advertisement


Jeremy C*** Loses In Court

jackbarron

jackbarron

Chelsea, London
There were cheers in the high court yesterday when Health Secretary, Jeremy C***, was told by the judge that his decision to reduce services at Lewisham Hospital was unlawful.

"There was loud clapping in court as a judge ruled that Hunt had acted outside his powers when he announced to parliament in January that casualty and maternity units at Lewisham hospital in south-east London would be downgraded.

"Mr Justice Silber said the secretary of state had breached provisions of the National Health Services Act 2006.

"The ruling is a major blow to the health secretary and a victory for the London borough of Lewisham and the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign, a community-based campaign group made up of and supported by patients, community groups, GPs, hospital doctors, nurses and other health professionals."

I wonder if C*** will try and get some free NHS psychiatric help to deal with his damaged ego?

Jack
 
This is my local hospital. Both my kids were born there. Im proud to live in a neighbourhood where the locals took on the government and won.
 
Was in a restaurant on The Strand this afternoon and saw a few people walking by with the placards from the protest. Good for them.
 
As predicted by the Guardian and funded by 38 Degrees, and if I'm not mistaken wrapped up in legislation by the Labour government. (link)

It's not often I get the chance to say that!!
 
The judge ruled against us on two counts. First, that in seeking to change services in a Trust outside that to which the unsustainable provider regime, the 2006 Act had been misapplied; and second that as an 'appreciable' number of GPs in the Lewisham area had not supported the proposals, one of the four 'Lansley tests' had failed (even though they have no legal status whatsoever).

It's as well to point out what the actual implications fo Lewisham residents would have been. If you have a serious illness or injury and you live in Lewisham, you already don't go to your local A&E. The London Ambulance Service, for years, has operated a well thought through clinical protocol that takes you to the nearest specialist centre for your condition - where you are more likely to survive - in this case probably King's or Tommy's. In effect, the proposals for Lewisham's A&E would have seen the threshold for this set lower. 75% or so of the patients would continue to be seen at what would still have been an A&E department.

In taking the decision to do this, Hunt was actually partly overturning the UPR recommendation to close Lewisham's A&E completely.

Lewisham's neighbour, the South London Healthcare NHS Trust was established some seven years ago. It was well known at the time that the organisation was a basket case - the cost of its services, as compared to peer group NHS hospitals - was very high. But crucial decisions were not faced up to. Because of this it has been losing around £1 million a week. That money has to come from elsewhere in the NHS.

Of course no one like to 'lose their A&E Department' -even if, as in this case, it was mostly being given back. But the point is that unless someone is able to make changes to the NHS (some of which will be unpopular, but many of which will actually save lives), we are only storing up an even bigger crisis down the road. And I pity the Health Secretary who has to deal with that.
 
No sympathy with the government at all when we can still 'afford' nuclear subs and sticking our noses into other countries business.
 
my local hospital too and as i have several friends who work there never mind all of us who have used it over the years, we are delighted ....................but don't trust the little bugger one bit as he surely will try to do it again.
 
If anyone thinks politicians actually want to downgrade or close units or hospitals, they're living on a different planet to mine. They know it's politically nightmarish so usually try to avoid it if at all possible.

And perhaps that's one of the reasons why we are where we are...
 
Tim Jones said:
If anyone thinks politicians actually want to downgrade or close units or hospitals, they're living on a different planet to mine. They know it's politically nightmarish so usually try to avoid it if at all possible.

And perhaps that's one of the reasons why we are where we are...
Click to expand...

Precisely. In it's present form the NHS is a vastly innefficient money pit. All parties agree it is in desperate need of rationalisation, as long as it's not in their back yard.

The government needs to legislate to facilitate these changes.

Chris
 
Mescalito said:
Precisely. In it's present form the NHS is a vastly innefficient money pit. All parties agree it is in desperate need of rationalisation, as long as it's not in their back yard.

The government needs to legislate to facilitate these changes.

Chris
Click to expand...
its also lots of other things and rationalisation on one hand may ruin other aspects that work very well.

I fully agree with the principle of rationalisation, but like education I believe policy changes should be unhitched from ideology and follow established processes (ie. normal and proven in large private enterprise) to try to design, evaluate and implement a cross party approved, cross term applied rationalisation process.

I appreciate that the NHS is bigger than the biggest private enterprise but broken down into component parts I believe this is possible, just not in a single parliament with only single party approval.
 
jackbarron said:
There were cheers in the high court yesterday when Health Secretary, Jeremy C***, was told by the judge that his decision to reduce services at Lewisham Hospital was unlawful.

"There was loud clapping in court as a judge ruled that Hunt had acted outside his powers when he announced to parliament in January that casualty and maternity units at Lewisham hospital in south-east London would be downgraded.

"Mr Justice Silber said the secretary of state had breached provisions of the National Health Services Act 2006.

"The ruling is a major blow to the health secretary and a victory for the London borough of Lewisham and the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign, a community-based campaign group made up of and supported by patients, community groups, GPs, hospital doctors, nurses and other health professionals."
Click to expand...

Mescalito said:
Luckily, there is SFA whingeing lefties can do to stop them.

Chris
Click to expand...


Funnily enough, sometimes there is! ;)
 
deanf said:
As predicted by the Guardian and funded by 38 Degrees
Click to expand...

Actually 10 grand came from Millwall FC and it's supporters.

It's now my local A&E and I'm thrilled to bits that this has been overturned. I signed the petitions and sent in my donation but I didn't think it would actually work... Blimey!
 
Greg said:
Tim, who is "us"?
Click to expand...

Greg - my employers, the Department of Health, though my views are personal.

To answer your other post, there is usually a remarkable lack of ideological differences between the three parties in NHS policy. For all the row about it, for example, an ex-Labour special adviser once told me that Andrew Lansley's Health Bill 'is pretty much exactly what we would have done.' There is a bit of play in the middle about choice and competition, but that's pretty much it. The row comes in the (mis)interpretation of intent.

Decisions about changing things locally appear to be 'made' by the Secretary of State because the machinery is set up so that he has final decision after all the processes have been exhausted.

Tim
 
Tim Jones said:
Greg - my employers, the Department of Health, though my views are personal.

To answer your other post, there is usually a remarkable lack of ideological differences between the three parties in NHS policy. For all the row about it, for example, an ex-Labour special adviser once told me that Andrew Lansley's Health Bill 'is pretty much exactly what we would have done.' There is a bit of play in the middle about choice and competition, but that's pretty much it. The row comes in the (mis)interpretation of intent.

Decisions about changing things locally appear to be 'made' by the Secretary of State because the machinery is set up so that he has final decision after all the processes have been exhausted.

Tim
Click to expand...
thanks for clarifying, Tim, it's useful to understand the context of your posts and I appreciate that your expressed views are personal.
 
Tim Jones said:
Greg - my employers, the Department of Health, though my views are personal.

To answer your other post, there is usually a remarkable lack of ideological differences between the three parties in NHS policy. For all the row about it, for example, an ex-Labour special adviser once told me that Andrew Lansley's Health Bill 'is pretty much exactly what we would have done.' There is a bit of play in the middle about choice and competition, but that's pretty much it. The row comes in the (mis)interpretation of intent.

Decisions about changing things locally appear to be 'made' by the Secretary of State because the machinery is set up so that he has final decision after all the processes have been exhausted.

Tim
Click to expand...

Sorry, but to use the word of one labour party advisor to prove your point on absence of ideological difference is to elevate the opinion of unnamed person beyond credibility . Whilst Lansleys health bill was somewhat neutered it is rubbish to say this bill would have been implemented by Labour had they won the 2010 general election . There is simply no reliable evidence to substantiate this view and shit loads to prove it is rubbish. And I would start by referring you to their manifesto .
 
Gerald said:
Sorry, but to use the word of one labour party advisor to prove your point on absence of ideological difference is to elevate the opinion of unnamed person beyond credibility . Whilst Lansleys health bill was somewhat neutered it is rubbish to say this bill would have been implemented by Labour had they won the 2010 general election . There is simply no reliable evidence to substantiate this view and shit loads to prove it is rubbish. And I would start by referring you to their manifesto .
Click to expand...

Ok, it was just an example. Let's take a few others. Both parties believe in the purchaser/provider split, and both agree that GPs should run commissioning in the NHS. The differences are relatively minor in implementation. PCTs (the Labour version) were probably a bit too big and corporate. Not sure how well CCGs will do but they seem to be making a reasonable start.

Another - private sector involvement. Both parties (perhaps more in private than in public) would agree that a monolithic model of state provision is going to be very difficult to sustain in terms of cost, and perhaps in terms of quality. Both parties agree with a virtuous circle (or if you prefer, vicious circle...) in which patients' choice of provider acts as a quasi market mechanism to drive up quality and reduce cost. The Blair Government was the first to systematically introduce private sector involvement in NHS provision via the ISTC programme.The amount of the NHS budget spent on private sector providers is still tiny - and yes, could well expand hugely under the Any Qualified Provider programme. But the continuity is there.

And a third. It was Gordon Brown's Government that (re)floated the idea of the NHS as being nationally managed by an independent Board, relatively independent of the Secretary of State. This was a key part of the Lansley Bill, and caused quite a lot of controversy during its troubled passage.

I worked as a civil servant under the Labour Government, and under this one. I am familiar with the manifestos of both. My 'reliable evidence' is my 20 years of doing this. It seems to me that a good 90-95% of this is not driven by 'ideological' differences, but by a kind of consensus across politics and senior management about 'what needs to be done'. The interesting thing is whether someone can deliver a credible alternative to this consensus.

Tim
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top