Nhs

It emerged this morning that Labour MPs took the extraordinary step of blocking the publication of the Health Select Committee report into the NHS – because the conclusions backed up government reforms. I have just been handed details of this report, and it’s clear why Labour wanted it suppressed: it contradicts the party’s attack message. Here are the main points: No sweeping privatisations: there has been little increase in private sector providers since 2010. Nor has there been an extension of charges or top-ups during the current parliament, and that these are not planned. Less red tape: a general trend of declining administration costs in the NHS. No evidence that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership poses a threat to the NHS.

I can understand why the Tories have ring-fenced the NHS, but if they do want to indulge in a little trimming I know just where to start – with the moron who signed off on the online 'calculator' that assesses your risk of a heart attack. 'Official NHS calculator predicts when you will have a heart attack,' says a piece in today's Telegraph. Actually, it doesn't. Nor does it pretend to. But the NHS can hardly complain about being misrepresented for clickbait, since – even if you report its claims accurately – the 'calculator' is nothing more than an expensive PR gimmick.

Earlier this week, Sadiq Khan MP ‘admitted Labour could not reinstate £600m of legal aid cuts imposed by the government’. These are cuts which continue to have a very real impact on our society. They’ve left parents unrepresented when family judges are considering the future care of their children. They have deterred workers who are racially or sexually discriminated against in the workplace from bringing actions in the employment tribunals and priced out those who have suffered loss from bringing claims in the civil courts. The cuts have also driven the best lawyers away from publicly-funded civil work into private practice, and they have dried up the recruitment of junior barristers.

My request to see my medical notes was granted in the end. I honestly don’t know why I wanted to see them, really. I’m just one of those people who suspects the worst of the state, and other large organisations, so if I get the chance to have a peek into what they’ve been up to behind my back I take it. This was my second Subject Access Request. The first was of the RSPCA, who I got a tad suspicious about after writing several critical articles and attracting weirdly sour-sounding complaints from them in which they claimed I was only criticising them because I was a supporter of hunting. That put my back up slightly. So I demanded to see everything in their possession that mentioned me.

My request to see my medical notes has sparked all-out panic at the GP surgery. ‘What do you mean?’ said the receptionist who answered the phone when I called to ask. She sounded even more furious than the time I rang to ask if I could possibly have an appointment to see the doctor. On that occasion, she affected her best Lady Bracknell impression, ‘The doctor? You want to see the doctor?’ ‘Well, yes if it isn’t too much trouble,’ I spluttered, as she audibly bashed her keyboard in ill-disguised rage at my impertinence. On this occasion, she was horribly icy. ‘I mean,’ I stammered, ‘I want to see my medical notes, as the law entitles me.’ ‘The law?’ she said. A haaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaand-bag!

The announcement today that Greater Manchester will receive full control of health spending - worth £6bn - has left Labour in a rather interesting position. On the one hand, it is easy for Andy Burnham to say that this sounds ‘like yet another NHS reorganisation’. But on the other, Greater Manchester includes a number of Labour councils who appear pretty happy to sign up to the provisional deal. Indeed, one of those councils is Wigan, which covers Burnham’s own constituency. Now one of the reasons that spending has been devolved to this area is that councils in Greater Manchester are keen, forward-looking and ambitious.

To listen to Greek government ministers addressing the outside world during their breaks from negotiations with eurozone leaders this week, it would be easy to form the impression that Greece had a mighty economy upon which all other eurozone countries were pathetically dependent. ‘Europe is going through the difficult process of understanding that Greece has a new government committed to changing a programme that has failed in the eyes of everyone who doesn’t have a vested interest,’ said finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. The reality is that Greece is the dependent country, propped up by its creditors, and it is Greek government ministers who are having trouble in understanding the situation in which they find themselves.

‘Let’s make the rich pay more.’ Does that sound so right-wing? To me it has a positively socialist ring. It should appeal to egalitarians: to those who call themselves socially concerned and seek new ways to redistribute wealth. So why not apply it for the NHS? Let’s make the rich pay more for health care. I’m no health policy wonk. I chip in with just this one small suggestion, which is not really about market-based reform of our health service, but about how to sell the idea to a deeply reactionary electorate. The British are positively neuralgic on health. They shudder at the use of words like ‘profit’. Expressions such as ‘privatise’, ‘charge’ or ‘insurance’ are incendiary in our health politics.

‘Let’s make the rich pay more.’ Does that sound so right-wing? To me it has a positively socialist ring. It should appeal to egalitarians: to those who call themselves socially concerned and seek new ways to redistribute wealth. So why not apply it for the NHS? Let’s make the rich pay more for health care. I’m no health policy wonk. I chip in with just this one small suggestion, which is not really about market-based reform of our health service, but about how to sell the idea to a deeply reactionary electorate. The British are positively neuralgic on health. They shudder at the use of words like ‘profit’. Expressions such as ‘privatise’, ‘charge’ or ‘insurance’ are incendiary in our health politics.