THE QUESTION IS...

...AND WE'D LOVE TO KNOW THE ANSWER

Was Ruth fed duff information by her team and go ahead without checking to see if it was correct?  It happens. You read something somewhere and accept it as fact. Then embarrassingly it turns out to be incorrect, incomplete or a hoax.

It's even happened to Munguin on the odd occasion. But not in parliament.

Or did Ruth know perfectly well that the criticism of the health service that she was making was in fact nothing to do with the Scottish organisation, but in fact, about the English health service...run by her rt hon friend Mr Hunt?

I'm pretty sure that as she was doing it on our pay cheque we probably have a right to know which it is.

Now, in fairness, Ruth never put herself forward as a potential first minister. She didn't reach that high. Amazingly she actually promoted herself as a potential leader of the opposition. And she got the gig.

But presumably the leader of an opposition party somewhere deep down inside has ambition to be the leader of the country?

So, do we want an incompetent for FM, or maybe an out and out fibber?

Neither, you say? 

Thought not.

Oh, and as she was happy enough to make a song and dance about these shortcomings  in parliament, now that she knows that she got the country wrong, will she be having a word with Mr Hunt about what an all-fired mess he's making of a service that many of my friends rely upon, and are being bitterly let down by?

HUNT TELT

This poor woman, who has just lost her daughter, has made public for all to see, her fury at Hunt making capital out of deaths (including her daughter's) during the two days of doctors' strikes in England last week.

An incredibly brave and  principled stand against a cheap, nasty, sordid, second rate politician.

Every day in hospitals all over the world, people die. For Hunt to simply get a total of those who dies on the two strike days and use it against the doctors is beneath belief.

We salute you, Mrs Lovell, and pass on our condolences on your loss.

The Scottish Heath Service may not be perfect, but aren't you glad that we have Shona Robison at the helm, and not that man?

HUNT THE BRAINCELL

A proud record!

Weekend working for some people only.
No wonder he's unbothered by waiting times in doctors' surgeries, when his own surgery has a wait of a month.

Now we know why he was appointed.
How would privatisation of the English NHS
affect Wales, NI and Scotland

Oh, that's a hard one.

Last night I was the sole doctor on site caring for over 100 patients who were acutely unwell with complications from their cancer.

Some couldn't breath, some were fighting overwhelming infections with literally no immune system, one had bleeding in their head, one had a blockage in their bowels. If I made a mistake because I was tired, any one of these patients could've died.

Every cancer patient in the south Birmingham region has a direct line to call for advice or help. 11 new unwell patients arrived and I assessed and treated them too.

There was not a single manager in the whole hospital. Last night, I ran the oncology service for the whole south Birmingham region from inside the biggest teaching hospital in Europe.

Apparently I have no transferable skills to find a different job.

And then I stood on a picket line in the cold to save our NHS. But my shift wasn't during the strike, it was just what countless other junior doctors do everyday.

I am 27 years old. I work 60 hours a week, for the 48 that I'm paid for, I earn £18/hour.

Apparently I lack vocation, I'm overpaid and I need to work harder.

Screw you Jeremy Hunt. We never asked for thanks. All we do is for our patients, how dare you try and turn them against us. All of this is your government's fault. Well you've picked a fight with the wrong crowd.

Go on, announce imposition, and just see what the most resilient, driven, passionate, intelligent group of people in Britain do next. Bring it on. 

Dr Richard Bowman

**********

In the meantime Jeremy rakes in a cool million a year and as you can see from the letter above, doesn't work at the weekends.

Petition here

NHS ENGLAND: TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR JUNIOR DOCTORS

A NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE EXPENSIVE AT THE POINT OF USE?

Well, you can laugh, but we know The Eton Boy's already suggested that people should take out insurance against ill heath or unemployment. Just like National Insurance doesn't exist.

I seem to recall us being told that the NHS was only safe in a united kingdom. It seems just possible that they were lying to us, hard though it may be to believe. I see they have put one of their aristocratic ministers in charge of it. That's comforting.

The NHS in England is in crisis. Facing a shortfall of £2 billion this year. Agency staff costing  a fortune; PFI deals taking a big slice of their money; an ageing population causing greater demand, a big cut to budgets and a complete arse at the helm. Still we're better together with the broad shoulders of the Westminster government pooling and sharing misery. So don't worry people, you're in safe hands. But do remember that if you are desperate for treatment and the worst comes to the worst, there are some good hospitals in India.

Thanks heavens this loonie isn't looking after our health service.

THE NHS AFTER A NO VOTE

This is important. 

It's a video of a doctor talking about the NHS in Scotland... and the NHS in England and independence.

Listen carefully to this video. This woman knows what she talking about. She's a breast surgeon. And the picture she paints of the future of the health service in the case of a no, is beyond scary.

If you intend staying here, for heaven's sake vote yes, or hope that you never get sick and you never get old.

Thanks to Cynical Highlander for drawing it to our attention.

100% FAIL

Erm, wrong... and hmmmm...wrong.

You were being a little economical with the truth there Dave, weren't you, or was it just that you got mixed up? It's easily done when you're not overly bright and hopelessly out of your depth.

You have cut the NHS in England, quite substantially as it happens... Thank goodness I live in Scotland, so that's one horror you haven't been able to inflict on me.

On the other hand when it comes to the deficit...it stubbornly refuses to do anything other than go up and up...due, quite possibly, to the fact that you absolutely insist on keeping in post a chancellor that makes Gordon Brown look as if he had some idea of what was going on...(Incidentally, why? Did he catch you doing something horribly embarrassing at Oxford?) 

U-TURN IF YOU WANT TO: THE COALITION'S NOT FOR TURNING

Now, let me start off by saying that this matter does not affect Scotland, and so some may wonder why I bother to blog about it.

My answer is that it is less the actual item, but more the principle that bothers me, and that the perpetrators, in certain matters, govern my country as well as England.

The matter in hand is the English NHS’s centralized database which Labour had set up and was ready to roll as of April passed. Both Conservative and Liberal Democrat election manifestos promised to scale back on what they called Labour's database state, and both parties' health spokesmen pledged before the poll that the centralizing of NHS medical records would be halted.

Halted?

It was therefore a rather strange situation when, in a parliamentary written answer (the type used to slip out bad news) the Heath minister Simon Burns said: "Uploading of information to the Summary Care Record will continue to take place, where the relevant general practitioner practices and primary care trusts (PCTs) agree that patients have been adequately informed about the process, and properly enabled to opt out should they wish, and where GP practices and PCTs are satisfied that data are of an appropriate quality for sharing."

Well, that seems like a very strange “HALTED” to me.

OK. We can argue till the cows come home about whether or not this centralized system is a good idea or not. If you have just been in an accident, are unconscious, in another town in your country, and allergic to say morphine, you may be very glad that your record is accessible; if on the other hand, someone sticks the whole thing onto a memory stick and sells it to the highest bidder, then you may not.

It isn’t that that I want to discuss. It is the fact that with around a month gone since the election the coalition has changed its tune on some of the Labour’s Surveillance Society that was due to be dismantled.

What excuse can there be? It’s not a coalition compromise. Neither party was in favour of it. Last year, Stephen O'Brien, health spokesman for the Tories, said a Conservative government would dismantle the NHS IT system. And earlier this year Norman Lamb, health spokesman for the Liberals said that the NHS IT scheme had been a disastrous waste of money and should be abandoned.

So why not abandon it?

It can’t be that there was something top secret that, as opposition parties, they were not allowed to know about, as there may sometimes be in say Defence or Treasury, or to do with the Secret Services. Nope, this is just a policy about health data bases, nothing secret or dangerous.... except of course to the people who are on them.

So, why the change?

Any ideas?

We’ve already had the policy that the size of parliament is to be reduced, but first they have to create 200 or so new Lords.

So what is next for U-turns?

HOW DID THE LABOUR PARTY LAY ITS HANDS ON PRIVATE NHS ENGLAND ADDRESSES?

“We are a group of clinicians, staff and campaigners working in and with the NHS. Every day, every week, we see first-hand the quality of care which the NHS gives to patients when they need it most. At this election we are backing Labour as the party of the NHS which will do the most to improve it for all patients.


“There is more to do to improve the NHS, but it is this Labour Government which has shown commitment to the NHS by investing in more doctors, nurses, more services and new hospitals and GP practices. It is Labour who are making the tough decisions that will allow our NHS to be protected in the future from spending cuts which would harm patient care. And only Labour are prepared to put patients first, for example with guarantees to rapid access to cancer specialists and cancer tests.


“For these reasons we believe only Labour can be trusted to protect and improve our NHS at this election."

This is a copy of an email petition (brought to my attention by Dubbieside. Thank you DS), which was sent by a Development Officer of the Labour Party, Amy Fowler, to GPs’ work e-addresses, which as they are internal NHS addresses, are not publicly available.

The petition, once signed, was expected to be sent to a newspaper, to show that members of the medical profession (presumably in England), were backing Labour.

[Obviously the only way that either the Tories or Labour can hope to affect our health service in Scotland is to change the amount of money that they generously give us to run Scotland. Even in this case, there is no way of knowing where a Scottish Government of any stripe would cut their cloth.]

Some of the clinicians, who are worried about how the Labour Party, as opposed to the government, got hold of private email addresses, are concerned that they may be blacklisted if they do not comply and sign the petition.

The Shadow Health Secretary, said: “The Labour Party need to explain how they have received these NHS e-mail addresses. If they are using the NHS private e-mail system to reach NHS staff for party political campaigning it is an abuse.” (It’s a pity he spoiled that reasonable call, by adding some unsubstantiated drivel about health care staff backing the Tories!)

Well, Labour seemed to be perfectly happy to (allegedly) use private patient information regarding people suffering from cancer for their party’s benefit, why would they not use private addresses and blacklisting?

Amy Fowler or her boss needs to do some explaining.

Pictured: Andrew Lansley Shadow English Health Spokesman; Nichola Sturgeon, Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Health and Deputy First Minister