Rishi Sunak Heckled by Member of the Public over State of NHS

Jan 19, 2024 | Rishi Sunak was challenged by a member of the public over the state of the NHS and his handling of strike action during a walkabout in Winchester today. A video clip played by Sky News at lunchtime showed Mr Sunak being grilled by a woman as he walked along a shopping street.

Sky News criticised by Tory MPs over edit of Sunak being challenged by member of the public: Sky News has been criticised by Conservative MPs over their edit of footage of Rishi Sunak being challenged by a member of the public. / A video clip played by Sky News at lunchtime showed the Prime Minister being grilled by a woman over the state of the NHS as he walked along a shopping street during a walkabout in Winchester. / The woman told Mr Sunak: “You could stop it all. You could make it go back to how it used to be where we had… where if you had a problem you could go to the hospital. My daughter spent seven hours waiting…” »

Rishi Sunak is an AWFUL prime minister. One of the worst prime ministers in my lifetime! He is totally and utterly clueless. He is like a head boy in a senior school. He has no idea about politics and he is totally out-of-touch with ordinary people. His incremental smoking ban is STUPID, UNDEMOCRATIC, TOTALLY UNWORKABLE and UNPOLICEABLE. It is to be hoped that it will fail, as it surely will.

How the Conservative Party tolerates Sunak’s incompetence is beyond my comprehension. The Party needs to get a grip before it goes the way of the dodo. Rishi Sunak is the last in a long line of failed Conservative leaders.

Were I to be Sunak, with all his money, I’d retire with despatch and be off to California to be with fellow crackpots. – © Mark Alexander

How Peter Thiel’s Palantir Pushed Toward the Heart of U.K. Health Care

Peter Thiel at a conference in Florida last year. At an event in England this year, he called public support for the N.H.S. “Stockholm syndrome.” | Chandan Khann/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Palantir, the analytics company led by Peter Thiel, has courted N.H.S. England with pandemic help and assertive lobbying. Its big reward may be yet to come.

It began with a £1 contract.

In the hours after a pandemic was declared in March 2020, Palantir, the secretive American data analytics company, was invited to 10 Downing Street along with other tech groups, including Amazon, Google and Meta, to discuss how it could help the British government respond.

Within days, Palantir’s software was processing streams of data from across England’s National Health Service, with Palantir engineers embedded to help. The company’s services, used by the C.I.A. and Western militaries for more than a decade, were deployed to track emergency room capacity and direct supplies of scarce equipment.

Palantir charged the government just one pound.

The deal provided the company with a valuable toehold. Since then, Palantir, which is chaired by Peter Thiel, the billionaire investor and one of President Donald J. Trump’s major 2016 donors, has parlayed the work into more than £60 million in government health contracts. Its biggest reward may be yet to come: a seven-year contract worth up to £480 million — about $590 million — to overhaul N.H.S. England’s outdated patient data system.

But an outcry over Palantir’s rapid ascent within the N.H.S., the beleaguered but beloved public institution that provides free health care across the country, has been building for months among some lawmakers, doctors and privacy campaigners. It could come to a head in October, when the winning bid is expected to be announced. » | Euan Ward and Adam Satariano | Euan Ward and Adam Satariano, reporting from London, spoke to health service officials, Palantir employees and industry insiders, as well as reviewing email correspondence and notes from internal meetings. | Friday, September 29, 2023

It would appear that the privatisation of our beloved National Health Service is to be kicked up a few notches. – © Mark Alexander

Lib Dems to Attack Tories on NHS and Pensions Triple Lock, Ed Davey Says

THE OBSERVER: The leader says his party is focusing on the NHS and protecting pensions to woo Conservatives in rural heartlands

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey at the Barton Hills nature reserve in June 2023 while campaigning in next month’s Mid Bedfordshire byelection. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Guardian
The Liberal Democrats are planning to open two fronts against the Conservatives in their traditional heartlands, with a campaign focused on NHS waiting lists and a pledge to protect the pensions triple lock.

In an interview with the Observer, Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, said that the scale of support his party had been receiving from lifelong Tory voters meant that there was now no Tory seat in either the “blue wall” or the Conservatives’ rural heartlands that was safe.

The Lib Dems are in an increasingly optimistic mood as their annual conference takes place this week after a string of byelection wins, including in Chesham and Amersham, and Tiverton and Honiton. There is also mounting concern among Tories in constituencies where the Lib Dems are in second place.

Davey’s party is now honing an election campaign designed to win over liberal, pro-remain Tory voters as well as rural communities that have been out of reach to the Lib Dems for years. He said that, unlike in the run-up to previous elections, concern about the NHS and GP waiting times was a “common thread” across all the voters it was targeting. » | Michael Savage, Policy Editor | Sunday, September 2023

In my opinion, this is the gentleman who would make the best prime minister for our times. This is the man who could lead this country out of the mess and morass we now find ourselves in after thirteen years of Tory screw-ups and misguided government. – © Mark Alexander

Huw Edwards Scandal: 'The BBC Should Stand Up for Itself More,' Says Sir Tony Blair

Jul 16, 2023 | The Sun is facing questions over its coverage of allegations against the 61-year-old newsreader - with some asking whether the claims should have been reported at all. Sky's Sophy Ridge asks former Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair his opinion on whether or not certain institutions are "gunning for" the BBC.

Is Blair right about Brexit, though? Check this out here.

Theresa May Gets Booed Arriving at Luxury NHS Anniversary Dinner

Jul 6, 2023

All politicians are in it for themselves! The bloody lot of them! Especially the corrupt Tories.

This is such an irony! On the one hand, the Tories are doing their level best to destroy the National Health Service; yet on the other, they attend a luxury dinner celebrating its success. Go figure! By the way, almost all of those attendees will almost certainly be availing themselves of private healthcare. – Mark

Doctor EXPOSES Plan to DESTROY NHS

Jul 5, 2023 | The NHS is in imminent danger.

Keep the American healthcare system well away from Britain. The American healthcare system is the last thing we need here. I speak from experience – a lot of experience. My late partner was an American, a well-heeled American; so he was well-insured. But I could write a book on the flaws of that healthcare system. God help the Americans who are down-at-heel!

American healthcare is the privilege of the rich. It is not a right enjoyed by everyone. It is also a very expensive healthcare system. Expensive to run and expensive for the patient. Outcomes are poor in relation to the cost of the healthcare system as well.

The Tory Party is obsessed with all things American. Fact is, there are far better healthcare systems in Europe than the American model. The irony is that at the very time that many Americans are clamouring for universal healthcare, the Tories are busy dismantling the NHS.

Tories have trashed this country in so many ways; now, they want to trash the National Health Service, too. Don't let them do it! Once it's trashed, destroyed and gone, we will never get it back. Under the Tories, this country is rotting at the core; and Maggie started that rot (even though many, even I, couldn't see it at the time). Maggie bedazzled many of us, but she really did start the downward spiral. – © Mark Alexander

The Guardian view on the NHS at 75: pride mixed with disappointment: Underfunding and a lack of planning have undermined the health service, but the public is still behind it »

Most doctors think ministers want to destroy NHS, BMA boss says: Philip Banfield says health service is in state of ‘managed decline’ and may not survive next ‘five or 10 years’ »

Tories, hear this: the public still believes in the NHS on its 75th birthday – and we know you don’t: It has suffered years of cuts but the service will recover, because British people understand what it means for our way of life »

Sajid Javid Calls for Patients to Pay for GP and A&E Visits

THE GUARDIAN: Radical reforms needed to tackle waiting times, says former health secretary

Sajid Javid cited schemes in Ireland, Norway and Sweden as possible charging models. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Reuters
Patients should be charged for GP appointments and A&E visits, Sajid Javid has said, as he called the present model of the NHS “unsustainable”.

The former health secretary said “extending the contributory principle” should be part of radical reforms to tackle growing waiting times.

In an opinion piece for the Times, he called for a “grown-up, hard-headed conversation” about revamping the health service, noting that “too often the appreciation for the NHS has become a religious fervour and a barrier to reform”.

The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, is not “currently” considering the proposals, Downing Street told the newspaper. » | PA Media | Friday, January 20, 2023

It should be crystal clear to one and all by now that the Conservatives are in the process of dismantling the National Health Service. They will achieve their goal by stealth, dismantling the service one step at a time. First, they will ask patients to pay for GP appointments and A&E. In a short while, they will be demanding that patients make partial payments for operations and hospital stays. Then later, it will be full payments, and so on. This government is shameless. Give all to the 1% and take all from the 99%. What a shower! What a shameless shower! Be sure: The NHS is NOT safe in the hands of the Tories.

If savings need to be made on the NHS, there are plenty of ways that savings could be made. To start with, there are far too many highly-paid management staff. That was caused by Thatcher and her misguided ideas of making a business out of everything.

We need a change of government. This administration is stale. It is bereft of any good ideas. It is also too ideological. Kick the Tories out as soon as possible. – © Mark Alexander

Rishi Sunak Refuses to Say If He Uses Private GP

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has repeatedly refused to say whether he uses private healthcare, insisting it is "not really relevant".
Read the article here.

Sunak gives us the answer in his display of tetchiness and obfuscation. Were he to use the NHS for his medical needs, he would be only too willing to tell us, to admit that he does. – © Mark Alexander

Sunak Refuses to Budge on NHS Pay

Dec 20, 2022 | Rishi Sunak has insisted he cannot budge on NHS pay because he does not want to exacerbate soaring inflation as he comes under increasing pressure to negotiate with striking workers.

Read the Guardian article here: Rishi Sunak refuses to budge on NHS pay as strikes continue: PM says rises could make inflation worse and states politicians should not ‘cut across’ independent pay review process »

Hogwash! Where would we have been without the nurses during the pandemic? Clapping in appreciation of their services was all well and good, but when all is said and done, clapping doesn’t put food on the table!

Why is it that when bankers, others in finance, and CEOs pay themselves multi-million pound bonuses, it is not inflationary, but when people like nurses want a modest increase in pay to keep their salaries in line with inflation, it cannot be paid because doing so would fuel even more inflation? This, Mr. Sunak, makes no sense whatsoever. For heaven’s sake, pay our health workers properly, pay them a decent salary, pay them a salary commensurate with their services to society! – © Mark Alexander

Professor Tim Wilson: Rachael Johnson Is a Disgrace Promoting the Idea That Some Should Pay for the NHS

Nov 28, 2022 | This does not mean we should not encourage those who can pay to ease the burden on the NHS and use private healthcare where they can.

Very well said! Aneurin Bevan must be turning in his grave because of that stupid woman, Rachael Johnson. Until the Tories got their mitts on the NHS, it worked well and efficiently. The Tories—and I say this as a one-time dyed-in-the-wool Tory voter—have got a hell of a lot to answer for. Thank you for bringing some common sense into this debate. – © Mark Alexander

Liz Truss Plan to Divert NHS Funds to Social Care Is ‘Robbing Peter to Pay Paul’

THE GUARDIAN: Health expert says NHS needs money too and diverting promised £13bn is not a sustainable solution

Liz Truss said in 2009 that the health service ‘cannot not be put on a pedestal’. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA
Liz Truss would be “robbing Peter to pay Paul” if she diverted £13bn of funding for the NHS to deal with a Covid backlog in social care, experts have said.

The Conservative leadership frontrunner told a hustings on Tuesday night that she would spend the £13bn earmarked for the NHS to catch up on delayed treatment after Covid on social care instead.

She said: “I would spend that money in social care. Quite a lot has gone to the NHS. I would give it to local authorities. We have people in beds in the NHS who would be better off in social care. So put that money into social care.

“We put the extra £13bn in and what people who work in the NHS tell me is the problem is the number of layers in the organisation they have to go through to get things done, the lack of local decision-making. That’s what people are telling me is the problem, rather than a lack of funding.” » | Rowena Mason, Deputy political editor | Wednesday, August 24, 2022

This woman is out of her depth. Further, she is just plain silly. She's making up policy as she goes along, on the hoof. Heaven forfend that she should become prime minister! – © Mark Alexander

NHS Bosses Warn ‘Unprecedented’ Risk of Death from Cold Weather and Soaring Energy Bills

Aug 19, 2022 In a letter to ministers, the NHS Confederation and 100 health leaders have warned of an “unprecedented” risk of death from cold weather unless more is done to help people pay soaring energy bills. It outlines the stark choice that will be faced by those struggling - eat or freeze.

Palantir: Trump-backer’s Data Firm That Wants Access to Your NHS Records

THE GUARDIAN: Company co-founded by Silicon Valley’s Peter Thiel has been criticised for US defence and immigration contracts

Peter Thiel’s Palantir is favourite to win a £360m contract to amalgamate a wide range of NHS health data on to a single platform. Photograph: John Lamparski/Getty Images
For a company tipped to provide the NHS’s new overarching data platform, it is appropriate that Palantir Technologies is named after an all-seeing orb.

Palantir, which draws its name from the powerful crystal balls deployed in JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, is the favourite to win a £360m contract for the NHS’s Federated Data Platform (FDP). Covering everything from individual patients’ data to vaccination programmes, waiting lists and medical trials, the FDP will aggregate data from multiple sources and different formats on to a single platform.

According to a document sent to potential bidders for the five-year contract, it will “provide access to real-time data to enable decision-making to better coordinate care”. Speaking at London Tech Week last week, the health secretary, Sajid Javid, said: “This is the perfect moment to bring data together and reap the benefits.”

The ambitious scope of the platform has alarmed campaign groups, who fear for patient confidentiality, privacy and data security, but the identity of the frontrunner has also caused concern.

US-based Palantir was co-founded by Peter Thiel, one of Silicon Valley’s few high-profile Donald Trump supporters. The $15.6bn (£12.7bn) company has been criticised for its work with the US immigration agency, as well as its intelligence service and defence contracts. It already works closely with NHS England by providing software that processes data for a variety of purposes including take-up of Covid-19 vaccines and managing the post-pandemic bounce back in elective care (surgery or treatment booked in advance). » | Dan Milmo, Global technology editor | Tuesday, January 21, 2022

Palantir, the all-seeing US tech company, could soon have the data of millions of NHS patients. My response? Yikes!: You might never have heard of tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s CIA-backed analytics company. But it could know all about you if it wins a contract to manage NHS data »

This is troubling news indeed! I don’t want any company owned by this Trump-supporting ideologue to have any access to my NHS data. Thank you, but no thank you! In any case, he has got crackpot ideas on ageing. You can check out some of his ideas on YouTube. Here’s a link to one interview. It doesn’t look to me as though he is “winning the fight”!

That BoJo is considering giving this man and his company access to all this sensitive data in the NHS shows the need to kick BoJo out of office with dispatch.

This is another Brexit bonus, I guess. One can see it on the horizon in the sunny uplands yonder. – © Mark Alexander

Privatisation of the NHS: Allyson Pollock at TEDxExeter

Apr 29, 2014 • This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. The 1948 Act establishing the NHS gave the Secretary of State for Health the duty to provide universal health care.

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 removes this duty and introduces a market. Allyson Pollock describes why we need to worry. Allyson Pollock is Professor of Public Health Research & Policy at Queen Mary, University of London. She is one of the UK's leading medical intellectuals, and undertakes research and teaching intended to assist the realisation of the principles of social justice and public health, with a particular emphasis on health systems research, trade, and pharmaceuticals.

She trained in medicine in Scotland and became a consultant in public health. Among her previous roles she has been director of the Centre for International Public Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh and director of research & development at UCL Hospitals NHS Trust. She is the author of NHS plc and co-author of The New NHS: a guide.


If you believe in a public NHS, the new health and care bill should set off alarm bells: The government is easing the way for the privatisation of the health service – where is the opposition to their plans? »

The Tory Health & Care Bill: A Frightening Attack on Our NHS. Truth To Power

Nov 24, 2021 • The Tories’ Health and Care Bill had its first reading in parliament this week and it’s all looking pretty scary. It paves the way for the dismantling of the NHS as we know it, to be replaced by an American-style private insurance based system, allowing plenty of opportunities for self-enrichment on behalf of all those companies donating and buddying up to the current appalling, corrupt government.

If Sajid Javid is one of Ayn Rand's devotees, that tells me all I need to know about him! Enough already! Ayn Rand spent her life espousimg extreme right-wing economics and her own ideological claptrap. She had questionable morals and actually ended her days on welfare – the very thing she spent her life decrying and criticising others for doing!

Alan Greenspan, the one-time head of the Fed, was also one of Ayn Rand's devotees. That tells its own story!

BoJo and his sleazy operators need to keep their dirty mitts off our NHS. The last thing we need in this country is an American-style medical system. I know more than most Brits how that functions. My late partner was American and I looked after him both at home and in hospital for many, many months at a time. I can report that, at its best, American healthcare is excellent; however, at its worst, it is very poor indeed. And of course for those who have no means, there is no healthcare for them at all (except, perhaps, for that provided by charity)!

But even with the best of insurance, which my late partner had, it is a system set up to make profit rather than to make the patient well again. Further, when the patient has cost the insurance company too much already, doctors get instructions to pull the plug on the patient's treatment!

No! No! No! We don't need or want that appalling system here. Thank you, but no thank you! – © Mark

Go private for the treatment you need, NHS tells patients: Patients are being refused treatment, discharged too early and pushed towards private referrals, openDemocracy’s largest-ever reader survey has found »

Doctor Exposes Plan to Sell NHS to American Corporations

Oct 25, 2021 • The NHS is in imminent danger.

People in England ‘Face Three-year Waits for Dentist Appointments’

THE GUARDIAN: Damning report shows surgeries have ‘thousands’ of people on waiting lists

People are being told to wait until 2024 for dentist appointments while others are being removed from their practice lists for not making appointments sooner, according to a damning report into the state of dentistry.

Dental surgeries have reported that they have thousands of people on their waiting lists, while patients are unable to access care after ringing round numerous dental surgeries, a watchdog has warned.

Delays have resulted in the worsening of painful symptoms and in one instance even led to a patient needing hospital treatment after overdosing on painkillers, it said.

But Healthwatch England said that some people are being offered swift private care as an alternative at the same dental practice, with some patients reporting that they felt pressured to pay for their treatment.

Some practices appeared to be prioritising private care, it added. » | PA Media | Monday, May 24, 2021

All NHS and Care Staff in Wales to Get £735 One-off Bonus

WALES ONLINE: It is estimated the payment will benefit 221,945 people in Wales

NHS and social care staff are set to be given a bonus in their next pay packet to recognise their "extraordinary contribution" during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Welsh Government has confirmed that the one-off payment is equivalent to £735 per person to cover the basic rate of tax and national insurance contributions incurred. After deductions most people will receive £500.

It is estimated the payment will benefit 221,945 people in Wales including 103,600 social care staff, 90,000 NHS Wales staff, 2,345 deployed students and 26,000 primary care staff (including pharmacy, GP, dental and optometry staff). » | Mark Smith, Health correspondent | Wednesday, March 17, 2021

UK Election: Halt US Trade Talks until NHS Off Table, Corbyn Tells Johnson

THE GUARDIAN: Labour leader calls for break in talks unless pharmaceuticals excluded from negotiations

Jeremy Corbyn has urged the prime minister to break off trade talks with Donald Trump until any reference to pharmaceuticals is struck out of Washington’s negotiating objectives.

As the US president prepared to fly in on Monday evening to attend the Nato summit alongside other world leaders, Corbyn wrote to Boris Johnson to urge him to give fresh reassurances about NHS privatisation.

The Labour leader has repeatedly accused the prime minister of preparing to sell off the NHS, and Labour activists at recent rallies have taken up a chorus of “Not for sale! Not for sale!” » | Heather Stewart, Political editor | Monday, December 2, 2019

Allowing Predatory Private Insurance to Exist Is Insanity

Why should the healthcare industry allow for predatory private insurance companies to put a price on American lives?