Heroic Effort

The running is over, the feet are sore, the muscles are tight and the efforts of two people to highlight the dangers of the Health Bill to the NHS has been truly momentous. Bevans Run is over and it has done so much to highlight how the coalition Health Bill will privatise much of the NHS.
Here is a photo of them at their final destination - the Dept of Health on Whitehall. Dr Clive Peedell and Dr David Wilson. A large rally took place of around 300 people and listened to speakers talk about how the NHS is under threat by this Bill. I spoke and said that doctors do not support the Bill (BMA Council representing all UK doctors voted to oppose the Bill) and who do you trust - your doctor or your politician? Mr Cameron repeatedly says doctors support these changes - they do not!

We also went to Mr Cameron's constituency in Witney, Oxfordshire and delivered a dossier of concerns to his office and here is the photo of us outside the door - from the left Professor Ian Banks (President Mens Health Forum), myself, Dr Jacky Davis consultant radiologist and founder of Keep Our NHS Public, Dr Clive Peedell consultant oncologist and running hero and Dr Allyson Pollock public health doctor and amazing campaigner against privatisation of the NHS.
We will all continue to campaign against the Bill and show how it will lead to an NHS that will have enormous private sector involvement, with increased costs and bureaucracy and increased inequity when we should have an NHS that is there for everyone no matter what your background or income is.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Porsche or a Ventilator?

We've seen the government announce they want to borrow money from City hedge funds to prop up the NHS finances. In effect this means taxpayers will be funding a hedge fund dealers new Porsche rather than buying a neonatal ventilator. Tax payers will be fleeced and huge interest payments on this deal will go to the hedge fund meaning less funds are available to the NHS for direct patient care. I've written an article in the BMJ on this and you can read it here... http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2017/04/13/david-wrigley-financing-the-nhs-through-hedge-funds/ Do leave a message on the BMJ website on how you feel about this.  David 
Read more

The serious implications of the case of Dr Bawa-Garba

A shockwave swept through the medical profession this week. The erasure from the medical register of Dr Bawa-Garba left many doctors thinking 'that could be me.....'. Dr Bawa-Garba was a junior doctor working in a busy paediatric department in Leicester in 2011. She was just back from a years maternity leave and thrown straight back into acute paediatric care with doctors missing on the rota, faulty hospital equipment and far too much work/too many patients to remain a safe doctor. Tragically, on that day a child died due to multiple failures and indeed the hospital itself admitted it had many areas it needed to improve on to prevent such an incident occurring again. Dr Bawa-Garba was subsequently convicted of manslaughter in a court of law and given a 2 year suspended sentence. It is said the court did not take into account the serious pressures Dr Bawa-Garba faced that day. Some time later she subsequently went through a process at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal
Read more

General practice is on a cliff edge - and ACOs could tip it over

The latest acronym to hit the NHS is ACO – Accountable Care Organisations. You would be forgiven for sighing with disbelief at yet another change to the way the NHS operates. It wasn’t enough for the Conservative led coalition to push through the single biggest reorganisation of the NHS with the Health and Social Care Act 2012 – a change so big you could ‘ see it from space’ according to the then NHS chief executive David Nicholson. ACOs are the latest reorganisation by NHS England which Simon Stevens expects to “deliver fast-track improvements, such as fewer emergency hospitalisations and better care in people’s homes”. On the face of it that sounds like a good plan but the potential seismic shift in how the NHS runs under an ACO is frightening. ACOs will seek to bring together all organisations (providers and commissioners) offering health and social care under ‘one roof’ in a geographical area. Social care is now based on means testing so you have to pay if you have some
Read more