- Andy Burnham…the new Messiah
- Overall public satisfaction with the NHS increased to 65 per cent in 2014 – the second highest level since the British Social Attitudes survey began in 1983. Dissatisfaction with the service fell to an all-time low of 15 per cent.
You’d never guess would you if you listened to the BBC…the NHS is a disaster according to them…and remember this is the BBC that failed to report that the NHS was voted the best in the world for its service….
Did you hear of this on the BBC last June?… I must have missed the enormous fanfare announcing the good news:
NHS pushes UK’s healthcare to top of the league table out of 11 western countries, with US coming last
Britain’s healthcare has been lauded as the best out of 11 of the world’s wealthiest countries, following a far-reaching study by a US-based foundation.
You’d never know that though if you only listened to the BBC……and A&E is a disaster as well…today they are harping on about missed targets and have their ‘tracker’ back on the frontpage and yet….
For accident and emergency (A&E) services, satisfaction increased from 53 to 58 per cent between 2013 and 2014, after fluctuating in previous years.
But what does the BBC prefer to highlight?……
The King’s Fund has lobbed a high explosive grenade into the path of the Tory election parade….and the BBC has been uncritically reporting their conclusions all day…
NHS reorganisation was disastrous, says King’s Fund
Radical changes to the way the NHS in England is organised have been “disastrous” and “distracted” from patient care, leading analysts say.
The evaluation by the King’s Fund think tank says the coalition government’s changes had wasted three years, failed patients, caused financial distress and left a strategic vacuum.
Labour has called for a personal apology from David Cameron.
But Labour itself is accused of “crying wolf” over privatisation.
During the day I heard only one mention of a response from the Government on this, the BBC preferring to highlight the extremely damaging comments from the King’s Fund instead….without any analysis or critique of the claims.
You have to wonder at the timing and tone of the King’s Fund claims…..seemingly carefully timed to do as much damage as possible without being so close to the election to seem ‘political’…however the King’s Fund admits it seeks to ‘inform the debate’….
Our assessment of performance over the period since 2010 – published next month – will set out in detail what the balance sheet looks like to help inform debate on the public service that matters most to the public.
They will be releasing more, probably ‘inflammatory’ conclusions, in March now that they have opened that debate….an election in May…go figure.
What else has Ham been saying recently?…from the Guardian last week…
Chris Ham, chief executive of the King’s Fund: “Andy Burnham has set out an ambitious and wide-ranging vision for the NHS and social care. It throws down the gauntlet to the other parties to set out their plans ahead of the general election. Burnham is right to put integrated care at the heart of this vision. This echoes the prescription for a single budget and single commissioner for health and social care set out by the Barker commission. His emphasis on mental health was also very welcome.
Responding to the Shadow Secretary of State’s speech launching the Labour Party’s health and care policy review, Chris Ham, Chief Executive of The King’s Fund, said:
‘Andy Burnham’s diagnosis of why the NHS and social care needs to change is the right one. The demands of an ageing population, changing burden of disease and rising patient expectations mean that fundamental change is needed.
‘His prescription for change is ambitious and his vision of delivering integrated care, co-ordinated around the needs of the individual, will be widely welcomed.
I’m guessing he is quite along term fan of Burnham and Labour…but then Ham was an advisor to Labour on NHS reform from 2000 to 2004 when he was seconded to the Department of Health, where he was Director of the Strategy Unit, working with ministers on NHS reform.
In 2006 the FT tells us that NHS productivity under Labour……
‘…has fallen by between 4 and 8 per cent in every year between 1997 and 2003.’
The article leads with this statement from Ham….
The Treasury was right to focus on National Health Service productivity and on big variations in the cost of treatment, length of stay, and how intensively hospital resources were used, Chris Ham, professor of health services management at Birmingham University, said yesterday……there is a need “to drive higher productivity and efficiency through the system”.
So Labour may have been struggling but they were on course and doing good work….Good that Ham thinks productivity is so important…as apparently it has improved under the Coalition..
….productivity has increased at a faster rate than in recent years.
Let’s see what the BBC could have hghlighted from the King’s Fund….
- Overall public satisfaction with the NHS increased to 65 per cent in 2014 – the second highest level since the British Social Attitudes survey began in 1983. Dissatisfaction with the service fell to an all-time low of 15 per cent.
- GP services remain the most popular NHS service in terms of satisfaction, with 71 per cent satisfied in 2014.
- Outpatient services experienced an all-time high in satisfaction levels of 69 per cent in 2014, almost rivalling general practice as the most popular NHS service.
- Inpatient services showed little change with a satisfaction rating of 59 per cent.
- For accident and emergency (A&E) services, satisfaction increased from 53 to 58 per cent between 2013 and 2014, after fluctuating in previous years.
What we’ve had instead is a relentless barrage of claims from the King’s Fund on the BBC without any critical challenge to those claims and hardly a word from government or anyone else in opposition to those claims……Perhaps Newsnight has shaken the tree a bit on this?…I haven’t watched it…but a day long BBC pro-Labour narrative almost completely without challenge on one of the most important and contentious issues in the lead up to the election is not an approach to news that one could say was balanced and impartial.
“You’d never guess would you if you listened to the BBC…the NHS is a disaster according to them…and remember this is the BBC that failed to report that the NHS was voted the best in the world for its service….”
Interesting that the site owner tends to disagree with you Alan
“Envy of the world but ONLY if the world concerned is Pluto”
“If the NHS is so wonderful, why has NO OTHER COUNTRY in the world decided to copy this utopian healthcare system?”
“It’s not the envy of the world but the job creation hub of the world!”
It would seem from DV’s many postings on the NHS that he tends to agree with the view that the system is failing!!
http://www.atangledweb.org/index.php?s=NHS
I guess this means that if the BBC highlight NHS failings it is evidence of bias but when others do the same it is not!!
Over on the OT, I’ve shared the latest salvo in the bbc/Labour weaponised assault, this time highlighting failures in complaints systems.
One public sector outfit criticising another’s wagon circling is brave, but for the BBC to raise how complaints are handled is quite special.
The various bodies and ombudsmen in the NHS are of course masters in ranks closing. But the BBC can of course take things very personally and pursue critics.
In addition to investing considerably in 24/7 picket lines to swoop down with distractions, often appearing first to do so.
Interesting, that.
Chip meet shoulder.
“Satisfaction with the NHS” – a great nebulous concept., meaning exactly ..what?
90% of the population will not be admitted to hospital in a year, over many years, apart from the elderly, so it is not based on actual experience. They will probably make two or three visits to a GP (if you are lucky enough to get through on the phone to get an appointment), once to A&E, (over my dead body unless I had to)
So somehow a miraculous satisfaction increases in a system, based on no experience but on..what? What the papers say?
As long as you like the answer, don’t worry about what the question means. It’s a political question which begets a politically useful anwer. Which is why it’s asked.
Ask yourself, how satisfied are you with the BBC? That at least you have experienced.
The other day on You and Yours on Radio 4 lunchtime I think it was (but it may have been Woman’s Hour) there was a discussion about the NHS including a female doctor saying that what was needed was an integrated health care. I hadn’t heard the start of the discussion and was away from home so not able to google the doctor but I can bet my bottom dollar that she has close links to Burnham’s party.
Two words sum up Mr Burnham, North Staffs. He should be in the dock for negligence or even covering up wrong doing in public office. The only thing that we can guarantee if Labour wins the election, is that the public sector will be allowed to redraw the veil over its activities and that the producer interest, not the consumer interest, will be in the ascendency once again. No wonder the BBC and public sector unions hate the Tories and love Labour.
see,we are having all these rows and big fights about the nhs, but one thing i have not heard from any politician with the exception of the straight talking of nigel farage and ukip is what has cause the nhs to virtually collapse.the answer to that is simple,new labour and tony blair in 1997 opened to borders and encouraged mass immigration from the third world and eastern europe and anybody living in a town or city knows full well how that has affected are doctors surgerys or hospitals when we visit them,this has nothing to do with race as the left try to portray as picking on people with black or brown skins because eastern europeans have the same white skin as me and you,you new labour and tony blair has caused all these problems with the nhs and other vital services because of your criminal open door mass immigration policy you had when you was in power,any working class person and i am one who votes for labour next may will just be voting for more of the same if millband and labour get elected,bear that in mind when you go to the poling booths next year.vote ukip.