Labour leadership hopeful Andy Burnham MP wants to scrap the NHS

Andy Burnham MP is plodding along in the Labour leadership race but not really attracting the media attention of the brothers grim.

Here is one way to do, get in a photo with the message "end the NHS".

In fact Andy Burnham was standing in front of a van with the message "defend our NHS", another reason why someone should always check the photos first......

Cameron's Conservatives in NHS hospital hypocrisy

I know it is no great shock to learn that the Conservatives say one thing and then do entirely the opposite but it is important that voters understand that this is coming from the supposed Prime Minister and Government in waiting.

Now, let's overlook the fact that the Conservatives are being completely arogant and most of them actually think they have already won this election.

Just last week we saw David Cameron campaigning in Kingston hospital, this is the very same hospital that the Conservatives attacked the Liberal Democrats for scaremongering about it's closure - as I say why should that stop the Conservatives saying one thing and then do the opposite?

Liberal Democrat MPs Susan Kramer (Richmond Park) and Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton) have vowed to fight the secret Labour plans to close both A&E and Maternity services at Kingston Hospital.

Picture shows Susan Kramer, Nick Clegg and Edward Davey campaigning to save Kingston Hospital.

Senior NHS staff have blown the whistle on Labour proposals to close both Accident & Emergency services and Maternity services at Kingston Hospital.

The two MPs have been told this information by 5 senior NHS staff, including 4 chief executives and 1 senior clinician, at 4 separate meetings.

You can now read the leaked pages from the South West London Strategic Plan which was due to be published in December, but was pulled at the last moment over on Susan Kramer's website.

The Conservatives however accused the Liberal Democrats of electioneering and scaremongering but eventually realised that Suan Kramer and Edward Davey were in fact right and with their tails firmly between their legs they joined the Liberal Democrats campaign.

Now let's fast forward to yesterday.

David Cameron's Conservatives attacked the Labour Party for launching their manifesto in an NHS hospital, that's right, last week David Cameron was campaigining in an NHS hospital and now has actually attacked both the Liberal Democrats and Labour for campaigning in NHS hospitals.

Bloody hypocrites.

It just shows that despite Cameron's rhetoric that underneath the teflon (borrowed from Tony Blair and Edinburgh 'Eck) it is the same old Tories, just more arrogant and hypocritical than ever before.

Is David Cameron still wanting to privatise the NHS?

David Cameron has long been part of the Conservative Party that has wanted to privatise the NHS, or at least parts of it, bit by bit, even masterminding the last Conservative manifesto.

David Cameron has tried to distance himself from such comments including distancing himself from one of his MEPs, Daniel Hannan who launched a scathing attack on the NHS while he was in America.

Although he did not discipline the MEP, David Cameron said: "I don't agree with Daniel Hannan. The Conservative party stands full square behind the NHS."

However, thanks to The Daily Telegraph for uncovering that David Cameron had a meeting with a group in his private office, nothing wrong there you say, but the group he met was none other than the radical group Nurses for Reform.

Director Helen Evans who writes on the Nurses for Reform blog is pictured with a seriously embarrassed looking David Cameron at their meeting.

This group does not appear to rule out the privatisation of the NHS, in fact I would go as far as to say they openly welcome it. The group, which describes itself as a "pan-European network of nurses" dedicated to health care reform across the world, says the government should "recast" the NHS as "simply a funder of last resort alongside an insurance and self-funder based market."

"Moreover, NFR believes that all hospitals in Europe should be allowed to openly compete with each other. If a hospital fails in the market it should either close or be taken over by a more successful organisation."

As the Daily Telegraph also says this meeting risks reigniting the NHS privatisation row which exploded once again four months ago when David Cameron was forced to distance himself from Tory MEP Daniel Hannan who had suggested that the NHS was a "mistake".

The Tory leader's meeting with the Director of NFR, Helen Evans, is revealed on her groups blog where she claims she was invited by him to present the group's ideas.

I think this firmly shows that David Cameron has not yet convinced himself that privatising the NHS is such a bad thing or he would not have made time to meet the Director of the group who is convinced privatisation is the way forward also.

Whereas the Liberal Democrats believe that patients must come first and that services would improve if local people had a say in how the NHS is run.

We believe in fairness with entitlements to healthcare guaranteed. We believe access to personal care should be based on need not the ability to pay. And we believe that patients should always come first.

We will scrap central targets and guarantee that you get your treatment on time. We will give people the power to stop hospital closures in their area through elected local health boards. And we will put doctors and nurses back in charge of their hospitals and wards.

You can read more about what the Liberal Democrats would do for the NHS here.

Labour to 'steal' charity NHS donations

Andy Burnham MP is definitely making waves as the new Health Secretary and today is no exception with two NHS stories making the news, hospital parking charges and NHS charity donations.

I may well comment on car parking charges later today, but for now I want to comment on the fact that the government now want to help themselves to any NHS charity donations.

Last year over £330million was donated to over 300 NHS charities in the period June 2007 to June 2008, cancer and children's charities were among the beneficiaries.

Institutions such as Great Ormond Street Hospital and The Royal Marsden are bound to be affected by the new rules but how will donations towards Macmillan Nurses be dealt with, what about the hospitals where the WRVS volunteers run the cafe?

Government Ministers are imposing new rules from the 1st April next year on all NHS charities requiring their donations, including those to specialist children and cancer units, local fundraising campaigns, teaching hospitals and local community trusts all to be listed on a hospital’s balance sheet.

















My concern, and that of many others is that the government will use these figures to then reduce the amount they allocate to that particular Trust. In other words those Trusts with a history of fundraising or who are just lucky that a local group fund raise on their behalf could lose out.

This change of mind could lead to hundreds of millions of pounds of charitable donations being effectively nationalised under the NHS.

Government Ministers were banned from counting charitable donations towards the central NHS budget under the original legislation that created the NHS back in 1948.

But this looks set to be reversed by the Labour government after the Treasury agreed to implement International Accounting Standard (IAS) 27. Now all NHS Trusts whose trustees have the “power to control” their charitable arm look likely to be forced to consolidate both sets of accounts in one.

I hope the government change their minds on this one, or at the very least, do not offset the charitable donations with a cut in their budgets - let's be honest, would you trust Labour not to do this?

NHS turn down Liver Cancer drug on cost

I know that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has to think of all the patients and the costs of all drugs for the NHS.

However, surely if there is a drug available that helps liver cancer patients live longer then that has to be a price worth paying.

Not everything in life should be about cost, and perhaps NICE and the Government, who claim they are taking cancer seriously should then approach the drug companies and say right then, we have this many people in the UK diagnosed with this cancer, we will commit to purchasing enough of the product for all these people for three years and can you therefore reduce the overall cost?

NICE says the drug sorafenib costs too much to make treatment worthwhile - what utter crap, I would like to see the head of NICE, Andrew Dillon go and explain that to the person suffering from liver cancer and their immediate family instead of hiding behind a desk.

It is easy for him and his team to write it on a piece of paper and shove that on a website but it is the dedicated nurses and doctors on the frontline who then have to explain it to the patients and family face to face.

The decision by NICE will leave nearly 3,000 patients a year with only palliative, end-of-life care instead of offering hope.

The drug costs around £2,200 a month for one patient, but NICE says in draft recommendations to the NHS that the cost is too great. Surely it is for the NHS to decide not NICE, shouldn't NICE just make recommendations?

Chief executive Andrew Dillon said to Sky News: "The price...is simply too high to justify using NHS money which could be spent on better value cancer treatments."

If Gordon Brown had the balls he would stand up to NICE and the drugs companies and say NO, we want this drug, we want to improve the lives of these people suffering from this awful disease and then set his Secretary of State for Health the job of negotiating the price, perhaps if we looked at some joined up thinking with Scotland and perhaps even other European countries to reduce the cost?

Come on people, let us think outside the box for a solution to pay for it, not just accept the original price from the drug company and the recommendation from NICE and then give up.

Cures for Gays

Is the Metro turning into the Daily Mail?

I had received a text this morning from a good friend - What the...Metro headline 'experts still try cures for gays.'

I sat there getting annoyed, then the BBC News team did the paper review and the headlines screamed "Fern Britton to leave This Morning" - oh my god could the day get any worse?

So, sat on the bus I read the story - Experts still try 'cures' for gays. What a load of rubbish.

17% of therapists, mental health professionals who most of actually work for the NHS have tried to 'cure' gay patients - what of for crying out loud? Good taste in clothes?

Come on - these so called professionals should be ashamed of themselves and should actually be fired by the NHS and struck off as well. Let's invest the money saved into curing real illnesses like cancer!

To the therapist quoted who said; 'The physical act for male homosexuals is physically damaging and is the main reason in this country for Aids/HIV. It is also perverse' - I say this. You are wrong.

You really should check your facts about Aids and HIV before you spout your claptrap. Also as a therapist your personal opinion isn't supposed to cloud your judgment, your personal opinion seems to lead your professional opinion - time to resign!

Yes, I'm biased because I'm gay. But I knew for years I was gay and I was not suffering from any mental illness and nor am I now.

Yes, I'm ranting because I'm angry that this volume of NHS so called professionals are able to preach this rubbish to people who are seeking advice.

Stand up and be counted and then resign.

Finally, do go and read my friend and colleagues take on this here.