Today three staff from Winterbourne care home appeared in court to admit abuse of their patients. The case came to light after a shocking Panorama documentary expose of appalling abuse at the care home.
The care home had previously been inspected three times by the Care Quality Commission and deemed to provide acceptable care - even more shockingly it failed to act on three emails it received from a highly qualified nurse who used to work at the home warning of the abuse at the unit. The CQC clearly failed in this instance and allowed Winterbourne's vulnerable patients suffering to continue.
Why is this relevant to the NHS?
The CQC will have its powers widened under the NHS bill, giving it "sole responsibility for registration against essential standards of quality and safety" of private providers looking to deliver NHS care. In short this means the CQC will check whether private companies provide decent and safe care and treatment. Last year the CQC cut its inspections by 70%. It has just 900 inspectors to cover 18,000 care homes, 8,000 GP practices, 400 NHS hospital trusts, 9,000 dental practices and, in addition, every future new NHS provider.
Given what happened at Winterbourne, it is clear that the CQC is already struggling to cope in its role, do you trust them to ensure that private providers are really up to scratch?
Thursday, 9 February 2012
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
Reason #1 why the NHS bill should be dropped
Under the NHS bill currently being debated in the House of Lords, provisions have been made that allow all NHS hospitals to allocate 49% of their beds to private patients. Which means waiting lists will automatically double in length and us lot who are already over-stretched paying bills and can't afford private healthcare, will be at the back of the queue.
Makes a mockery of Lansley's recent demands that hospitals get their waiting lists under control!
I'll post reason a day that the NHS bill is a disaster while it is being debated in the House of Lords.
Makes a mockery of Lansley's recent demands that hospitals get their waiting lists under control!
I'll post reason a day that the NHS bill is a disaster while it is being debated in the House of Lords.
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
DLA reform should be PAUSED until TWO key issues resolved
Following on from last week's dramatic defeat in the House of Lords of three proposed welfare reform changes, the debate has now moved on to the reform of DLA. The Lords will be voting tonight on the plans, including an amendment by Baroness Grey-Thompson, of paralympic fame, that there would have to be a pilot before a new medical assessment of DLA is brought in. You can also read more about this at Sue Marsh's great blog. However, for the sake of the taxpayer and disabled people across the nation, DLA reform should be paused until two key issues are resolved.
1. Do not scrap DLA until the Government can clearly demonstrate that its desire to cut 20% from the budget will not leave genuinely sick people in need
Government statistics show the fraud of DLA is 0.5%, yet in its 'Budget 2010 policy costings document" the Government unveiled its intention to cut the number of those in receipt of DLA by 20% despite the fact it is yet to outline any eligibility criteria for PIP. This obviously raises serious concerns that genuinely ill people will be denied benefit solely to meet a pre-decided budget and that 'eligibility' for PIP will be driven by costs not by need. As Sue Marsh highlights in her blog, the current tabled legislation has so few details in it, which are meant to be decided by MPs under secondary legislation at a later date, that we do not know how these reforms will affect our lives, despite the fact it is being introduced NEXT YEAR.
2. Halt any introduction of PIP medical assessments until the financial and emotional catastrophe surrounding the similar medical for ESA is sorted out
The Government wishes to introduce a medical assessment for all recepients of PIP, despite the fact that a similar assessment process for Employment Support Allowance is currently in a huge mess. Society should be in uproar that 31 people have DIED while awaiting appeals against ESA medicals that found them fit to work.
40% of decisions to deny ESA are overturned at the appeal stage. Appeals have so far cost the taxpayer £80 million and the contract with private company Atos to manage these medicals is worth £801 million over ten years. Atos is yet to have any financial penalities imposed upon it for inaccurate reports resulting from the medicals it has conducted.
That's me done, hospital appointment later and typically the day I need to leave the house my lungs are behaving terribly. Fingers' crossed the vote in the House of Lords helps bring back common sense and support & respect for disabled people across the country.
1. Do not scrap DLA until the Government can clearly demonstrate that its desire to cut 20% from the budget will not leave genuinely sick people in need
Government statistics show the fraud of DLA is 0.5%, yet in its 'Budget 2010 policy costings document" the Government unveiled its intention to cut the number of those in receipt of DLA by 20% despite the fact it is yet to outline any eligibility criteria for PIP. This obviously raises serious concerns that genuinely ill people will be denied benefit solely to meet a pre-decided budget and that 'eligibility' for PIP will be driven by costs not by need. As Sue Marsh highlights in her blog, the current tabled legislation has so few details in it, which are meant to be decided by MPs under secondary legislation at a later date, that we do not know how these reforms will affect our lives, despite the fact it is being introduced NEXT YEAR.
2. Halt any introduction of PIP medical assessments until the financial and emotional catastrophe surrounding the similar medical for ESA is sorted out
The Government wishes to introduce a medical assessment for all recepients of PIP, despite the fact that a similar assessment process for Employment Support Allowance is currently in a huge mess. Society should be in uproar that 31 people have DIED while awaiting appeals against ESA medicals that found them fit to work.
40% of decisions to deny ESA are overturned at the appeal stage. Appeals have so far cost the taxpayer £80 million and the contract with private company Atos to manage these medicals is worth £801 million over ten years. Atos is yet to have any financial penalities imposed upon it for inaccurate reports resulting from the medicals it has conducted.
That's me done, hospital appointment later and typically the day I need to leave the house my lungs are behaving terribly. Fingers' crossed the vote in the House of Lords helps bring back common sense and support & respect for disabled people across the country.
Friday, 13 January 2012
For the taxpayer’s sake, halt the introduction of disability benefit PIP
In response to every criticism of the Government’s austerity drive, the Coalition insists there is no alternative to the cuts and yesterday morning was no different. Speaking on the Today programme, Work and pensions minister Chris Grayling again argued that it was in the taxpayer’s interest for the Government to press ahead with disability welfare cuts despite last night’s dramatic defeat in the House of Lords of three proposed welfare reform changes. Yet as the debate shifts to other aspects of the welfare bill, it can be argued that key elements of the proposed reforms in fact short change the taxpayer.
The Government is intent on scrapping DLA and replacing it with Personal Independence Payments (PIP), despite the fact that only 7% of organisations that took part in a recent DLA consultation were fully in support of this change. The reasons given by the Government for abandoning DLA struggle to stand up under scrutiny, as this week’s excellent Responsible Reforms report by disabled campaigners highlight, but what is clear is that the Government has estimated it will cost £675 million to scrap DLA and introduce PIP.
In addition, despite fierce opposition from disabled people and, at 0.5%, DLA having the lowest fraud rate of all Government benefits, the Government is still intent on introducing a medical test for all potential recipients of PIP. It is suggested it would operate along the lines of the Working Capability Assessment (WCA) administered by private company Atos healthcare for those currently applying for Employment Support Allowance. Frankly, this assessment isn’t currently fit for purpose. 40% of decisions that people are ‘fit to work’ are overturned at the appeal stage, and these original decisions are very heavily based on the findings of the WCA. Atos has not yet been given any financial penalty for any inaccurate report it has produced despite the fact that the hefty appeals process for ESA has cost the taxpayer a staggering £80 million to date. On top of this, the Government is already paying Atos £801 million over a ten year period and one can only presume the contract will increase in size were Atos to be asked to also undertake the medical assessments for PIP eligibility.
In its ‘Budget 2010 policy costings’ document, the Government highlighted a desire to cut DLA payments by 20%. Currently annual DLA payments amount to £12.6 billion, so a 20 per cent saving on this figure would come in at £2.52 billion annually. The up-front PIP implementation costs plus a medical assessment contract similar in size to Atos and any subsequent appeals expenses would eat up half of these savings.
In an age where we are continually told that every penny counts, the Government must justify these costs, including whether it is in the taxpayers interest that 100% of DLA recipients will be forced to attend a medical, even those that have an incurable, end-stage illness. Wednesday's successful House of Lord’s amendment to the welfare bill to exclude cancer patients from being subject to the one year ESA time limit, and therefore implying a medical test for such patients would be redundant, suggest there isn’t the public appetite to impose stressful health tests on the seriously ill who are trying to claim benefits in their hour of need.
The Government also has an obligation to the taxpayer to ensure its money is sensibly spent. The medical tests for PIP eligibility are set to begin in 2013, despite the fact that the latest Harrington report, which examined the practical implementation of the WCA medical test, states it will take at least three years to see if its recommendations have improved the accuracy of the medical test in identifying real need. Until the Government manages to get WCA appeal rates under control, there is little point adding another hefty bill to the taxpayer’s purse to extend the number of ill people required to undergo similar assessments. Indeed the Government should be obliged to go further and ensure the taxpayer is getting value for money from existing medical assessment contracts by forcing financial penalties on those companies making repeated mistakes for which the taxpayer is currently picking up the bill to rectify.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favour of an arbitrary 20% cut in DLA and I’ve written before voicing my concerns that people who need genuine Government help will be deemed ineligible in order to meet a pre-decided budget cut. But it seems to me that the Government is simply scrapping DLA only to replace it with a similar benefit at great cost to the taxpayer to avoid the PR fall out of being seen to take money away from the long-term sick. In an age of austerity there cannot surely be any spare cash to help the Government save face.
If the Coalition wishes to reform or cut DLA then it should have the courage to makes its case in a fair and democratic manner and make changes within the current benefit. It should not hide its agenda behind a name change or ‘independent’ medical assessments. The introduction of PIP should be recognised as a waste of money which cannot demonstrate any clear benefit to the taxpayer. It should be halted now, before it too becomes a disastrous, administrative nightmare like ESA is now proving to be.
The Government is intent on scrapping DLA and replacing it with Personal Independence Payments (PIP), despite the fact that only 7% of organisations that took part in a recent DLA consultation were fully in support of this change. The reasons given by the Government for abandoning DLA struggle to stand up under scrutiny, as this week’s excellent Responsible Reforms report by disabled campaigners highlight, but what is clear is that the Government has estimated it will cost £675 million to scrap DLA and introduce PIP.
In addition, despite fierce opposition from disabled people and, at 0.5%, DLA having the lowest fraud rate of all Government benefits, the Government is still intent on introducing a medical test for all potential recipients of PIP. It is suggested it would operate along the lines of the Working Capability Assessment (WCA) administered by private company Atos healthcare for those currently applying for Employment Support Allowance. Frankly, this assessment isn’t currently fit for purpose. 40% of decisions that people are ‘fit to work’ are overturned at the appeal stage, and these original decisions are very heavily based on the findings of the WCA. Atos has not yet been given any financial penalty for any inaccurate report it has produced despite the fact that the hefty appeals process for ESA has cost the taxpayer a staggering £80 million to date. On top of this, the Government is already paying Atos £801 million over a ten year period and one can only presume the contract will increase in size were Atos to be asked to also undertake the medical assessments for PIP eligibility.
In its ‘Budget 2010 policy costings’ document, the Government highlighted a desire to cut DLA payments by 20%. Currently annual DLA payments amount to £12.6 billion, so a 20 per cent saving on this figure would come in at £2.52 billion annually. The up-front PIP implementation costs plus a medical assessment contract similar in size to Atos and any subsequent appeals expenses would eat up half of these savings.
In an age where we are continually told that every penny counts, the Government must justify these costs, including whether it is in the taxpayers interest that 100% of DLA recipients will be forced to attend a medical, even those that have an incurable, end-stage illness. Wednesday's successful House of Lord’s amendment to the welfare bill to exclude cancer patients from being subject to the one year ESA time limit, and therefore implying a medical test for such patients would be redundant, suggest there isn’t the public appetite to impose stressful health tests on the seriously ill who are trying to claim benefits in their hour of need.
The Government also has an obligation to the taxpayer to ensure its money is sensibly spent. The medical tests for PIP eligibility are set to begin in 2013, despite the fact that the latest Harrington report, which examined the practical implementation of the WCA medical test, states it will take at least three years to see if its recommendations have improved the accuracy of the medical test in identifying real need. Until the Government manages to get WCA appeal rates under control, there is little point adding another hefty bill to the taxpayer’s purse to extend the number of ill people required to undergo similar assessments. Indeed the Government should be obliged to go further and ensure the taxpayer is getting value for money from existing medical assessment contracts by forcing financial penalties on those companies making repeated mistakes for which the taxpayer is currently picking up the bill to rectify.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favour of an arbitrary 20% cut in DLA and I’ve written before voicing my concerns that people who need genuine Government help will be deemed ineligible in order to meet a pre-decided budget cut. But it seems to me that the Government is simply scrapping DLA only to replace it with a similar benefit at great cost to the taxpayer to avoid the PR fall out of being seen to take money away from the long-term sick. In an age of austerity there cannot surely be any spare cash to help the Government save face.
If the Coalition wishes to reform or cut DLA then it should have the courage to makes its case in a fair and democratic manner and make changes within the current benefit. It should not hide its agenda behind a name change or ‘independent’ medical assessments. The introduction of PIP should be recognised as a waste of money which cannot demonstrate any clear benefit to the taxpayer. It should be halted now, before it too becomes a disastrous, administrative nightmare like ESA is now proving to be.
Thursday, 24 November 2011
Cameron’s attack on ‘sicknote culture’ could spectacularly backfire
Speaking today to the Daily Mail about sickness benefits, David Cameron couldn’t have been more right when he said the “whole system is in a mess”. But his new proposals are likely to make things worse.
Cameron is keen to “press ahead” with stripping GPs of the ability to sign people off work for more than four weeks. After this period an independent assessor will be needed to verify if that person needs to be off sick. Considering this is the same Government that wants to give control of the majority of the NHS budget to GPs, its faith in local doctors seems surprisingly contradictory. With the Government still embroiled in arguments with clinicians over its planned NHS reforms, the Government could find there is little appetite for these new proposals with either GPs or the electorate - indeed an Ipsos Mori survey in June this year showed that nearly nine in ten respondents trust their doctors to tell the truth.
What is clear is that, if implemented, these changes will add another expensive layer of bureaucracy onto a benefits system this is already struggling to cope.
Atos Healthcare is the independent assessor contracted by the Government to carry out the Working Capability Assessment (WCA) that the vast majority of applicants for Employment Support Allowance (ESA) must undergo. Frankly, the assessment isn’t working. 40% of decisions that people are ‘fit to work’ are overturned at the appeal stage, and these original decisions are very heavily based on the findings of the WCA. It is not solely ‘borderline’ cases that are eliciting appeals. In June evidence was submitted to a parliamentary select committee that highlighted the case of Mr C who died in the five months between his medical assessment, in which he was declared fit to work, and his appeal hearing. In February this year Scotland’s Evening Times reported the deaths from chronic illnesses of two men who were waiting for appeals to be heard against their recent loss of Incapacity Benefits. I could go on.
The Government already pays Atos £801 million over a ten year period yet, despite many ministerial promises of improvement, it’s clear that the Government has a long way to go until it gets to grips with how to assess how someone’s illness affects their ability to work. Until it manages to get WCA appeal rates under control, there is little point adding another hefty bill to the taxpayer’s purse to extend the number of ill people required to undergo independent assessments.
Cameron says that GPs “resent being asked to sign sicknotes” yet I can’t imagine any GP embracing a system that might tell patients to go back to work against their own doctors’ advice. And what will happen to those patients who are told they are fit to work when they aren’t? Will their pay be stopped while they appeal the decision? Will they face being sacked for ‘lying’ to their employer?
I can only presume that in these tough economic times, in which many people are struggling with the steep rise in the cost of living, Cameron believes that cracking down on “sickness fraud” will be a vote winner amongst the electorate. Yet that argument only holds when the wider public holds an ‘us’ and ‘them’ view – when we believe that it would never be ‘us’ who are presumed to be lying about being ill.
The Government is only getting away with the terrible mess surrounding the WCA, and the staggering £80 million cost to the taxpayer to manage the hefty appeals process, because it isn’t yet seen as a mainstream concern. As soon as anyone who is off ill for more than 28 days is told to undergo similar tests - and the word spreads about what a hit and miss process it truly is - Cameron could face a massive backlash against his benefits policies. Most people want to work hard and show loyalty to their employer: in exchange they expect to be able to take time off to recover from unexpected illnesses, even if that recovery process takes longer than hoped. I can see few people accepting this greater state intrusion into their lives.
Cameron is keen to “press ahead” with stripping GPs of the ability to sign people off work for more than four weeks. After this period an independent assessor will be needed to verify if that person needs to be off sick. Considering this is the same Government that wants to give control of the majority of the NHS budget to GPs, its faith in local doctors seems surprisingly contradictory. With the Government still embroiled in arguments with clinicians over its planned NHS reforms, the Government could find there is little appetite for these new proposals with either GPs or the electorate - indeed an Ipsos Mori survey in June this year showed that nearly nine in ten respondents trust their doctors to tell the truth.
What is clear is that, if implemented, these changes will add another expensive layer of bureaucracy onto a benefits system this is already struggling to cope.
Atos Healthcare is the independent assessor contracted by the Government to carry out the Working Capability Assessment (WCA) that the vast majority of applicants for Employment Support Allowance (ESA) must undergo. Frankly, the assessment isn’t working. 40% of decisions that people are ‘fit to work’ are overturned at the appeal stage, and these original decisions are very heavily based on the findings of the WCA. It is not solely ‘borderline’ cases that are eliciting appeals. In June evidence was submitted to a parliamentary select committee that highlighted the case of Mr C who died in the five months between his medical assessment, in which he was declared fit to work, and his appeal hearing. In February this year Scotland’s Evening Times reported the deaths from chronic illnesses of two men who were waiting for appeals to be heard against their recent loss of Incapacity Benefits. I could go on.
The Government already pays Atos £801 million over a ten year period yet, despite many ministerial promises of improvement, it’s clear that the Government has a long way to go until it gets to grips with how to assess how someone’s illness affects their ability to work. Until it manages to get WCA appeal rates under control, there is little point adding another hefty bill to the taxpayer’s purse to extend the number of ill people required to undergo independent assessments.
Cameron says that GPs “resent being asked to sign sicknotes” yet I can’t imagine any GP embracing a system that might tell patients to go back to work against their own doctors’ advice. And what will happen to those patients who are told they are fit to work when they aren’t? Will their pay be stopped while they appeal the decision? Will they face being sacked for ‘lying’ to their employer?
I can only presume that in these tough economic times, in which many people are struggling with the steep rise in the cost of living, Cameron believes that cracking down on “sickness fraud” will be a vote winner amongst the electorate. Yet that argument only holds when the wider public holds an ‘us’ and ‘them’ view – when we believe that it would never be ‘us’ who are presumed to be lying about being ill.
The Government is only getting away with the terrible mess surrounding the WCA, and the staggering £80 million cost to the taxpayer to manage the hefty appeals process, because it isn’t yet seen as a mainstream concern. As soon as anyone who is off ill for more than 28 days is told to undergo similar tests - and the word spreads about what a hit and miss process it truly is - Cameron could face a massive backlash against his benefits policies. Most people want to work hard and show loyalty to their employer: in exchange they expect to be able to take time off to recover from unexpected illnesses, even if that recovery process takes longer than hoped. I can see few people accepting this greater state intrusion into their lives.
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
Global crisis in antibiotic development is a threat to us all
I've just got in from speaking at the parliamentary launch of a new campaign called Antibiotic Action. It was a great morning with a strong attendance of doctors, pharmacists and MPs - including Andy Burnham, shadow health secretary.
The day was to raise awareness about the dire crisis in global antibiotic discovery and development. In 2009, the World Health Organisation announced that antibiotic resistance posed one of the three greatest threats to human health. Yet since then the chronic lack of development of new antibiotics has continued while the antibiotics currently on the market have become less effective. Indeed by the end of 2012 as little as two new antibiotics are expected to have been created in the preceding four year period, compared to sixteen that were invented between 1983 and 1988. Even more worryingly today one attendee told me that the market for developing antibiotics in Europe is non-existent and very small in the US. Indeed the only country interested in developing these new drugs is China.
Despite the fact that the market for antibiotic investment has effectively collapsed it has so far remained a silent crisis, gaining little recognition amongst the wider public. This is despite the fact that the shortage of effective drugs is one of the causes behind the rise of hospital superbugs – an issue that has seen a slew of Government targets and patient campaign groups to try and eradicate the problem. While it is true that some hospital acquired infections such as MRSA do occur due to dirty wards, the rise of superbugs should act as a warning that bugs are, if you like, becoming cleverer, and that our discovery of antibiotics to treat such infections has not kept pace with such mutations.
The reoccurrence of TB, which at one stage was almost wiped out in the UK, and of a very resistant strain of gonorrhea show that we are dangerously short of new antibiotics in a world of increasingly drug-resistant illnesses. Indeed only last month the Health Protection Agency warned that the most common antibiotic used to treat gonorrhea is no longer effective at combatting the disease, raising the spectre of “the very real threat of untreatable gonorrhoea in the future.”
As someone with an incurable illness, Cystic Fibrosis, who is dependent on a raft of antibiotics to try and maintain my health for as long as possible, I can attest to the cost to society of a rise in untreatable afflictions. Aside from the heavy medical bill associated with treating an incurable illness over a prolonged period of time, the social implications are considerable. If in the future we prove unable to tackle life-threatening infections such as TB than we face a society in which more people will be forced out of the work place due to serious ill-health and increasingly pushed to the sidelines. We need just look at our obesity crisis, and subsequent spiralling diabetes costs, to understand the implications of allowing a health crisis to run out of control.
Today's parliamentary launch of Antibiotic Action called on the Government to form an all-party parliamentary select committee to examine this looming health crisis. The campaign group has highlighted several underlying issues that need to be overcome to kick-start investment in new drug discovery. A crucial concern is a lack of return on investment that antibiotics generate for pharmaceutical companies. This is partly due to the cost of clinical trials and the perception by purchasers, such as European Governments, that antibiotics should be low cost. Further, a focus on genome treatments, to cure genetic conditions such as mine, has meant a shift from funding new antibiotics, despite the fact that genome treatments have yet to come to fruition.
Antibiotic Action recognises that researchers, regulators and pharmaceutical companies must now work together to overcome these obstacles as, quite literally, the status quo cannot remain as it is. Unless new antibiotics are developed then the ones that are in current circulation will gradually become less effective as they are overused to treat bugs that have ‘evolved’ to become resistant to the treatment available.
Any further delay in addressing the burgeoning problem threatens the very foundation of 21st century health care that we all demand, as the use of antibiotics underpins the practice of modern medicine. Shocking as it may seem to a post-penicillin society which expects antibiotics to cure life-threatening infections, but without a new generation of antibiotics we face a future in which a patient, who might have survived radiotherapy, kidney transplants or heart surgery is at risk of dying from basic infections caught during after care.
For more info and to support the cause: http://www.antibioticaction.com/
The day was to raise awareness about the dire crisis in global antibiotic discovery and development. In 2009, the World Health Organisation announced that antibiotic resistance posed one of the three greatest threats to human health. Yet since then the chronic lack of development of new antibiotics has continued while the antibiotics currently on the market have become less effective. Indeed by the end of 2012 as little as two new antibiotics are expected to have been created in the preceding four year period, compared to sixteen that were invented between 1983 and 1988. Even more worryingly today one attendee told me that the market for developing antibiotics in Europe is non-existent and very small in the US. Indeed the only country interested in developing these new drugs is China.
Despite the fact that the market for antibiotic investment has effectively collapsed it has so far remained a silent crisis, gaining little recognition amongst the wider public. This is despite the fact that the shortage of effective drugs is one of the causes behind the rise of hospital superbugs – an issue that has seen a slew of Government targets and patient campaign groups to try and eradicate the problem. While it is true that some hospital acquired infections such as MRSA do occur due to dirty wards, the rise of superbugs should act as a warning that bugs are, if you like, becoming cleverer, and that our discovery of antibiotics to treat such infections has not kept pace with such mutations.
The reoccurrence of TB, which at one stage was almost wiped out in the UK, and of a very resistant strain of gonorrhea show that we are dangerously short of new antibiotics in a world of increasingly drug-resistant illnesses. Indeed only last month the Health Protection Agency warned that the most common antibiotic used to treat gonorrhea is no longer effective at combatting the disease, raising the spectre of “the very real threat of untreatable gonorrhoea in the future.”
As someone with an incurable illness, Cystic Fibrosis, who is dependent on a raft of antibiotics to try and maintain my health for as long as possible, I can attest to the cost to society of a rise in untreatable afflictions. Aside from the heavy medical bill associated with treating an incurable illness over a prolonged period of time, the social implications are considerable. If in the future we prove unable to tackle life-threatening infections such as TB than we face a society in which more people will be forced out of the work place due to serious ill-health and increasingly pushed to the sidelines. We need just look at our obesity crisis, and subsequent spiralling diabetes costs, to understand the implications of allowing a health crisis to run out of control.
Today's parliamentary launch of Antibiotic Action called on the Government to form an all-party parliamentary select committee to examine this looming health crisis. The campaign group has highlighted several underlying issues that need to be overcome to kick-start investment in new drug discovery. A crucial concern is a lack of return on investment that antibiotics generate for pharmaceutical companies. This is partly due to the cost of clinical trials and the perception by purchasers, such as European Governments, that antibiotics should be low cost. Further, a focus on genome treatments, to cure genetic conditions such as mine, has meant a shift from funding new antibiotics, despite the fact that genome treatments have yet to come to fruition.
Antibiotic Action recognises that researchers, regulators and pharmaceutical companies must now work together to overcome these obstacles as, quite literally, the status quo cannot remain as it is. Unless new antibiotics are developed then the ones that are in current circulation will gradually become less effective as they are overused to treat bugs that have ‘evolved’ to become resistant to the treatment available.
Any further delay in addressing the burgeoning problem threatens the very foundation of 21st century health care that we all demand, as the use of antibiotics underpins the practice of modern medicine. Shocking as it may seem to a post-penicillin society which expects antibiotics to cure life-threatening infections, but without a new generation of antibiotics we face a future in which a patient, who might have survived radiotherapy, kidney transplants or heart surgery is at risk of dying from basic infections caught during after care.
For more info and to support the cause: http://www.antibioticaction.com/
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Three reasons to sign the 'Save the NHS' petition
I've been watching the progression through parliament of the Health and Social care bill with alarm. This is a major piece of legislation that MPs don't seem to have given proper time to and it has been waived through the Commons despite mounting protests from GPs, consultants and public demonstrations.
The Bill is now in the House of Lords and the vote is expected to take place tomorrow on whether it will approve the Bill. Below are three reasons you should sign the petition by 38 degrees.This is our last chance to halt the reforms and demand a proper consultation with open explanations of the Bill's intentions. The list below is not comprehensive so please do add more in the comments section.
1. We live in a democracy and the way this Bill has been handled is thoroughly undemocratic. I've posted on this Bill before, but in short the Bill looks to give GP commissioning powers and open up the NHS to'any willing provider' (although this has recently been amended to 'any qualified provider'). Yet these crucial changes are already being enacted across the country with Health Secretary Lansley saying that 97% of the country is now covered by GP commissioning and current Primary Care Trusts are tendering out health contracts to 'alternative providers' (i;e. private companies). This has all happened while the Bill was officially 'paused' by David Cameron. It is unacceptable that any elected Government enacts controversial reforms without the approval of an elected parliament. I would hate the Health Bill to set a dangerous precedent. There is also the glaring fact that these reforms do not have an electoral mandate as they did not figure in either Coalition parties election manifestos.
2. The Bill does not have the backing of the majority of the medical profession. They believe it poses a fundamental risk to patients' health and to the NHS. This should be a major warning sign to us all. After showing patience with the Government, engaging in two consultation processes and cooperating with the Government on suggested changes to the Bill, the community has now come out in desperation calling on the whole Bill to be suspended. If the doctors working in the NHS are against this Bill, then we must question the motivations of the Government to pursue such changes. Either they are arrogant and believe that MPs know the NHS better than people who have dedicated their lives to working in it OR these reforms are nothing to do with improving the NHS.
3. The future implications of the Bill are far from clear. Cameron has promised not to privatise the NHS but the more I think through the proposals this seems like clever word play. The White paper gives commissioning powers to GPs who are officially private employees with NHS contracts. The paper does not say whether giving them commissiong power means that they will automatically becoming employees of the state. The Bill is pushing for the NHS to operate on free market principles in which providers compete for patients, and the Government funding they bring with them. This might explain why the Bill states that all hospitals are to become 'social enterprises' (i.e free from state control) and that those hospitals that can't manage their finances properly will be allowed to fail.
Adding this up in my head, it seems that the Bill is moving us to a state insurance system in which the UK Government doles out cash to private providers yet ultimately will one day not own any hospitals or pay for any staff. This ultimate aim may well be why the Health Bill in its current form doesn't explicitly state that the Health secretary will have ultimate responsibility for the NHS - how could he if the 'NHS' just becomes a pot of money that is divided out between private companies? Would an insurance system be better for the UK? Who knows because there has been no open debate about it as the Government has been so quick to push the Bill through parliament and refused to be honest about where this legislation is leading us.
Please sign the petition. The Government claims that the NHS must reform if it is to remain able to care for an ever increasing and elderly population. That may well be true but this isn't the way to manage such reform. We elect our Government and in turn they should be honest about the problems the NHS faces and the potential ways to manage healthcare in the future. Pushing through undemocratic reforms, which lacks the support of the medical profession and the understanding of the public treats the NHS and the voting public with contempt.
The Bill is now in the House of Lords and the vote is expected to take place tomorrow on whether it will approve the Bill. Below are three reasons you should sign the petition by 38 degrees.This is our last chance to halt the reforms and demand a proper consultation with open explanations of the Bill's intentions. The list below is not comprehensive so please do add more in the comments section.
1. We live in a democracy and the way this Bill has been handled is thoroughly undemocratic. I've posted on this Bill before, but in short the Bill looks to give GP commissioning powers and open up the NHS to'any willing provider' (although this has recently been amended to 'any qualified provider'). Yet these crucial changes are already being enacted across the country with Health Secretary Lansley saying that 97% of the country is now covered by GP commissioning and current Primary Care Trusts are tendering out health contracts to 'alternative providers' (i;e. private companies). This has all happened while the Bill was officially 'paused' by David Cameron. It is unacceptable that any elected Government enacts controversial reforms without the approval of an elected parliament. I would hate the Health Bill to set a dangerous precedent. There is also the glaring fact that these reforms do not have an electoral mandate as they did not figure in either Coalition parties election manifestos.
2. The Bill does not have the backing of the majority of the medical profession. They believe it poses a fundamental risk to patients' health and to the NHS. This should be a major warning sign to us all. After showing patience with the Government, engaging in two consultation processes and cooperating with the Government on suggested changes to the Bill, the community has now come out in desperation calling on the whole Bill to be suspended. If the doctors working in the NHS are against this Bill, then we must question the motivations of the Government to pursue such changes. Either they are arrogant and believe that MPs know the NHS better than people who have dedicated their lives to working in it OR these reforms are nothing to do with improving the NHS.
3. The future implications of the Bill are far from clear. Cameron has promised not to privatise the NHS but the more I think through the proposals this seems like clever word play. The White paper gives commissioning powers to GPs who are officially private employees with NHS contracts. The paper does not say whether giving them commissiong power means that they will automatically becoming employees of the state. The Bill is pushing for the NHS to operate on free market principles in which providers compete for patients, and the Government funding they bring with them. This might explain why the Bill states that all hospitals are to become 'social enterprises' (i.e free from state control) and that those hospitals that can't manage their finances properly will be allowed to fail.
Adding this up in my head, it seems that the Bill is moving us to a state insurance system in which the UK Government doles out cash to private providers yet ultimately will one day not own any hospitals or pay for any staff. This ultimate aim may well be why the Health Bill in its current form doesn't explicitly state that the Health secretary will have ultimate responsibility for the NHS - how could he if the 'NHS' just becomes a pot of money that is divided out between private companies? Would an insurance system be better for the UK? Who knows because there has been no open debate about it as the Government has been so quick to push the Bill through parliament and refused to be honest about where this legislation is leading us.
Please sign the petition. The Government claims that the NHS must reform if it is to remain able to care for an ever increasing and elderly population. That may well be true but this isn't the way to manage such reform. We elect our Government and in turn they should be honest about the problems the NHS faces and the potential ways to manage healthcare in the future. Pushing through undemocratic reforms, which lacks the support of the medical profession and the understanding of the public treats the NHS and the voting public with contempt.
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