman said: “We’ve launched the largest hospital building programme in a generation which will deliver at least 40 new hospitals over the next decade.”

So the Tories have been caught lying again. They  haven’t built 18 new hospitals. If 11 of those they cite are just refurbishments, it means at most they’ve built just 7. And it seems most of those 18 hospitals were built by the Labour government. And the claim that they’re going to build 40 new hospitals over the next ten years is just specious promises.

The reality is that they’re going to run down the NHS while making token gestures towards building and renovation to disguise what they’re doing, read for privatisation.

Majority of GPsTrust Labour to Support NHS

Yesterday’s I newspaper also carried some very interesting and important news in an article by Paul Gallagher. The article ‘GPs ‘shifting support to Lib Dems’ is mainly about the majority of GPs supporting the Liberal Democrats rather than Labour or the Tories. But the really important stuff is in the last paragraph, where it reports

But Labour remained the party GPs believed would look after the NHS – 30 per cent trusted Labour, 20 per cent opted for the Liberal Democrats and 14 per cent chose the Conservatives. Some 30 per cent chose “none of the above”.

This follows the Tories promising that they will increase spending on the NHS by £20bn a year by 23-4, Labour stating it would be £26 bn a year and the Fib Dems that they would increase it by £35 bn over the next five years. Apparently only 20 per cent of GPs say the will vote Tory at the next election, whereas 30 per cent said they would at the last one. Support for Labour was also down 10 per cent. 31 per cent of GPs had said they would vote Labour at the last election, but now it’s only 21 per cent. 31 per cent of GPs, however, say they will vote Lib Dem, up from 19 per cent at the last election. This is according to a survey conducted by GPonline.

A few remarks on this. Firstly, this poll only records the way those GPs, who responded to the survey said they would vote. These may unrepresentative of the great majority of GPs for various reasons. For example, the GPs, who replied are obviously those with the time and motivation to vote. Others may be too busy or otherwise not motivated.

Secondly, it shows that the Lib Dems have eaten into the Labour vote through Jo Swinson presenting herself as a progressive alternative to Labour’s extremism and anti-Semitism. But this is a mistake. Labour is neither anti-Semitic nor extreme. Corbyn’s policies are simply a return to the social democratic consensus which delivered over three decades of prosperity and economic growth after the War. And the Lib Dems are not in any way progressive. Jo Swinson consistently voted with the Conservative government, far more so than many leading members of the Tory party. She fully supported the swingeing welfare cuts, the privatisation of the NHS, the bedroom tax and other Tory attacks on the poor and vulnerable. How progressive is someone really, who wants to put up a statue to Margaret Thatcher? Clearly she isn’t, and only 2 per cent more of her party support Remain than Labour. As she seems ready to do a deal with the Tories and go into coalition with them as he predecessor Nick Clegg did, rather than support Corbyn, it seems that she personally only regards supporting Remain as a temporary electoral strategy. If there’s a hung parliament, you can bet she’ll be round Johnson like a shot pledging her support.

I also feel that belief in the Labour party as the true supporters of the NHS would be higher, if Blair’s new Labour hadn’t been so determined to privatise it through the introduction of privately run health centres, the award of contracts to private healthcare firms, including GP services, and the introduction of the Community Care Groups, who were empowered to raise funds through private enterprise and contract in private services. It’s these Blairite policies, which spring from Blair’s own Thatcherism, that Corbyn intends to remove.

The real message, for anyone who genuinely prizes our NHS, is that only Corbyn’s Labour party can be trusted with it. Not Johnson, not Swinson, just Corbyn. 

‘I’ Newspaper: Hundreds of Doctors Want to Leave NHS Before Retiring

The I newspaper on Friday, 11th January 2019, carried this story, ‘Hundred of Doctors Plan to Quite NHS Before Retirement Age’ by Paul Gallagher on page 11. The article reports that hundreds of senior doctors and consults wish to leave the Health Service because they feel they are overworked. The article runs

Hundreds of senior doctors will quit the NHS before retirement age, according to new analysis.

Six out of 10 consultants say that the main reason for their intention to leave the health service before the age of 60 is the need for a better work-life balance, a survey by the British Medical Association (BMA) reveals.

Concerns about the impact of current pensions legislation is the second most important factor influencing consultants’ planned retirement age, they said. Less that 7 per cent say they expect to remain working in the NHS beyond the age of 65.

Almost 18 per cent of consultants are in the process of planning to reduce their working time even further, including a complete withdrawal from service. More than 40 per cent said they were less likely to take part in work initiatives to reduce waiting lists.

The implications of such a significant loss of skilled and specialist clinicians both on the junior staff they teach and the patients they care for is potentially disastrous for the already beleaguered health service.

Dr Rob Harwood, who chairs the BMA’s consultants’ committee, said: “Such a situation is clearly untenable. During the a deepening workforce crisis, the NHS needs its most experienced and expert doctors now more than ever. I struggle to understand how the Health Secretary can talk about increasing productivity… while allowing the NHS to be a system which perversely encourages its most experienced doctors to do less work, and, in some cases, to leave when they do not want to.”

I am not surprised that this is happening in the NHS at all. There have been very many reports over the past few years about the numbers of doctors planning to leave the health service because of overwork and other issues. And I have seen zero evidence that the government intends to tackle the problem or has any interest in solving it. Beyond the current Health Secretary publicly opening his mouth to proclaim that the government will recruit tens of thousands more doctors and other medical staff, like Tweezer did with her bold ten-year plan for the NHS last week.

Mike has already put up a piece on his blog pointing out that the government has consistently and spectacularly missed its targets for cutting waiting times and recruiting more medical staff for the NHS. He also reported that when the Health Secretary was question about how he plans to recruit more personnel, he put this off, stating it was a question for another review later. So all we have from the Tories in this issue is vague promises. Promises that aren’t going to be honoured.

It looks to me very much that all this is planned, that the government is deliberately creating conditions to encourage doctors, consultants and other medical professionals in the NHS to leave, while publicly doing their level best to give the impression that they genuinely care about the Health Service.

They don’t. Since Thatcher the Tories and New Labour have been absolutely set on running down and privatizing the NHS for the benefit of private healthcare companies like the American insurance fraudster Unum, BUPA, Virgin Healthcare, Circle Healthcare and others. Journalists and activists commenting on this attack on the fundamental principles of the NHS have forecasted that ultimately we may end up with a two-tier health service. The affluent middle class will have access to excellent care from the private sector, but only, of course, if they can pay for it. The rest of us will have worse care from an underfunded and understaffed rump NHS.

If the NHS exists at all, that is. The same observers also forecast that the Tories may well be aiming to introduce the American system of private healthcare, where those who can’t pay are treated at the emergency room. And where 45,000 people a year die because they can’t afford medical treatment and the highest cause of bankruptcies is medical bills.

I’ve seen the Tories use the same tactics to decimate another part of the NHS nearly thirty years ago under Thatcher or John Major. This was the dental service. A majority of dentists left the NHS after one or other of these two Tory prime ministers refused to increase their pay and spending on their surgeries. The result is that now most dentists are private and it’s often difficult, very difficult, to find one of that will take NHS patients.

Make no mistake: the Tories plan to do this to the rest of the NHS. But it’s being done subtly, away from public attention, which they are distracting and misleading with promises to increase NHS funding and personnel recruitment. Promises which they don’t intend to honour.

The I: ‘Private Hospitals ‘Put Patients at Risk’

I just found this article in today’s ‘I’ newspaper for 30th November 2015, reporting the findings of the Centre for Health and the Public Interest that poor standards at smaller private hospitals are a risk to patients’ health. The article by Paul Gallagher states

‘NHS patients sent for treatment at smaller private hospitals are being put at risk because of unsafe staffing and facilities, according to a report by an anti-privatisation think-tank.

Nurses without specialist training, high levels of agency staff on post-operative wards and hygiene weaknesses were also among the patient safety risk identified by the Centre for Health and Public Interest (CHPI).

Analysis of 15 Care Quality Commission (CQC) investigations into hospitals from each of England’s six main private hospital chains found serious problems even in hospitals rate “good” by the regulator. Care UK’s Barlborough NYHS Treatment Centre in Chesterfield was given an overall rating of “good” and a rating of “good” specifically for surgery. Yet in the previous 12 months there had been four “never events”, defined as “serious, largely preventable, patient safety incidents that should not occur”.

Dr Howard Freeman, of the NHS Partners Network, said: “The overwhelming majority of NHS care delivered by independent sector hospitals is safe”.’

I dare say the treatment at most private hospitals is safe, but that does not mean that it is necessarily particularly high or of the same quality as that supplied by the NHS. In America, there is a very high incidence of iatrogenic disease. In the case of surgery, this is built into the system through the profit motive. Doctors and surgeons get paid if they treat. Therefore, they will offer or suggest treatment, even if its unnecessary. Way back in the 1980s Panorama did an edition on medicine in America, at the time when Maggie was considering its privatisation, and revealed the very high rates of unnecessary operations in the Land of the Free. This adds further evidence to corroborate existing information on the detrimental effects of private healthcare, no matter what Bliar and Cameron have told and are telling everyone.