BBC Tucks Away England To Conceal Truth About NHS Budget Cuts

We all know that the BBC is fully involved in covering up wherever possible the blatant discrimination by the UK Government against the people of England, and, in the wake of the Budget, here's another little gem:

The Department of Health says it is to make cuts of £4.35bn over three years in an "efficiency savings" drive.

It is the biggest contribution to £11bn of government savings announced in last year's pre-Budget report.

Ah, the Department of Health! So, we're still a United Kingdom, are we? All will share the pain?

But tucked away under other Budget cuts news, five paragraphs down:

The health service in England faces making the biggest cuts - £4.35bn, which it says can be achieved through procurement, savings in its national IT programme, energy efficiency, better use of property and reducing staff sick leave, something it says alone could save £555m.

Ah, so it's only the health service in ENGLAND is it, that is making cuts of £4.35bn?

Neatly tucked away by the twisted BBC.

And I bet David "Sour Little Englanders" Cameron and Nick "Hardly Anybody Voted For Me, But Look At Me Now - LOADS OF MONEY!" Clegg are well chuffed.

I really hate the BBC.

The British Bastard Corporation, bent on deceit.

Jade Goody - Unfair "NHS" Screening - England Suffers Again

Speaking of reality TV star Jade Goody, Max Pemberton wrote in The Telegraph of another facet of the mockery which is the NHS, and how once again it differs between England and the so-called Celtic nations:

But what she also did last week was to expose the inconsistencies in healthcare in the UK, which make a mockery of the NHS founding principle of equality. On the back of Jade's high-profile case, the sexual health charity Marie Stopes International called on the NHS to lower the age at which women are first offered a smear test to 20. This had been the age when they first began screening until 2003 when it was raised by NHS cancer screening services to 25, after research suggested a negative effect.

This was because experts said that in their early 20s, there was evidence that women had natural changes in their cervical cells, which could be mistaken for pre-cancerous changes. This would lead to unnecessary treatment, which can lead to complications in later life, including difficulties carrying a baby to term. But on closer examination, the debate that Jade has sparked is concerned with the NHS in England only, because the rest of the UK screens at the age of 20. Since devolution within the NHS, there have been numerous examples of inconsistency and unfairness.

Prescription charges, access to medication, waiting times, hospital parking charges; the NHS is no longer consistent across the nation. In a nationalised service, there is something fundamentally wrong if such discrepancies exist. There remains debate about the appropriate age at which screening should begin, with no consensus across other European countries. But it seems ludicrous that people who are served by the same institution receive different treatment based on where they live, when the very ideological underpinning of that institution is the abolition of inequity within healthcare.

Whatever the correct age is to begin screening, young women somewhere in the UK are being let down by the devolved NHS. Either it is those in England, who should be offered it at a younger age and are therefore being exposed to an increased risk of a potentially fatal disease. Or, it is those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, who are risking unnecessary, invasive treatment that can result in them miscarrying in the future.

As we often parrot on this blog, it must be remembered that Scotland and Wales have democratic devolved governing bodies, and that England is ruled by the UK Parliament, headed by Gordon Brown, a man who represents a Scottish constituency and is therefore unaccountable to his constituents for around 75% of legislation his government passes - as they have their own parliament.

Aided and abetted by his Scottish Raj and MPs supposedly representing English constituencies, who spurn any recognition of England as a nation, Gordon Brown makes a mockery of democratic representation in England - and if you speak up, he and his cohorts are likely to accuse you of racism.

Whatever your background, WAKE UP to the abuse you are suffering as a citizen of England and the lies that are being spun, the smoke and mirrors employed by the UK Government and the Opposition parties, to keep intact the "UK", which now works against every man, woman and child resident in England. England is being broken up, regionalised out of existence - and we, the electorate across England, are the losers.

Spreading The Word About Uncaring New Labour In England...

We're trying to spread the word about just what New Labour is doing to England with its corporate free market NHS and social care provision - entailing cut back after cut back - which go well beyond the levels demanded by your stingiest sat-at-home Tory.

A reply to our e-mail at Socialist Unity:

Maria….”These are frightening times”… I agree entirely…. in my area the organisation that took over Council Housing in a stock transfer also took over council run residential care homes….. a few weeks ago they made redundant 70% of the staff and all in house catering and housekeeping services…. The Elderly residents protested and no one came to their aid…. New Labour locally were silent.

The catering services were privatised and friend of the local Tory MP got the contract…. The residents wrote to the Queen…. and eventually got a sympathy visit from the Bishop of Worcester and a photo in the local paper. [everyone looked miserable in the photo]

Nothing changed…. these elderly working class people have had their quality of life destroyed….. I went down to the Residential Home to try and speak to the residents to see if RESPECT could do anything to help.

The Housing Trust had changed the door entry system…. and I got through to a remote operator at the CCTV control room…. When I explained that I just wanted to talk to the residents the controller denied me access.

I could see… through the small wired safety glass window… I could see through the gloom some residents alone in their ‘Day Room’. Imprisoned.

It doesn't matter WHERE you stand politically - what is happening in England now under the auspices of Foundation Hospitals, Supporting People, Mental Health Commissions and Primary Care Trusts is unacceptable. These UK Government organisations are actually reducing people's quality of life to an unacceptable level. And taking away their right to protest. To be heard. In a large number of cases, vulnerable people are being placed at severe risk.

This is one of the worst manifestations of the UK Government's flawed devolution programme and undemocratic, uncaring attitude towards the people of England.

Please spread the word!

Gordon Brown Makes Pledge On Global Health INEQUALITIES, After CUTTING English Health Finance (But NOT Scottish And Welsh)

Hypocrite extraordinaire - Gordon Brown slashed the English NHS budget, but left the Scots and Welsh services untouched. Now he utters pious words about "global health inequalities".
What about England?
-
Today's post links to the same Financial Times article as yesterday's.

It's necessary. Having ensured that Scots and Welsh lives are valued more highly than English lives, Gordon Brown has the unmitigated gall to make a statement on global health inequalities:

The Prime Minister said there could "no worse time" to put ambitions on hold for dealing with health inequalities and helping the poor.

Speaking at a central London conference organised by Health Secretary Alan Johnson, Mr Brown said some people would argue that the current period of global financial turbulence should mean ambitious plans are postponed.

"I believe there can be no worse time than this to turn back," he said.

"We will now successfully address the global problems we face only if we work together for global solutions."

He said that "president-elect Barack Obama is determined to play his part in addressing health inequalities around the world".

Mr Brown told delegates they were united in their belief that every child, man and woman, no matter what their birth or background, "should have the best chance of a healthy life".

But many countries lack the determination to address the world's problems on health, he said.

And this from a man who has created a system of health apartheid in the UK - where every man, woman and child in England is a second class citizen:

Gordon Brown quietly slashed by a third this year’s hospital building and equipment budget in one of his last acts as chancellor.

Prompted by the tightness of the public finances, the new prime minister, who has placed the NHS as his “immediate priority”, cut the capital budget of the English NHS for 2007-08 from £6.2bn to £4.2bn. The move could delay the government’s hospital building and reconfiguration programme in England.

However, Mr Brown avoided equivalent cuts to the Scottish and Welsh NHS budgets even though the funding formula for the UK nations suggests they should have shared the pain. That decision leaves him open to criticism that he favoured patients in his home country.

Does Gordon Brown think we have forgotten? Does he think that those of us in England who are struggling to pay prescriptions free to millionaires in Wales have forgotten? Does he think those of us dying in England for want of life prolonging medications available on the NHS in Scotland have forgotten?

Think again, Gordon Brown.

Ben Bradshaw - UK Health Minister - LIAR And TWISTER

Health Minister Ben Bradshaw is one of that band of UK rump MPs (there are no English MPs, constitutionally England doesn't exist) who is happy that people in England can die for want of medication available on the NHS in Scotland, or scrimp and save for prescriptions free to all - including millionaires - in Wales. And he wants to twist the facts.

Mr Bradshaw is basically a traitor to the English people - a career politician who bends his knee to the Scottish Raj, and doesn't give a damn about the West Lothian Question or health apartheid.

From the BBC:

An English health minister who criticised health policies in Wales has returned to the attack.

Ben Bradshaw told a conference the English NHS provided a better service despite spending less per patient than the health service in Wales.

Mr Bradshaw attacked Welsh policies of free prescriptions and free hospital parking again and said ruling out using the private sector was "dogmatic".

The Welsh Assembly Government said it was "putting the patients first".

Earlier this year, Mr Bradshaw sparked a row between the assembly and UK governments by saying the money spent on free parking would be better spent on improving patient care.

His keynote speech to a CBI conference on health in London on Thursday threatens to re-open tensions between Cardiff and Westminster.

He told delegates the benefits of the English approach would become clearer in time.

He said he was "fed up" with being told that England suffered from health apartheid "because millionaires in Wales get their prescriptions free or Scotland plans to allow anyone who wants to park in busy hospital car parks for free."

Mr Bradshaw said: "What about the fact that in England you can get your operation much more quickly, you don't have to wait for more than four hours in A and E any more and it is easy to see a GP when you want?

"These things matter more to the public. We are already delivering them in England and we have been doing so while spending less per head on health than in Scotland and Wales."

Actually, Westminster MPs representing Scots constituencies decided that there would be Foundation Hospitals in England. There will be none for their constituents in Scotland.

And judging by the state of the hospital wards we now work on, this has been no good move for England.

People now lie in wet beds for unacceptable lengths of time because we are understaffed.

Errors occur over medications - due to staff tiredness.

People who cannot feed themselves are often left with their meal and it is later collected completely uneaten as we do not have time to feed them.

MRSA is rampant.

Ben Bradshaw is doing the people of England a major disservice in trying to make out that there is an English health service. There isn't. There are Scots and Welsh health services and a UK rump health service - that's right, the one which has no Barnett Formula to help provide good standards of care, on a par with Scotland and Wales.

It isn't a matter of the UK Rump NHS providing a more economical service that is the issue - it is the fact that Scotland and Wales have far more money lavished on them, and that the UK Rump NHS, which covers England, is of an unacceptably low standard.

It is that the Government is simply not prepared to spend as much on lives in England as it is on lives in Scotland and Wales.

But Ben Bradshaw is such a twister - he never mentions the Barnett Formula!

We Say: Ben Bradshaw - lying, twisting career politician - you are a complete and utter bastard!

Big hat tip to Kev.

David Cameron - He'll Mend Our Broken Society, But Don't Expect Equal Funding, OK, You Sour Little Englanders?

David Cameron is happy with health apartheid and asymmetric devolution - anybody who complains is a "Sour Little Englander". And now this twisted public school cretin is wittering on about mending our broken society. Of course, those who were little boys/girls in the 1980s, are banging on about what an improvement this statement is on the dread days of Thatcher.

But it's all words. All crap. David Cameron's government actively backs murder in England by refusing to stand up for the electorate on the health apartheid issue. The most you will get from the Tories is reference to a "postcode lottery" regarding health - as though it was a problem affecting the UK as a whole. The fact that Scotland and Wales receive far higher funding via the Barnett Formula is always ignored. Or played down to such an extent you would think it didn't really matter. Meanwhile, "British" Cameron bangs on about "a Scottish Empire" and having ancestors who were involved in the same.

The democratic rights of the people of England matter not a jot to him. And he also tells lies about the EU.

The man is so far removed from modern day England - or Britain for that matter - such a heartless spinner of pap, that he takes my breath away.

Thatcher said there was no such thing as society - people were too dependent on the State in her view. She stated that the country was made up of families and individuals - first you must help yourself then your neighbour. Governments could only act through people. That was the full gist of her 1987 interview, reproduced below.

"I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation."

I remember reading some old guru writing on a similar theme in the 1960s: "Tend at least your own garden. When it is without weeds, then help your neighbour".

Of course I disagreed with Thatcher. But not half as much as I disagree with the lying, twisted, self-serving anti-English/England politicians of the current day.

The NHS - Infected By An Anti-English Disease Curtesy Of The Scottish Raj

From the BBC:

Doctors have urged England to follow Scotland's example in avoiding the use of the private sector and competition in the NHS.

British Medical Association chairman Dr Hamish Meldrum said the health service in England was being run like a "shoddy supermarket war".

Doctors at the BMA's annual conference voted for the NHS in England to only use private firms as a last resort.

Officials said the private sector was only used when it could improve care.

Ministers have tried to create an NHS market by using the private sector and encouraging hospitals to compete for patients. About one in 10 elective operations are now done by private providers.

Meanwhile, successive administrations in Scotland have preferred to use private health firms only as a last resort when the NHS cannot provide the treatment.

England's approach has led to quicker progress on waiting times with hospitals closing in on an 18-week waiting target by the end of the year compared to the deadline of 2011 in Scotland.

But Dr Meldrum, who was born and trained as a doctor in Edinburgh, suggested the market reforms were an "English disease" which had not improved quality or efficiency, and fragmented services.

An "English disease"? Surely that's a little rich, considering that Gordon Brown, PM, represents a Scots constituency, that Foundation Hospitals were foisted on England by MPs representing Scots constituencies and that the Barnett Formula ensures more funding for the Scottish NHS than the English NHS? Dr Meldrum, surely an educated man, seems to be carefully avoiding stating certain very pertinent facts.

Sadly, Dr Meldrum seems unable to avoid the instinctive Scottish habit of taking a swipe at the English, when the reality is that the current state of affairs is largely being created by biased and uncaring Scots politicians, wreaking havoc in England.

In an article featured on the CEP News Blog, Dr Meldrum displays disturbing elements of racism: “Devolution has always been portrayed as the three Celtic nations breaking away from England. In the case of the NHS, it’s been the other way round. England has broken away from the rest of the UK.”

"Three Celtic nations"? Northern Ireland is a province, not a nation, and surely being full citizens of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland does not depend on being white and bigotedly deluded about your origins?

Is this man really fit to be head of the BMA?

Neil Harding

Thanks to Neil Harding for e-mailing us regarding his racist comments about "mongrel" England. Below, Mr Harding withdraws some of his comments, perhaps we, and all nations, are "hybrid"?

We get the usual train of thought - an English parliament would break up the gravy train, sorry, we mean "UK", etc.

Below are Mr Harding's thoughts, followed up with a few of ours.

'Mongrel' is a very emotive word with sometimes negative racial connotations but I was not using it in that context at all - just to mean 'mixed origins' - which of course (as you suggest) all nations are. Perhaps in hindsight I should have used the term 'hybrid'.

An English Parliament poses many problems - a federal UK system with one parliament having 85% of the population would just not last very long - it would inevitably lead to the breakup of the UK. Maybe that is what some people want, but not the majority I imagine. I could live with an EP elected by PR (but it would still signal the end of the UK), but one where 35% of the English vote would give a majority to one party is as unjustifiable as Labour currently having a majority on 35% of the UK vote. Whichever party dominated, either the Tory South or Labour North would be alienated just as socialist voting Scotland, Wales and London were alienated by Tory UK rule and led successfully to their own devolved governance. How much better to have regional assemblies - give them the same powers as Scotland and this just as easily solves the west lothian question. What is the problem with this?

We reply...

Firstly, Mr Harding, the UK Government has never suggested regionalising England to the extent that each region has parliaments with the same powers as Scotland.

The regions on offer are tinpot talking shops, designed to muddy the waters and stop the English from asking questions about devolution. "You ARE a region - not a nation! You HAVE devolution!" is the UK Government's stock argument for these areas of England. But nobody voted for these regional bodies. And the North East, the only area allowed a referendum, voted 78% AGAINST!

Would the type of devolution you suggest, each English region on a par with Scotland, really work? All these NATIONS with different health, education transport policies, etc? Because that is what it would take to bring the so-called English regions onto a par with Scotland. Each would have to have its own fully fledged, national parliament. Enormously expensive. Rather nonsensical. England would cease to exist, of course, which would please you no doubt, but the UK would be a very odd and fragmented place indeed.

No, the only route forward is for the UK Government to give the people of England all the facts and let them decide if they would like a national parliament via a referendum. This is what happened with Scotland.

Useless to go on about the Scots being tired of "Tory" governments foisted on them by England. The old unitary system sometimes worked against England, too. It was flawed but did not involve health apartheid, etc.

As for the internal governance of England, first we need a national parliament, then other decisions should be made. If you are seriously suggesting to us that Gordon Brown, a non-accountable MP for a constituency in Scotland, should have the main say over the internal governance of England, then we must reply that we do not think you understand what democratic rule is!

We were old Labour supporters, Mr Harding, and now we support no party. We are care workers and we see what the UK Government is doing to care services and the NHS in England via the likes of the odious "Supporting People" organisation. Did you know that care and NHS workers in England are now gagged as part of their contracts so that they cannot speak out?

Nope, England needs a parliament. It may not suit you, or other "UK rump" politicians riding the gravy train, but England needs national recognition within the UK. It's needed it ever since Scotland and Wales were awarded it. And now Northern Ireland is following suit.

The UK is a union of nations. The UK Government should serve those nations, not seek to abolish one of them just because it doesn't suit!

New Labour is not a Socialist party. That's nonsense. We see what's happening on the ground in health and social care, we know that people die in England for want of medication available on the NHS in Scotland, we know that people in England scrimp and save for prescriptions free to millionaires in Wales.

England needs its freedom to decide its own future. The UK needn't break up. But if it is the will of the people, so be it.

Personally, we think a federal system could work very well, if it is the will of the people.

UK politicians are all about suppressing the will of the people of England, to preserve a status quo that is no longer fit for purpose.

But please don't tell us that you are a Socialist. Your party's uncaring attitude, skewed devolution settlements and your own rantings against England and the English prove that both you and your party are very far from being Socialist.

CHRIS ABBOTT, DREW & FIONA

BBC Propaganda - Again

Over at the Waendal Journal, Tony has been a witness to a slab of BBC propaganda, this time from Mark Easton, "Home Editor", happily giving his own opinion regarding recent record levels of immigration on air. Read it here.

Fiona this morning caught part of the feature on that issue - hard-pressed maternity services struggling to cope with the recent huge rise in immigration, being covered on BBC breakfast TV. Fiona heard a female reporter saying something along the lines of: "It's ironic that without migrant workers the hospitals would not be staffed."

Chris Abbott has written of his concerns about migrant workers being used as slave labour, and as all three of us here sometimes work in nursing roles in NHS run hospitals in England, we can definitely add that this latest BBC statement is yet another piece of spin and propaganda.

The reason for high numbers of immigrant workers in jobs in the English NHS is that the work pays so appallingly, and after many years of cut-backs, which have accelerated beyond belief under New Labour, nursing and care work are no longer an option for many seeking a satisfying career.

So, people just arriving here are used and abused to keep up staff numbers.

The BBC increasingly beggars belief.

The Scot-Brit Rulers Of England

Interesting times. UK PLC takes precedence over equality for the people of England, David Heath, MP, from Nick Clegg's brave "new" Liberal Democrats Party, has asserted, NO English Parliament (the majority appear to want it? Well TOUGH!!) and Gordon Brown has announced an NHS Constitution - but ONLY for England, although he has tried not to mention the fact. His own constituents in his Scottish homeland will not be affected one jot by what he does. And it never seems to be mentioned that health outside of England is far better funded.

As the Scot-Brit establishment works to keep England dissolved and the English under the thumb, as English MPs lick arse (have you seen Jack Straw's brown neck?) and ride the gravy train, Gordy is intriguingly referring to "responsibilities" before one qualifies for NHS treatment in England. This will not apply elsewhere. Having free marketed the health and social care services in England (ever heard of an odious Government agency called "Supporting People", which promises vulnerable adults in supported housing schemes across England much if they become de-registered, then savagely slashes staffing and other budgets to keep things "competitive", leaving people with histories of mental illness and institutionalisation to basically fend for themselves for long hours, particularly at night?), Nu Labour now intends to see that the people of England DESERVE NHS treatment.

If not, what? If you're too fat, used to/do smoke, etc, are a drug addict, what then? What's the message from the Scottish Raj at Westminster? "Drop dead, sassenach bastard!" seems to be the answer.