Urgent - Amendment to Save the Health Secretary's Duty to Provide Healthcare

Please read this post by Jonathon Tomlinson on the proposed amendments being put before the House of Lords on the duty of the health secretary to provide healthcare. Then email your adopted lord and tell them. And don't give up now; it only takes an email for goodness sake, five minutes out of voting on X Factor or complaining about your Blackberry crashing. Do it.

All is Not Lost?

I was directed towards this letter in the Guardian written by Shirley Williams. Perhaps the Lords are planning to mug Andrew Lansley over tea and scones after all.

Perhaps all is not lost.

Study Used to Promote HSCB is Flawed, Says Allyson Pollock

Do take time to check out this analysis of the Zack Cooper paper, 'Does Hospital Competition Save Lives?' by Allyson Pollock et al. This was the study used to promote the Health and Social Care Bill with regard to 'choice'. Allyson Pollock concludes that it was flawed. You can reach the paper via the Scottish Health Campaigns Network's website here.

Best Comment on the HSCB?

"I think that the NHS is in need of reform, and to achieve this cost saving reform, we need to employ an army of consultants and buisness advisers, and create three extra layers of management, so that the blue sky thinking can take place without the interference of the people who are treating patients. And we all want a knighthood when we leave in 5 years having separated the root from the branch."

See here for more comments on theWestminster bridge block today.