- Milburn rejects Bevan's NHS vision. Health secretary attacks Labour
hero's centralist legacy. David Walker Guardian
Society Wednesday October 24, 2001
- Milburn is just devolving the problems. Letter from Claire Rayner,
President, Patients Association. Guardian
Thursday October 25, 2001
- Milburn's 'Railtrack of the NHS'. Labour MPs and unions round on
plan to let top performing hospitals break free of state control. Guardian
Wednesday January 16, 2002
- Rogue trust mars waiting list success. Michael White, political
editor Guardian
Saturday May 11, 2002
- Former health secretary Frank Dobson last night stepped up his assault on
plans for foundation hospitals, accusing the government of "third-way
theorising" and seeking to occupy Conservative territory.
Friday
September 13, 2002 The Guardian
- A top surgeon today said he had been ordered to stop operating on badly
injured patients to concentrate on patients waiting for routine treatment.
Tuesday October 22, 2002
- Specialist work put behind routine operations, says doctor. John
Carvel, social affairs editor
Wednesday October 23, 2002 The Guardian
- Tony Blair's new five-year plan for the NHS has unleashed market forces
that he will not be able to control, the leader of Britain's 120,000 doctors
warned yesterday. James Johnson, chairman of the British Medical Association,
said the government's proposals for giving patients choice over where to get
treatment gave a green light to the private healthcare industry to seize a
huge slice of NHS business worth £100bn by 2008. John Carvel, social affairs
editor
Tuesday June 29, 2004 The Guardian
- Competition is bad for our health. Patients simply want decent local
services for their bread-and-butter emergencies, not yet another reinvention
of choice. Richard Taylor (MP for Wyre Forest elected against the running down
of Kidderminster Hospital)
Tuesday June 29, 2004 The Guardian
- There's no great
mystery about cutting hospital death rates. All you need do is keep the really
sick people away. University College London Hospitals trust is to attract
patients by advertising itself as having the lowest death rates in the
National Health Service. Stuart Jeffries
Monday December 5, 2005 The Guardian
- The row over the
rationing of
prostate-cancer therapy deepened this weekend, as the government's former
chief economic adviser on the NHS revealed that he had received the treatment
only after threatening to publicise the fact that its use was being
restricted. Two weeks ago, The Observer revealed how a Surrey couple, Bill and
Val Elliott, were both diagnosed on the same day with cancer, but while Val is
receiving treatment and expensive drugs for her breast cancer, Bill is having
to fight for his care. Bill Elliott's local health body, the Guildford and
Waverley Primary Care Trust (PCT), told him last month it would not pay for
the relatively new form of treatment his consultant had recommended, known as
brachytherapy, which carries fewer side effects than a surgical operation and
is less invasive than the alternative, a radical prostatectomy. He is now
appealing against the decision. The trust has refused the treatment to 11 out
of the 12 men who have asked for it since April 2005, though the local
hospital treats around 100 men a year from other parts of England. But the
12th man from Guildford, who did win the right to treatment, is Professor
Clive Smee, the former chief economic advisor to the Department of Health.
After reading about Bill Elliott's case, he came forward to reveal that he had
to fight for brachytherapy himself. Smee, 64, who is making a good recovery
from his prostate cancer, was diagnosed in June 2005. His consultant at the
Royal Surrey Hospital in Guildford, Stephen Langley, recommended him for
brachytherapy. 'I was left in limbo for two months while the PCT considered
whether they would fund it,' said Smee. 'I had to write first to the trust's
director of public health, and then I had to threaten to write to my local
newspaper.' Smee also set out an economic evaluation of the treatment to
explain why they should fund it. It was Smee who chaired one of the committees
which led to the setting up of the National Institute of Health and Clinical
Excellence (Nice), the body which considers the cost and clinical
effectiveness of therapies. Last year,
Nice decided
that brachytherapy was an intervention which worked, and had a place in the
NHS. 'As someone who spent 20 years working for the NHS, I find it perturbing
that the service would be making decisions about
withholding treatment on such an unaccountable basis,' he said. 'Because I
was articulate and well-informed and also, I suspect, because I had
connections with the Department of Health, I got the right to my treatment. 'I
did inquire about what would happen to the six other men who at that stage
were waiting for brachytherapy. I was told that they would all have to make
their own case. But all of the men, including myself, were considered by the
consultant to be eligible for treatment, so how could a PCT have extra
knowledge which would help them decide?' Jo Revill, health editor
Sunday July 23, 2006 Observer
- MP's anger over
Norfolk NHS cuts. Mid-Norfolk
MP Keith Simpson has accused the government and health officials of "playing
pass the parcel" after being told yesterday by health minister Andy Burnham
that the possible closure of St Michael's Hospital in Aylsham was a "matter
for local decision and not ministerial intervention". Following the comments,
Mr Simpson said: "That is the problem today. Trying to nail down
responsibility and accountability is really difficult." He added that,
although ministers say they have responsibility for policy, the allocation of
funds and targets and that PCTs are free to work within this framework,
"obviously they don't". Mr Simpson told the commons he had not seen anger
among his constituents like that caused by consultation documents suggesting
the hospital, along with two others, could close. "The minister should be
aware that my constituents are convinced that the consultation exercise is a
sham, and a decision to close St Michael's has already been reached", he
added. He also pointed out that the reorganisation of PCTs had caused many of
Norfolk's problems. Mr Burnham responded by saying that Norfolk PCT's budget
had been increased by almost £100m, however he sidestepped a question from Mr
Simpson about whether any of the additional funds could be used to tackle
deficits.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Eastern
Daily Press 18 May 2007
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