Today the Lords will likely vote through the Coalition's disastrous privatisation regulations, section 75, opening nearly all NHS services to competition - a health market. Why, considering their extensive conflicts of interest, are many of these Lords not barred from voting?
Lucy Reynolds publishes this original paper on the government's proposed sale of the UK's state-owned blood plasma supplier. In their drive to dismantle the last vestiges of the state, the government appear to be exposing the British public to serious - and sometimes fatal - risks, including HIV a
Louise Irvine, a GP and chair of Save Lewisham Hospital, speaks to Caroline Molloy about the regulations about to be voted on in the Lords which enforce competition on nearly the whole NHS, and the wider impact of last year's bitterly opposed reforms (see part 1, here).
While parents in Wales worry about their children’s health during a measles outbreak, an American “measles expert” is given masses of publicity by the BBC and other British media outlets with his claims the MMR vaccine jab should be made compulsory in Britain. Who is Dr Offit?
The extraordinary bounce-back of the banks reveals the most disturbing, but least obvious, largely invisible, feature of the unfinished European crisis: the transformation of democratic taxation states into post-democratic banking states.
Late last week, leading charities became the latest organisations to come out against the Coalition's privatisation regulations. Ahead of the Lords vote on Wednesday, Scott Sinclair from Marie Curie sets out why they are against the government's regulations.
Liberal Democrats appear to be sending out variations on a stock response when questioned on the section 75 regulations. Yet their response appears to contradict both expert legal opinion and the Lords own scrutiny committee, not to mention leading health professionals, practitioners and leading c
Louise Irvine, a GP and chair of Save Lewisham Hospital, speaks to Caroline Molloy about the regulations about to be voted on in the Lords which enforce competition on nearly the whole NHS, and the wider impact of last year's bitterly opposed reforms.
The creep of the market into almost all areas of public life has brought with it a steady and damaging growth in corruption. Both the media and the political class insist the UK is largely free of corruption, a claim that no longer stands up.
The government is both squeezing real NHS funding, something it has been reprimanded for repeatedly denying, and it has also increased the limit on private patient income to 49% of hospital income. Despite its rhetoric, the Coalition's plan for the NHS is quite clear.
Despite shameless media fawning the streets were in fact eerily quiet; the biggest crowd out was the police. But signs of her legacy are still pervasive.
Aside from whether patients welcome the cash payments there are wider issues that need addressing, namely whether the scheme strips cash from the NHS and so weakens the service for others; will it be a subsidy for private care; and who steps in if the money is spent before the year is up?
