A&E Departments Failing Due to Lack of Funding

The NHS is heading towards a crisis over A&E waiting times as the percentage of people waiting four or more hours to see an emergency doctor has risen to over 4%, the highest in a decade. Cuts to NHS spending has hit the service hard, with more cuts ahead it is unlikely to get better any time soon. (So much for Cameron's campaign slogan "I'll cut the deficit, not the NHS"). Leaked emails reveal that in an effort to help ailing A&Es Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, had planned to plough an extra £300 million - £400 million into the service. According to the emails it had to be abandoned due to problems financing it. The government has denied that Hunt ever proposed such a scheme. Naturally I don't believe the government, especially Hunt, we should all remember how dishonest he was about his relationship with News Corp and Rupert Murdoch!

This government has proven time and time again that they can't be trusted with the NHS, come 2015 we should vote them out of office, if only to protect the sacred cow of British politics.

The Collapse of the British Establishment

It has been over two months now since the Jimmy Savile abuse scandal was first made public, yet its affects still dominate news headlines. Accusations that senior politicians were involved in paedophile sex rings have been swarming on the internet for over a week. Yesterday one of those accused hit back, Lord McAlpine called the speculation “wholly false and seriously defamatory”. The rumours started as a result of a BBC Newsnight investigation into abuse in north Wales children’s homes. In the broadcast a man stated that he had been abused by a senior Conservative from the Thatcher era, although McAlpine was never named. On Twitter however, his name was banded about as the abuser, and it is true that Steven Messham (the victim) did believe that McAlpine was the abuser. He has since reversed his accusation after being shown a photograph of McAlpine and has apologised for falsely accusing him. This has led Newsnight into some serious trouble, what sort of shoddy journalism was at work when they didn’t even both to confirm that McAlpine was definitely the abuser?

It would seem like this scandal is intent on destroying the BBC and Newsnight’s reputation. Although I have no doubt that the BBC will continue as the world’s largest broadcaster, I fear for Newsnight’s future. The programme usually has excellent journalism and to cancel it would be a travesty.

If we move away from this scandal alone you begin to realise something: The British Establishment is collapsing. It really began back in 2007/2008 when the economy went into freefall, the institutions that had caused the crash saw their reputation plummet: Banks. Yet it also tarnished politics, why had the government massively deregulated the financial sector? And why did the opposition say nothing about it? Move alone to 2009 and politics has a scandal of its own, this time over expenses. Many MPs and Peers had made unfair, and sometimes illegal claims for expenses. Since then a number of politicians have gone to jail, destroying politicians’ already abysmal reputation. In 2011 the police, press and politicians all got caught up in one massive scandal. It all started with revelations that the News of the World had hacked the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl, Milly Dowler, in 2002. Soon it became clear that thousands of people had been hacked, the families of dead soldiers and victims of 9/11 and 7/7. The public’s complete revulsion of what was discovered resulted in the News of the World being closed. The scandal turned to police when people questioned their relationship with journalists and the possibility of corruption. Public anger also erupted over the closeness of senior Tory politicians with the press, particularly PM David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt.  Since then numerous branches of the press have shown to act unlawfully, particularly Murdoch papers; the Sun, the Times and News of the World all being implicated. As well as that, senior executives within Murdoch’s company News Corporation have been arrested surrounding the scandal. Then you move forward to this year, banks saw their reputation further damaged as three British institutions were found to have dodgy, and sometimes illegal dealings. The current abuse scandal threatens to further destroy the establishment’s reputation. The public are at record low levels of trust with banks, politicians, police, the press and now the BBC. The only nationwide institution still standing on high approval ratings is the NHS, let’s hope it doesn’t find a scandal of its own.  

NHS Reforms

Today it was revealed that three cabinet ministers had approached the unofficial conservativehome website and told them of their opposition to the Health and Social Care Bill. This comes just days after a Downing Street aide said that Andrew Lansley “should be taken out and shot” for alienating doctors and nurses. This isn’t the first piece of opposition that the reforms have experienced, the Labour Party has always denounced the reforms, Liberal Democrats have been uneasy about them and there’s been huge opposition from professional groups such as the BMA (British Medical Association) and the Royal College of Nursing. The reforms have also got little public support, many people fear that the bill threatens the founding dream of the NHS and it begins the process of privatisation.

I oppose the reforms wholeheartedly as I believe the NHS is best kept safe in public hands. Inclusion of private companies will drive up the cost of healthcare, not down. This can be easily seen in worldwide trends, the more private sector involvement, the more expensive the healthcare. I also feel that this current government has absolutely no mandate for reform of the NHS, firstly the government promised us “No top-down re-organisation of the NHS”, despite this ‘promise’ the government is scrapping PCTs (Primary Care Trusts) which control around 80% of the NHS budget, if this isn’t a “top-down re-organisation” then I don’t know what is! Also, as the below Conservative campaign poster shows, David Cameron promised not to cut the NHS but he is already hacking at the NHS budget.

One of the biggest parts of the Health and Social Care Bill is that power will be put in the hands of GPs. Despite this GPs are not convinced and the vast majority of them oppose the bill, GPs believe that they will have less time for patients, and they are doctors, not administrators or managers. They feel that time with patients is already squeezed and taking even more time from dealing with patients would destroy one of the main pillars of the NHS.

One of the cabinet ministers who contacted conservativehome told them that he/she thought Andrew Lansley should resign over the bill. He has made himself unpopular among everyone on the left, most of the medical and nursing professions and now on the conservative side too. One Conservative minster even compared the bill to Margaret Thatcher’s Poll Tax. It is difficult to imagine him surviving until the next election. One of the biggest worries that the ministers had was that the issue would damage the Conservative's credibility at the next election in dealing with the NHS. The bill has very little support from the general public and unless it is dropped could fatally wound the Conservatives at the next election.

This bill divided the cabinet decisively between Lib Dem and Conservative, it could have helped to end the coalition. But with Conservative ministers joining the growing opposition, it may not split the coalition just yet. We'll have to wait to see.