Today and tomorrow, junior doctors in our NHS are on strike. This action neglects taxpayers who expect world-class treatment around the clock, every day. Unlike previous occasions, this strike includes emergency services in hospitals across the UK. It is the BMA’s right to call this action, as a trade union representing those who work […]
Read MorePost Tagged with: "Mutuality"
Power to the People: healthy collectivism through member-owned mutuals
I began Conservative conference last Monday with a discussion hosted by ResPublica about empowering patients. The background was the report Power to the People – the mutual future of our National Health Service (PDF) produced for health mutual benenden. The report deals with the underlying reasons why the NHS is struggling to cope despite this Government protecting […]
Read MoreCancer Prevalence in the UK 2010 – 2040
In the course of reading ResPublica’s report Power to the People: The mutual future of our National Health Service, I found this horrific chart: The section explaining “Why the NHS is on an unsustainable footing” clearly discusses pressures on the NHS from obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, arthritis, dementia and depression. […]
Read More
Interview at Love Wycombe 2014: debt, help with debt and credit unions
Amid the conflict, drama and, too often, scandal of politics, it is easy to forget that politicians hope to make a positive difference to the lives of other people. We may disagree about methods but every decent politician wants to lift people out of poverty. One of the five pathways […]
Read MoreWycombe people need more control of the NHS
The Bucks Free Press reports the latest campaign to return A&E to our hospital. If there was a lever to pull or a button to press to get this done, I would have already pulled or pressed it. The truth is that there is crisis of accountability in the NHS. […]
Read MorePut patients in charge of the NHS
Shortly before the 1911 National Insurance Act – the Act which practically destroyed the friendly societies and inaugurated the welfare state – the magazine of the Oddfellows carried this: Working men are awakening to the fact that this is a subtle attempt to take from the class to which they belong […]
Read MorePCT botches Minor Injuries Unit launch
I am bitterly disappointed that Bucks PCT has so upset local people during the launch of the new Minor Inuries Unit (MIU) at Wycombe Hospital. The PCT’s material advertising the opening (which you can read here, here and here) told everyone that the Emergency Medical Centre was closing to be replaced by an […]
Read MoreA return to mutual aid?
The Telegraph writes: To promote prudence and responsibility, rather than the dependency and waste of the welfare system, we should return to mutual aid societies It’s an idea with which I have great sympathy, as I have written before.
Read MoreLocal NHS leaders must heed the call to keep Wycombe’s Emergency Medical Centre open 24 hours a day
Today, I am calling on local NHS leaders to heed the clear call from the public in Wycombe to provide 24-hour emergency cover at Wycombe Hospital. Councillor Tony Green’s petition to Bucks County Council has now passed the threshold to initiate a debate on the Emergency Medical Centre at Wycombe Hospital. […]
Read MoreThe Launch of Big Society Capital
The Government has recently launched Big Society Capital to help finance social action in the UK. It will start with a fund of up to £600m that includes £400m from dormant bank accounts (about which I have reservations but that’s past) and up to £200m from the four main UK […]
Read More
