Last chance saloon
Artists for the NHS was at the Rally to Save our NHS last night - check out the pictures above. But things are looking pretty grim - the Lords today voted to allow NHS hospitals to be able to give 49% of their beds and resources over to the private sector. Next Tuesday Labour will force a vote in the Commons with the very slim hope that Liberal Democrats will join them - and as Andy Burnham said last night this will be the last chance to stop the Bill hitting the statute books.
Hannah Sawtell ‘Transplant’
Twenty days and counting…
If Westminster rumours are to be believed there are only twenty days to go before the Government tries to ram the Health & Social Care Bill onto the statute books. And today the British Medical Association (BMA) has said that the Bill is “complex, incoherent and not fit for purpose.”
A good analysis of how treatments which are now free will gradually disappear from the NHS is here. Things will change drastically unless this Bill is stopped - something which Hannah Sawtell’s extraordinary chilling poster conveys brilliantly.
Anonymous “Attlee Cameron”
The nice chap who wants to trash the NHS
As the Daily Mirror noted, “another day, another series of disasters” for Lansley’s Bill. Calls for the Bill to be dropped continued to grow with the previously on-board Royal College of Physicians moving against the Bill. And a group of doctors set up to spearhead Lansley’s reforms have come out against the Bill saying that “the rolling restructuring of the NHS compromises our ability to focus on what really counts – improving quality of services for patients.”
But will Cameron listen to any of this? It seems unlikely. A call for a Parliamentary debate on dropping the bill on the back of the e-petition which has passed well beyond the 100,000 signatures needed to trigger such a debate, was rejected yesterday. Today’s anonymous poster is a striking image of the man who wants to trash Attlee’s government’s vision of a free, universal health service.
Tell David Cameron…
It’s another big week for the NHS Bill as a number of Liberal Democrat peers try to throw off their reputation as cheese-eating surrender-monkeys and try to amend the Bill in the House of Lords.
Meanwhile Lord Crisp, who was in charge of the NHS from 2006 to 2006 has described the Bill as a confused mess that is “unfortunately setting the NHS back.” And if support from the Daily Mail and Conservative Home wasn’t discombobulating enough here is a stirring article from Max Pemberton in the Telegraph.
And whilst we were away last week there was a lovely story about William Hague joining in a protest against NHS cuts. So here’s a poster for him to wave about by Paul Hetherington taking Claire Rayner’s final words as inspiration.
Spartacus Chetwynd ‘What’s happening to the NHS?’ (part 3)
Tom Cruise’s pants
Today’s quiz question: what is the Risk Register? Is it:
a) the 1983 American teen comedy-drama featuring Tom Cruise dancing around a living room in his underwear before sleeping with a hooker? Or,
b) a pesky study showing the myriad ways in which the NHS will implode if the Health & Social Care Bill is pushed through, and which Andrew Lansley is refusing to make public?
Let’s hope today’s debate in parliament reveals the answer! Meanwhile here’s the third poster in the series ‘What’s wrong with the NHS?’ by Spartacus Chetwynd.
Ryan Gander ‘Supa Dupa Bupa for all’
