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Thousands of NHS staff including mental health nurses, paramedics and ambulance crews have voted to take industrial action in the run up to Christmas in a dispute over pay. The Unite union... which balloted 77,000 workers, said there was a 3-1 vote in favour of industrial action with just over half backing walkouts. Ministers should cease using the argument that public sector pay fuels inflation...

We all know the potential horrors if Socialized Medicine were ever made a reality in this country, but to someone who only sees the good, and none of the bad, it is difficult for them to see the truth. In my discussion with a liberal friend I was having difficulty describing a parallel. We all can provide stories of long wait times, and lack of care experienced in other countries, but the answer always seems to be, "America will do it better". My point is that when a person has no responsibility to bear the costs of healthcare, he will...

NHS Rationing by Post Code

Blindness drug refused by NHS

Cancer patients are to be denied drugs which could keep them alive after the NHS rationing watchdog ruled that they are too expensive. Patient groups said the decision, announced today by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), would condemn many sufferers of kidney cancer to an "early death". Four prohibited medicines include Sutent, which can prolong life in kidney cancer patients by up to two years. Nice said the drugs were too expensive, at about £24,000/year per patient, for the benefits they offered and would mean the health service was less able to afford more cost-effective drugs...

Hygiene standards in NHS hospitals have been called into question after it emerged they are routinely dealing with infestations of vermin. Outbreaks have included rats in maternity wards, wasps and fleas in neo-natal units, bed bug infestations, flies in operating theatres and maggots found in patients' slippers. The data, uncovered using Freedom of Information rules, include hospitals with maggots, "over-run" with ants and mice "all over" wards; cockroaches in a urology unit and a store for sterile materials infested with mice.

NHS surgeons are to be paid bonuses based on the number of lives they save, in radical plans being drawn up by hospitals across Britain. For the first time, they will receive performance-related pay according to the results they achieve on the operating table, with levels dependent on how well patients recover. Leading surgeons said that this could deter doctors from taking on higher-risk patients, such as the frail and elderly, and from carrying out complex operations. ...Katherine Murphy, from the Patients Association, said: "Patients will be horrified. There is a real risk that the most complicated cases, and the...

Patients will be able to escape NHS queues by demanding treatment anywhere in the European Union without the prior approval of a doctor, under proposals to guarantee health rights unveiled today in Brussels. The NHS would then be duty bound to refund the British cost of the procedure under the new rules for cross-border healthcare. Today’s proposed EU directive will give patients in all 27 member states the same rights to treatment on the NHS as British patients. It also guarantees that the full cost of treatment abroad will be refunded when an NHS professional has agreed that it...

One in four child deaths is 'avoidable' says report exposing wrong diagnoses and treatments Last updated at 23:29pm on 28.06.08   Failures in care by medical professionals, social workers and parents are responsible for one in four child deaths, according to a Government-backed report.A panel of experts reviewed 126 deaths in one year and found 'avoidable factors', such as doctors misdiagnosing a serious illness or giving the wrong treatment, in 26 per cent of cases.A further 43 per cent were due to 'potentially avoidable factors' – including missing important immunisations or delays in treatment.  Tragedy: Nine-month-old Liam Eaves died...

What if we bought cars the same way we buy health care? The dealer would say, "Look, we don't really know the price of our cars, but we know you really need one. So, why don't you just come by and pick one up." Then three weeks later you would begin receiving a blizzard of bills — a bill from the people who made the chassis, a bill from people who made the transmission, a bill from the seat maker and the paint people and the folks who made the sound system. ... Gratefully, cars aren't sold that way. All...

With privately bought drugs proving to be up to five times as effective as NHS treatments, The Sunday Times reports on the suffering the co-payments ban is inflicting on patients... The National Health Service is providing dying cancer patients with drugs that are five times less effective than those available privately and is refusing to treat them if they try to buy medicines themselves. One drug for kidney cancer, routinely available through public health systems in most European countries but not to British patients, can reduce the size of tumours in 31% of patients, compared with just 6% of those...

By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor The shake-up of NHS dentistry has been condemned as a failure after official figures showed fewer people are receiving health service treatment. More than 300,000 people lost their NHS dentist in three months alone Eight hundred thousand fewer people saw an NHS dentist in the two years up to December than in the last two years under the old dental contract. The shake-up was aimed at simplifying the payments system, encouraging more preventive work and reducing the 'drill and fill' culture in NHS dentistry. But the contract was so unpopular many dentists left the NHS...

Private companies to take over failing NHS hospitals By Rebecca Smith and Andrew Porter Last Updated: 11:09PM BST 03/06/2008 Private companies are to be drafted in to run failing NHS hospitals for the first time, under plans to be announced. Poor managers are to be sacked without receiving large payouts and replaced by staff from profit-making companies who would be paid with public money. The NHS will retain ownership of hospital buildings and services but the private firm will "take over" the day to day running of the hospital. Ministers believe the proposals will drive up standards within the health...

Private companies are to be drafted in to run failing NHS hospitals for the first time, under plans to be announced. Poor managers are to be sacked without receiving large payouts and replaced by staff from profit-making companies who would be paid with public money. The NHS will retain ownership of hospital buildings and services but the private firm will "take over" the day to day running of the hospital. Ministers believe the proposals will drive up standards within the health service. The NHS has an annual budget exceeding £100 billion and is one of the world's largest employers with...

Eye specialist Sarah Anderson works at York Hospital. Her father Ian has been refused Sutent, a new cancer drug, which could provide the only real chance of prolonging his life. Sarah, 40, lives in York with husband, Bill, a computer programmer and their twins, Douglas and Ryan, five. As an ophthalmologist, I have spent my working life in the NHS. And for all its perceived failings, I have been proud of its fundamental role in our society - to provide equality of care for all. Of course, I've heard the term postcode lottery but as a doctor I've only ever...

Ambulances are being used as waiting rooms outside hospital emergency units in order to meet Government pledges on treatment times, a union has claimed. The Department of Health denied the target was causing undue delays. It said the four-hour limit for A&E waiting starts 15 minutes after the ambulance arrives, regardless of whether a patient has been handed over.

Obese and overweight adults in England could be paid to lose weight under plans being considered by the Government. The new strategy to tackle poor eating habits and sedentary lifestyles includes the suggestion that people should receive financial rewards or shopping vouchers for achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. The £372 million strategy reiterates a target set last year to cut the proportion of overweight and obese children by 2020 to levels in 2000. Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, and Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, said that England should become the first leading nation...

More than seven million patients have been unable to see an NHS dentist for almost two years. Most of those denied access have paid for private care instead, says Citizens Advice. But almost three million have gone without treatment altogether, claims the charity. The figure includes thousands of children and is much higher than Government estimates. The charity is calling today for Primary Care Trusts, the bodies responsible for dentistry in England and Wales, to step up funding to improve care for NHS patients. It cited the case of a low-income pensioner given emergency dental treatment in a hospital in...

Organs to be taken without consent By Patrick Hennessy and Laura Donnelly  Last Updated: 9:21pm GMT 12/01/2008     Gordon Brown has thrown his weight behind a move to allow hospitals to take organs from dead patients without explicit consent.   There are more than 8,000 patients waiting for an organ donation   Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, the Prime Minister says that such a facility would save thousands of lives and that he hopes such a system can start this year. The proposals would mean consent for organ donation after death would be automatically presumed, unless individuals had opted...

Almost 400,000 patients are still waiting more than a year for NHS treatment, a think tank claimed today. Government figures showed a rise in the number of patients being admitted for treatment within the 18-week target from referral. The latest figures, for October 2007, showed 60 per cent were treated in that timeframe, up from 57 per cent the previous month. But right-wing think-tank Civitas warned the figures were concealing a high number forced to wait far longer. It said 713,513 (or 18 per cent) of patients needing elective treatment were waiting longer than 36 weeks, with 387,152 (10 per...

Junior doctors across the UK are being warned the competition they will face this year for specialist training jobs in the NHS will be tougher than ever. As recruitment begins for August, the NHS employers body says there may be an average of three applicants per post. Many applicants will be NHS doctors who qualified outside the EU, after the government failed in a 2007 legal bid to give UK medical graduates priority. Without a training post a junior doctor cannot become a consultant or GP. It is a good thing for patients that there is competition for jobs -...

Health Reform: The British have found a way to shorten those long, annoying waits for care and lower the rising costs of their universal access system. They'll let patients take care of themselves.The London Telegraph reported Tuesday that the British government has a "plan to save billions of pounds from the NHS budget." But it won't come without enormous pain. "Instead of going to a hospital or consulting a doctor, patients will be encouraged to carry out 'self-care' as the Department of Health tries to meet Treasury targets to curb spending," the Telegraph explained. So when is a universal health...

How doctors lie on death certificates to hide the true scale of the toll from hospital infectionsBy SUE REID - More by this author » Last updated at 01:13am on 3rd January 2008  Joan Horne once worked for the National Health Service. In her day the wards were scrubbed with bleach, while nurses washed their hands with soap and water before caring for a patient. If not, a strict matron wanted to know why.  She has never forgotten the golden era of the NHS. So when 78-year-old Joan watched Edwin, her husband of 37 years, die after catching a...

BROWN PLANS CONSTITUTION FOR NHS Gordon Brown said he wanted to see a health service that "concentrates on care as well as cure" as the NHS entered its 60th year. The Prime Minister said he wanted to see improvements in the service that would help make it "personal to needs of the patient". Mr Brown was speaking during a visit to Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, Berkshire where he thanked staff for working over New Year and praised their "tremendous" efforts. He spent an hour talking to patients, doctors, nurses and support staff and was accompanied by his wife Sarah,...

Some hard-of-hearing patients in England are having to wait more than two years for an NHS hearing aid. The Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) used the Freedom of Information Act to discover just how long the waits were. It found that ten trusts were not treating patients within a year, in spite of the Government’s target being 18 weeks. The worst offender was Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, where patients had to wait 125 weeks for an aid after first seeing their GP. The average wait was 22 weeks in the 99 primary care trusts (PCTs) across the...

Elderly to get personal care cash Monday, 10 December 2007 Elderly people in England are to be given cash to fund their own social care, the health secretary has said. From April, millions of pensioners will be handed control over how the money is spent, rather than relying on social workers to make the decisions. Alan Johnson, who officially announced the scheme on Monday, said it was a "radical transfer of power from the state to the public". Younger disabled people could also be allocated a "personal budget" for care. Councils will be given £520m over three years to improve...

Great Britain's government-run National Health Service (NHS) hospitals are failing to treat people with dignity and respect as complaints reveal patients are left unwashed, in soiled bedding and in humiliating open-backed gowns, according to the British Healthcare Commission. According to the commission's 2007 "state of healthcare" report: 1 in 5 patients who wanted help with eating did not get it and others complained that food or drink was placed out of reach. Other complaints over dignity included a lack of regular baths or showers, gowns that failed to protect patients' modesty and curtains being opened while a patient is receiving...

TURMOIL: Beds are moved five times a day OVERWORKED nurses have been ordered to stop all medical work five times every day to move Muslim patients’ beds so they face towards Mecca. The lengthy procedure, which also includes providing fresh bathing water, is creating turmoil among overstretched staff on bustling NHS wards. But despite the havoc, Mid- Yorkshire NHS Trust says the rule must be instigated whenever possible to ensure Muslim patients have “a more comfortable stay in hospital”. And a taxpayer-funded training programme for several hundred hospital staff has begun to ensure that all are familiar with the workings...

OVERWORKED nurses have been ordered to stop all medical work five times every day to move Muslim patients’ beds so they face towards Mecca.The lengthy procedure, which also includes providing fresh bathing water, is creating turmoil among overstretched staff on bustling NHS wards.But despite the havoc, Mid- Yorkshire NHS Trust says the rule must be instigated whenever possible to ensure Muslim patients have “a more comfortable stay in hospital"And a taxpayer-funded training programme for several hundred hospital staff has begun to ensure that all are familiar with the workings of the Muslim faith.The scheme is initially being run at Dewsbury...

OVERWORKED nurses have been ordered to stop all medical work five times every day to move Muslim patients’ beds so they face towards Mecca. The lengthy procedure, which also includes providing fresh bathing water, is creating turmoil among overstretched staff on bustling NHS wards. But despite the havoc, Mid- Yorkshire NHS Trust says the rule must be instigated whenever possible to ensure Muslim patients have “a more comfortable stay in hospital”. And a taxpayer-funded training programme for several hundred hospital staff has begun to ensure that all are familiar with the workings of the Muslim faith. The scheme is initially...

Quack Michael Moore has mad view of the NHS   Minette Marrin   The fourth estate has always had a bad name, but it seems to be getting worse. Journalism should be an honest and useful trade, and often still is. But now that journalism has more power than ever before, it seems to have become ever more disreputable. In recent years it has been brought lower and lower by kiss-and-tell betrayals, by “reality” TV, by shockumentaries and by liars, fantasists, hucksters and geeks of every kind, crowing and denouncing and emoting in a hideous new version of Bunyan’s...

Faced with the prospect of losing her father to cancer, Chantelle Hill reacted a little differently to the average six-year-old. Instead of letting the grown-ups deal with it, she decided to save him herself. Now, she has raised more than £4,000 to buy the life-saving drugs David Hill needs after he was told they were not available to him on the Health Service.

During a difficult pregnancy, Elizabeth Jones was monitored every day because doctors were worried about the health of her baby. But on the day of the birth, she was twice turned away from the hospital because it was full - forcing her partner to deliver the baby himself at their home. Miss Jones, 24, and her partner Anthony Jones - who coincidentally share the same surname - dashed to their local maternity unit when she started to have strong contractions. However, their excitement at the prospect of the birth soon turned to horror when staff on the ward told them:...

Patients turn to DIY dentistry as the crisis in NHS care deepensBy JENNY HOPE - More by this author » Last updated at 06:48am on 15th October 2007 Hard to swallow: Few can find an NHS dentist The parlous state of NHS dentistry was exposed yesterday.  Such is the shortage of state-funded dentists that one in 20 patients has resorted to DIY treatment, in some cases pulling out their own teeth.  One in five has gone without treatment because of the cost. And of those who have registered with a private dentist, three-quarters did so only because their surgery stopped...

The NHS wins when its patients die By Charles Moore  Last Updated: 12:01am BST 13/10/2007     Florence Nightingale's famous Notes on Nursing, published in 1859, state that "the greater part of nursing consists in cleanliness". In my edition, the foreword points out that much of Miss Nightingale's writing, excellent though it is, is now out of date. In particular, the need for cleanliness is well understood. That foreword was written in 1946.Now it is 2007, and we learn that nurses in the hospitals run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust told patients suffering from diarrhoea to "go in...

Whatever you made of the Chancellor’s various sleights of hand on Tuesday, lurking beneath his Budget plans was one inescapable fact. The hungry maw of the NHS is swallowing more and more resources, at the expense of virtually everything else. The defence budget is at its lowest since 1930, despite our dwindling troops being dotted across three continents. Prison overcrowding is at such record levels that Jack Straw will have to release even more inmates early in a few weeks’ time. But the health service marches relentlessly on, having hoovered up two thirds of the increase in public spending in...

The osteoporosis drug you only have to take once a year - that may never reach the NHSBy JENNY HOPE - More by this author » Last updated at 23:49pm on 10th October 2007  The first once-a-year drug proven to dramatically cut the risk of broken bones in older women is launched today. But despite its high success rate, campaigners warn it may never be prescribed on the NHS on the grounds of cost. It comes as osteoporosis specialists challenge proposed prescription restrictions put forward by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, the Health Service's rationing body....

Appalling standards of care and a catalogue of failures contributed to the deaths of 331 patients in the worst outbreak of a hospital superbug ever recorded in the NHS, a report has found. Crowded wards, a shortage of nurses and financial problems led to 1,176 people contracting Clostridium difficile over two and half years at three hospitals in Kent. Though the superbug was rife on the wards, managers failed to act. Isolation units were not set up, nurses were so rushed they did not have time to wash their hands and patients were left in soiled beds. Bedpans were not...

POLICE were called in to probe an al-Qaeda outburst by a doctor during a Muslim prayer meeting at an NHS hospital. Psychiatrist Eltigani Adam Hammad, 60, crowed about British and US deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he is still in his £70,000-a-year job with Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber Mental Health NHS Trust. Details of his tirade emerged after the arrests of two Muslim doctors over alleged plots to blow up Glasgow Airport and a nightclub in London’s Haymarket. Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdullah Jordanian and hospital specialist Mohammed Jamil Asha have been charged with conspiring to cause explosions. Dr...

NHS Rationing 'Leads To Patient Deaths' Updated: 06:07, Tuesday September 25, 2007   Rationing of resources in the NHS is causing some patients die, according to a survey of doctors.   Drugs may be denied on cost-cutting grounds More than half of the 900 GPs and hospital doctors who responded to the questionnaire in Doctor magazine said they had seen patients suffer due to the rationing of treatment.Two thirds said they had been told not to prescribe certain drugs by their NHS trust, even though the results could be fatal.The report also found that consultants often bounce patients back for...

Medical graduates out of work because overseas doctors ‘take too many jobs’By DANIEL MARTIN - More by this author » Last updated at 22:05pm on 20th September 2007  Professor Graham Winyard says hundreds of medical graduates are unemployed because too many posts go to doctors from overseas     Hundreds of medical graduates are unemployed because too many posts go to doctors from overseas, it is claimed today. Professor Graham Winyard blames the Government's "muddled approach to managing medical immigration". Writing in the British Medical Journal, Professor Winyard said: "This has created a large surplus of applicants over available...

EXCLUSIVE    NHS sends organs on coaches     By EMMA MORTONAugust 27, 2007   SKINT NHS bosses are using National Express coaches to transport organs for transplants.  And The Sun can reveal it meant an EYE went missing on its way to hospital.It was sent in a box on a coach and disappeared on the way to Northampton General.Hospitals should use private ambulances to carry the organs. But many have axed the contracts to save money.Delivery firm TNT was due to collect the eye — for a cornea transplant — from Northampton bus station where it had been taken...

DENTISTS on the National Health Service are turning away people with bad teeth because they say they are only paid enough to treat patients with a good dental health record. One surgery admitted that people who have not had a dental appointment for three years will be refused treatment. Others are employing more subtle methods to reject patients. Dentists’ leaders say the NHS dental contract, introduced in April last year, has had a perverse effect because dentists earn the same for giving a patient one filling or 10. The Oakwood Dental Centre in Derby, for instance, says on Derby City...

Mother forced to give birth alone in toilet of 'flagship' NHS hospital 17.08.07     A young mother had to deliver her own baby in the lavatory of a flagship hospital because there were no trained midwives available. Surveyor Catherine Brown had made the agonising decision to undergo a chemically-induced abortion after being told her 18-week pregnancy was risking her life. But when the time came to give birth she was on an ear, nose and throat ward and had only her mother to help her through the ordeal. Her premature son Edward died in her arms minutes later. The...

Woman gives birth to healthy son after defying doctors who told her to abort 'disabled' babyLast updated at 16:03pm on 23rd July 2007A couple were advised by medical experts to abort their unborn child amid fears he would be severely disabled - but he was born perfectly healthy. Heather O'Connor and Jamie Bramley went through months of turmoil after being told that scans suggested part of the baby's brain could be missing. But Jake, their first baby, arrived weighing a healthy 7lb 9oz - and with no defects. Consultants at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester had recommended Heather should...

Anger over NHS plan to give addicts iPods   Sarah-Kate Templeton, Health Editor   DRUG addicts are to be offered gift vouchers and prizes on the National Health Service under plans by the government’s medicine watchdog to encourage them to stay clean. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) will recommend the system of inducements, which could enable clinics to offer televisions and iPods as prizes, to tackle the burgeoning drugs problem. But patients denied drugs for blindness, Alzheimer’s and lung cancer under Nice rationing are likely to accuse it of wasting public money. Katherine Murphy, of...

Terrorists 'may have access to deadly viruses in NHS hospitals' 12.07.07 Lax hospital security could give terrorists easy access to deadly viruses Lax security in Britain's hospitals could give terrorists working in the NHS easy access to deadly viruses and dangerous chemicals, an expert has warned today. The warning comes just days after it emerged that seven of the eight people held over the failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow had links to the NHS. Hospitals are "just as vulnerable as any nightclub", a security management specialist based in a London hospital told the Health Service Journal. The...

The fact that the Al Qaeda plot to detonate car bombs in London and Glasgow was carried out by doctors working for the National Health Service has shocked the British public far more than the fact that they were Muslims.

He looks like the perfect husband and doting father - but Dr. Mohammed Asha was on a secret al Qaeda terror mission in Britain that was carefully plotted years ago in Iraq, intelligence sources claimed yesterday. New disclosures emerged about the alleged double life of the brilliant 26-year-old neurosurgeon who is a suspected ringleader of the London and Glasgow car-bomb sleeper cell. Asha, born into a Palestinian family originally from the city of Hebron in the West Bank, was destined for a great medical career, scoring the third-highest mark on the University of Jordan's medical-school entrance exam. In 2004, he...

When Crockumentarian Michael Moore sang his hosannas to socialized medicine, I don’t think he quite expected the revelations of the past week in Great Britain. His movie, Sicko, openly suggests that socialized medicine would greatly improve American healthcare. It just doesn’t seem to address the issue of where these physicians would actually come from. Osama Bin Ladin, the resourceful guy that he is, has offered up the services of his organization to the NHS. It seems that the chronic shortage of doctors willing to put up with the bureaucratic NHS has given the master terrorist an easy way to smuggle...