John - its not a personal dislike for me. Its that he is in the pay of privitised medicine, he is ignoring all the experts, he is needlessly picking fights with the professionals, he is making decisions to actively make things worse and is clearly setting up to privitise more of the NHS
Apparently he’s entertained by the substantial number of responses to the current public consultation on the NHS 10 year plan
That says a lot about his arrogance. He should be listening to those who know and he should be very concerned that his plans meet universal condemnation. From GPs, Hospital doctors, hospital management, nurses
I’m prepared to accept the NHS may need reforms
I would probably start though by backing out the previous set of "reforms" and then take another look once that crap is flushed out.
The invention of "league tables" suggest they are just going to double down on it though.
and is clearly setting up to privitise more of the NHS
I've never known a time when the health minister of any party hasn't been accused of wanting to privatise the NHS, it's genuinely astonishing given the utter certainty of some folks that not even in the 14 years they were in power and with the massive majority they enjoyed, the tories didn't manage it. Brave Wes can take up the challenge of being the target for those shouting that the sky is just about to fall in...again, or still or whatever.
Still, Wes isn't turning out to be the best appointment ever. If League tables is the best thing he can think of, unsurprising that his mentor Alan Milburn was also a fan, then he needs to have a re-think really.
He has said he wants to and his two advisors are privitisers. He takes money from private healthcare and those advisors have large private health interests. Milburn used his time as health minister to create the contacts to get rich from private health
the tories didn’t manage it.
Depends on your definition really. Labour massively increased private sector involvement in the NHS and the tories took it even further. The privatisation of mental health care has increased massively.
Labour did make an effort at privatising actual hospitals with the tories carrying on the plan. However Hinchingbrooke showed how difficult it was to do and still make a profit so that got abandoned for now. Far better to keep a rump public sector handling all the training and the difficult stuff and then cherry pick the good profitable stuff.
Good point john
Beeb update
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpqdy9ndrndo
Baroness Hodge - "“His argument about costs? We spend most of the NHS money on the last months of life.”"
The cost argument is a BS one, as are most arguments against but I would like to see the figures where the NHS spend most of their money on the last few months of peoples lives as that is clearly not going to be the case. The last few years maybe as a lot of older people are in an out of hospital for years for one thing or another but when it comes to the last few months it is almost over.
Both sides of the argument appear to be open to BS.
the last 6 months thing I have seen quoted before. I can believe it as its not just palliative car - its the last 6 months of everybodys lives so lots of failed surgury,, ITU time, expensive medical treatments etc
its the last 6 months of everybodys lives so lots of failed surgury,, ITU time, expensive medical treatments etc
and what's ironic is that doctors make difficult and crucial decisions during that time that affect whether people live or die - but nobody has suggested that they should have to back up those decisions in the High Court
the last 6 months thing I have seen quoted before. I can believe it as its not just palliative car – its the last 6 months of everybodys lives so lots of failed surgury,, ITU time, expensive medical treatments etc
Even if that is the case it has nothing to do with assisted dying as majority of cases in your examples would not lead to assisted dying but lead to actual dying! The cost element is totally irrelevant which should have been the point.
In simple terms, he appears to be a corrupted, lacking in any depth, influenceable (for a variety of reasons) coq.
The fact that the likes of Streeting and Reeves are just very articulate vapid clueless political idiots shouldn't be a surprise.
Both are skirting as hard as they can around the real issue - money needs to be spent.
Whenever I hear the word reform I know it's mostly a right-wing prat who believes everything can be solved by spreadsheet evidence in the context of pretending less money spent is better for the economy and the NHS.
(My mother was having radiotherapy this week - two out of four machines broken.)
Even if that is the case it has nothing to do with assisted dying as majority of cases in your examples would not lead to assisted dying but lead to actual dying! The cost element is totally irrelevant which should have been the point.
absolutly. Its utter nonsense from streeting. A weeks palliative care will be a similar cost to assisted dying take it a month early and save the NHS money!. He is a devout christian and is objecting for personal religious reasons but inventing fake secular reasons to object. Its the tactic often taken. Just this one is a new one and the most nonsensical I have seen and as you say cost should not come into it. I expect to see this line parroted by Care not Killing now
He should have been honest like Shabana Mahmood : ‘I voted against the bill when it was last introduced in 2015. I’ll be voting against it again. As a Muslim, I have an unshakable belief in the sanctity and value of human life. I don’t think death is a service that the state should be offering"
He has clearly breached the cabinet guidance - fortunately a couple of others have called him out on his nonsense
Streeting is what you end with when "just get the Tories out" is the only game in town.
Starmer needs to start acting like someone who has a whopping great majority and truly wants to put the UK back on track. He's had his 6 months' grace and done a few bits. But he needs to realise when he can afford to say "shut up" to the 85% of farmers who are simply lying or parroting lies because that's what they've been told - so he can move on.
As for farmers - if they threaten to leave land uncultivated or withhold produce... that's been a farming MO for centuries. It can always be dealt with.
He’s had his 6 months’ grace and done a few bits.
Erm the election was on 4th July.
Feels like longer.
OK he's got 8 more weeks - do we think the current trajectory is ambitious enough?
With that majority?
absolutly. It’s utter nonsense from streeting. A weeks palliative care will be a similar cost to assisted dying take it a month early and save the NHS money!. He is a devout christian and is objecting for personal religious reasons but inventing fake secular reasons to object. It’s the tactic often taken. Just this one is a new one and the most nonsensical I have seen and as you say cost should not come into it. I expect to see this line parroted by Care not Killing now
A gp friend has suggested it might cost the NHS more because the legislation requires both the doctors to explain the palliative care options in detail, and because they have to sign a legal document this might be done more thoroughly than it is now… he’s suggestions the cost would not be the NHS providing the means to end your own life, but rather that by making it an option that people suffering will ask about - that demand for better palitive care may increase. Its an interesting take - oppose this bill as it will make it harder to gloss over the thing we say means we don’t need the bill!
More Streeting nonsense!
GPs will be offered financial incentives to discuss with specialists whether patients can be treated outside hospital, under radical plans to cut NHS waiting lists.
Doctors will be given £20 each time they consult a specialist either by phone or email under the so-called advice and guidance (A&G) scheme, to see if there is an alternative to hospital visits and treatment.
This will create an increase in costs via the administration of the scheme and cost GPs time in doing that administration. I'll bet the cost in time to the GP for the admin is greater than the £20 gained. It also assumes that GPs are sending folk to hospital unneeded which is nonsense - GPs do not have the diagnostic machines nor always the detailed knowledge. It provides no extra cash for the extra staff and training to do more outside the hospitals
The £80m cost of paying GPs for doing so will be taken from existing hospital elective care budgets.
So less money for hospitals and no overall increase in budget
does he really think GPs send folk to hopsitals when its not needed?
ministers will also unveil upgrades to the NHS app to enable patients to choose providers, book appointments in more settings and receive test results.
So all patients are going to be able to book private providers increasing costs hugely, patients will be able to book unneeded tests increasing costs
Social care provision is not even going to be looked at for another year. Social care is the key component here and the major reason for hospital logjams
So… there’s a cost to speaking to a consultant to check on the best pathway… so GPs to be recompensed for doing so?
will be able to book unneeded tests increasing costs
Unlikely. Your GP will be able to refer you, and then you choose where the exam takes place. Some Trusts do this already. There might be a lunchtime slot near your work you can take, rather than “the system” assuming that close to home mid morning is best for you.
I’ve used our Trust’s system a few times, and most times it’s been about choosing a slot and site within their Hospital system, or at a local medical centre… but once it offered a super prompt ultrasound at a privately run unit in a mill mostly full of offices and hospitality… on that occasion it made it possible to move to the operation quicker to have a tumour removed (in one of the NHS hospitals the Trust runs).
Everything Streeting ever says is, at the minimum, tinged with "and the private sector will play a part".
Unfortunately he is more of a danger to the NHS than many of his Tory predecessors. He has wanted this job and these opportunities for a long time. He's not there just to use it as a way of scoring political points and moving on. He's bought and paid for by private healthcare.
It won’t make much difference. GPs manage risk. For 95% of presentations it very easy to determine if the patient needs to goto hospital or be treated by the GP. The real problem at them moment is that GPs are the ones deciding how NHS budgets are spent and many are happy to see more of that spent on them. It’s a massive conflict of interest
A recent poll suggested Streeting will be voted out at the next election so I imagine meanwhile he'll be working his socks off for the private healthcare sector to guarantee his future job/payoff.
A recent poll suggested Streeting will be voted out at the next election so I imagine meanwhile he’ll be working his socks off for the private healthcare sector to guarantee his future job/payoff.
100%. I struggle to believe Streeting is a Labour politician.
Calling him a Labour politician feels absurd.
100%. I struggle to believe Streeting is a Labour politician.
Calling him a Labour politician feels absurd
All of these damned Labour idiots have worked on the principle there is a shortage of money in the state so we have to get the private sector to make the good stuff happen. They swallowed the deranged Tory pills.
It's doomed, flawed and illiterate.
The biggest dead end in political thinking is being delivered by the likes of Streeting and co. Pure fish-hook.
Some days I'm convinced these dopes have been put in place just make it easy for Reform.
Taking bets on who goes first Streeting or Reeves?
Everything Streeting ever says is, at the minimum, tinged with “and the private sector will play a part”.
Just like the Dental sector has become a raging success...
The private sector for health is extractive and exclusive, serves profit not health.
It never ceases to amaze me the lack of pragmatic thinking in Starmer's awful cabinet.
Yeah, I haven't seen anything different in what Streeting is saying to the message coming out of Starmer, Reeves and most of the rest of the cabinet. He is totally consistent with the Governments message of subsidising private profit above service provision. He may be a little easier to dislike because of his demeanour in interviews, but he is not delivering a different message, so singling him out seams a bit hypocritical for those who have been arguing in favour of this direction in the last 6 months.
I just saw this on sky.
The health secretary also said he believed that "political correctness was able to get in the way of going off the perpetrators of these serious crimes."
Musk talk.
The health secretary also said he believed that “political correctness was able to get in the way of going off the perpetrators of these serious crimes.”
I'm not wanting to defend Streeting but I'm pretty sure the Rotherham report said the same thing, though in more PC terms.
So all patients are going to be able to book private providers increasing costs hugely, patients will be able to book unneeded tests increasing costs
This is the thing. The role of tests isn’t to diagnose, it’s to rule out or rule in the clinical diagnosis. Doing tests without a clinical diagnosis is bad practice.
I’m not wanting to defend Streeting but I’m pretty sure the Rotherham report said the same thing, though in more PC terms.
Indeed. As I recall, this was one of the main take-home points of the report. And obviously the one that all the racist shitbags seized upon.
Private hospitals will provide NHS patients in England with as many as a million extra appointments, scans and operations a year as part of the government’s drive to end the care backlog.
The move represents a significant expansion of the independent sector’s role in helping the health service tackle the long waits for treatment that built up under the Conservatives.
Keir Starmer unveiled the NHS’s growing use of private healthcare in a major speech on Monday in which he set out his new elective reform plan to address a waiting list for planned care on which 6.4 million people are waiting for 7.5m treatments.
Private operators will receive an extra £2.5bn a year in government funding, taking the total to almost £16bn, if they deliver the uplift in care and treatment the prime minister outlined. The initiative is a key element in a plan intended to ensure that patients no longer have to wait more than 18 weeks for non-urgent hospital care by spring 2029.
so yes - exactly what I said - this is further privitisation of the NHS in england. It represents extremely bad value for money, its damaging to the health service in total. the only person who is actually going to gain from this is Streeting when he gets his payoff. Thank god he has nothing to do with NHS Scotland
After the 2nd vote has passed in the commons for Assisted dying Streeting is still speaking out against it. HOw long can he remain in post? Its clear he intends to wreck this
After the 2nd vote has passed in the commons for Assisted dying Streeting is still speaking out against it. HOw long can he remain in post? Its clear he intends to wreck this
It's a conscience vote. Like all MPs, he can continue to vote how he chooses on this issue.
So long as he remains in the minority, I don't care. There's plenty of other reasons to hate him.
After the 2nd vote has passed in the commons for Assisted dying Streeting is still speaking out against it. HOw long can he remain in post? Its clear he intends to wreck this
If Streeting can somehow formulate a way to sell the dead to palintir for “purposes” then he’ll be all for the assisted dying bill
Morecash - two issues
1) government ministers are supposed to be neutral publicly
2) He is health minister and clearly is going to do his best to wreck it
Thats why he has to go. His religious objection to this is incompatible with his role as health minister
When there is (relatively) ****all money available, why do some expect Streeting to conjure up 5 miracles in the NHS every morning before breakfast.
At least he quelled *some* of the disputes the Tories decided to allow to run and run for 2 years.
I totally disagree with his view on AD (I'm very Pro AD - I'd love to have the same right and dignity as my dog got when he had terminal cancer and was struggling to eat, drink and breathe). But he's certainly not the wost to have been in charge of the NHS in the past 15 years by a long chalk. Look at the variety of asreholes and waaakas that have had the job since 2010...
- Jezzer (k)Hunt
- Matt Hancock
Stephen Barclay - TWICE ! That's like picking Goebels as social integration minister. TWICE.
- Therese Coffin ⚰️ . Her ! As Health Secretary!!! FFS some have hmgot short memories.
Look at the variety of asreholes and waaakas that have had the job since 2010
And before, going back to (in no particular order) John "Oh ****, not health" Reid, Patsy Hewitt and Alan Milburn (a man who is advising Streeting). They were all terrible too.
I don't think we've had a decent one since Frank Dobson.
When there is (relatively) ****all money available, why do some expect Streeting to conjure up 5 miracles in the NHS every morning before breakfast.
They could spend the money if they want and also some of Streetings ideas waste money.
Where is binners in this conversation about his Labour friends?Does he not want to defend them over accusations of incompetence and corruption?
