droodzilla
pfm Member
Last week I had the misfortune to switch over to Question Time at precisely this moment:
Briefly, Guardian journalist claims disabled people are being condemned to death by this Government's benefits regime, and is shouted down by an impassioned "member of the public" (who, it turns out is a Tory - formerly UKIP - councillor). The episode reminded me why I stopped watching QT and I turned the TV off.
The serious question remains: does austerity kills people? The question is crudely put and deliberately provocative but the idea behind it deserves to be taken seriously, as this recent BMJ study shows:
http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/7/11/e017722.full.pdf
Shouty summary from The Independent here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/h...e-social-care-government-policy-a8057306.html
The suggestion is that NHS and Social Care funding decisions since 2010 have resulted in around 45000 additional deaths (compared with the pre-2010 trend) between 2010 and 2014. If this continues, the number of additional deaths between 2015 and 2020 1ill be around 150,000. The cost of closing this mortality gap between now and 2020 is estimated to be between £4b and £5b per year, depending on what assumptions are made about efficiency savings. The official response from the DoH is, essentially, that correlation does not imply causation but one hopes that isn't their final word on the matter and that they are trying to determine the causes of the mortality gap.
Both subjects are close to my heart: I have a disabled partner who suffers the debilitating effects of the benefit system, and I believe my dad may have died as an indirect result of cost savings to the local ambulance service. Similar arguments were rehearsed following the Grenfell Tower disaster and I note that The Labour Party is pushing for funding in next week's budget to fit sprinklers in all high-rise blocks.
So, what are your thoughts? Chairman Mao is (rightly) condemned for the part his economic policies played in the great famine in China. Is austerity simply a less extreme example of the same thing? Should government ministers be held accountable for predictable adverse consequences (including preventable deaths) of their policies?
Briefly, Guardian journalist claims disabled people are being condemned to death by this Government's benefits regime, and is shouted down by an impassioned "member of the public" (who, it turns out is a Tory - formerly UKIP - councillor). The episode reminded me why I stopped watching QT and I turned the TV off.
The serious question remains: does austerity kills people? The question is crudely put and deliberately provocative but the idea behind it deserves to be taken seriously, as this recent BMJ study shows:
http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/7/11/e017722.full.pdf
Shouty summary from The Independent here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/h...e-social-care-government-policy-a8057306.html
The suggestion is that NHS and Social Care funding decisions since 2010 have resulted in around 45000 additional deaths (compared with the pre-2010 trend) between 2010 and 2014. If this continues, the number of additional deaths between 2015 and 2020 1ill be around 150,000. The cost of closing this mortality gap between now and 2020 is estimated to be between £4b and £5b per year, depending on what assumptions are made about efficiency savings. The official response from the DoH is, essentially, that correlation does not imply causation but one hopes that isn't their final word on the matter and that they are trying to determine the causes of the mortality gap.
Both subjects are close to my heart: I have a disabled partner who suffers the debilitating effects of the benefit system, and I believe my dad may have died as an indirect result of cost savings to the local ambulance service. Similar arguments were rehearsed following the Grenfell Tower disaster and I note that The Labour Party is pushing for funding in next week's budget to fit sprinklers in all high-rise blocks.
So, what are your thoughts? Chairman Mao is (rightly) condemned for the part his economic policies played in the great famine in China. Is austerity simply a less extreme example of the same thing? Should government ministers be held accountable for predictable adverse consequences (including preventable deaths) of their policies?