Scrap NHS reforms, doctors tell Lords.

Capodecina
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More than 260 senior doctors and public health experts are calling on the House of Lords to throw out the government's health and social care bill, saying it will do "irreparable harm to the NHS, to individual patients and to society as a whole".

The signatories include Professor Sir Michael Marmot, the author of several reports on the links between wealth and health that suggest children born into poverty are penalised for life.
...
Marmot and others in senior positions have now concluded the bill will damage all aspects of the health service.

"While we welcome the emphasis placed on establishing a closer working relationship between public health and local government, the proposed reforms as a whole will disrupt, fragment and weaken the country's public health capabilities." says the letter.

"The government claims that the reforms have the backing of the health professions. They do not. Neither do they have the general support of the public."

The letter details the harms the experts believe the health reform bill will do.

"It ushers in a significantly heightened degree of commercialisation and marketisation that will lead to the harmful fragmentation of patient care; aggravate risks to individual patient safety; erode medical ethics and trust within the healthcare system; widen health inequalities; waste much money on attempts to regulate and manage competition; and undermine the ability of the health system to respond effectively and efficiently to communicate disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies." (The Grauniad)
And still the Government will persist with their repeated lie that the medical profession support Lansley & Cameron's covert, back-door privatisation of the NHS :mad:
 
Man of Honour
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Doctors can never make up their mind, they spent so long protesting at the prospect of the NHS, now they can't take reforms of it to make it closer to what was originally suggested by them in the 1950s....

Anyone would think it's simply appealing to tradition by the different generations to try and maintain the status quo while trying to simulatenously enhance their own position ;)

I can't help but notice the chronic lack of any form of evidence based positioning in their letter by comparing the proposed setup to other countries with similar setups... I wonder why?
 
Soldato
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I don't agree with most of the governments proposed reforms to the NHS, but it's a pretty standard response from anybody that works in a sector due to receive them. In any sector there is always going to be significant opposition to reform, no matter what they are.
 
Soldato
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12,702
Doctors can never make up their mind, they spent so long protesting at the prospect of the NHS, now they can't take reforms of it to make it closer to what was originally suggested by them in the 1950s....

Anyone would think it's simply appealing to tradition by the different generations to try and maintain the status quo while trying to simulatenously enhance their own position ;)

I can't help but notice the chronic lack of any form of evidence based positioning in their letter by comparing the proposed setup to other countries with similar setups... I wonder why?

Anyone would think so if they were so obviously biased and bitter towards it as you are.
 
Associate
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17 Aug 2004
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It's amazing, How local trusts are being forced to implement these changes already. There is no clarity on what clinical commissioners, CSU's, NCB will actally be doing and on what scale ! Its all by interpretations at the moment.
 
Soldato
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What worries me is that GPs aren't trained to take on any of the new responsibilities that they would take on if this bill is passed. That's a HUGE flaw imo.

Of course the over paid NHS doctors and NHS <no jobbers> are going to moan about cuts. All public sector money spenders hate government cuts. That means less money for them.

Lol. Doctors really aren't overpaid. At around the age of 40, they become well paid, but doctors are not overpaid, and in fact most are underpaid.
 
Caporegime
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Doctors don't want the blame or the purse strings, because, well, under Labour GP's have become, or been able to become incredibly rich while providing worse and worse care basically.

As for saying doctors aren't overpaid, a lot of doctors aren't, GP's are MASSIVELY overpaid, and they are underqualified as doctors, you go into an ER and find a doctor who can diagnose just about anything, perform emergency surgery and hundreds of procedures, a GP can barely do anything these days, you can get a doc who hasn't performed a procedure on a patient in 40 years and hasn't seen a wide range of cases in decades either.


GP's are already heavy paperwork people, they essentially run businesses as is, many MANY doctors in hospitals go on to management roles with never actual training, thats what happens in most industries, many many gp's are on boards, and various planning commities, there is plenty of experience there as GP's/doctors have been involved in the planning side of the NHS for decades.


The NHS needs reform, does it need THIS reform, maybe not, and doing something rather than doing nothing isn't always the right option.

But GP's at some stage will have to account for getting more money for hitting targets, while patients all complain about lack of time with doctors, serious conditions being missed and the inability to get a real appointment at short notice. The public won't accept GP's current excuses of "its the system, its not our fault", because they'll be the system.
 
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