Leaked NHS Jobs Cut Plan A Sick Joke

A leaked NHS jobs cut report has spread around the media like a rash. The government has been quick to put the patient out of its misery. NHS life is safe in their hands. But patients are getting in the way of political posturing.

The dear old NHS would need to slash its workforce by nearly 140,000 to achieve planned £20 billion savings by 2014, according to the consultants report, leaked to the Health Service Journal (HSJ).

Repeating the tired old argument, this would mean the NHS losing 10 per cent of its workforce. The hard-hitting McKinsey report makes clear cuts would hit front-line staff as well as administrators, coupled with a recruitment freeze and slashing medical school places.

Politically, the report fall-out has something for everyone. There's a nasty government drawing up secret plans to slash spending and jobs in the sacred cow and blowing out of the water claims the NHS is safe in their hands.

But on the other hand, the government has stamped on it in a full media maelstrom without a by-your-leave, to show a caring side. You pays your taxes and takes your choice in the "free" NHS.

There's something fishy about the whole thing. Government health minister, Mike O'Brien, was quick to jump on the caring bandwagon saying ministers have rejected the shocking proposals. Well, at least until after the election.

But the HSJ points out that although the department of health said the report was “purely advice and does not constitute government policy”, it bears the department’s logo and has been shared in secret among senior NHS managers.

The much-repeated mantra of willy-nilly jobs cuts is not the answer to NHS savings or a cure all for the NHS.

There is however an enormous amount of waste and some jobs should go to deliver better patient and medical care. But that should not detract from front-line services.

A start could be made on ridiculously well-paid management, the vast army of administrators, the billions of pounds squandered on a useless NHS computer, the millions wasted on useless public health campaigns - and the millions of pounds spent on IT and management consultants.

The Orange Party is starting to feel quite queasy. Health secretary Andy Burnham should come clean. Just how much cash was thrown at consultants to produce a report which comes up with the bleedin' obvious and the same old answers? And all that for ministers to reject the political hot potato out of hand and say they're busy doing nothing.

The NHS has lost its way and lost sight of its original remit. Once a byword for "free" medical care for all at the point of delivery, billions of pounds are now squandered on top-heavy bureaucratic management and inefficient over-arching structures.

Cash which should be going into medical and patent care is being used to prop up and massage the egos of government ministers and quango cronies playing politics with the NHS and people's lives.

The general election season has opened with bang. The NHS is a key battleground for the high ground but not the only one.

New Labour's dreadful record on jobs, education and the handling of the Afghan War will pop up to take centre stage in the battle for hearts and minds and votes, as a poll in today's Sun reveals.

And there's still nine months tops to go before long-suffering voters have the chance to put the final nail in the coffin of a discredited fag-end government.

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Hospitals' Dirty Secrets Uncovered

The dirty underbelly lurking beneath New Labour's shiny new temples to the NHS has been laid bare in a shocking indictment of patient care riddled with Third World filth and neglect.

The NHS may well be "world-class" when it comes to treatment but when it comes to standards of care, it's down there with the dross.

An urgent review of basic hospital care is being demanded by a leading patient lobby group after a major report exposed "appalling" NHS standards.

Relatives told the Patients Association how patients, often the elderly, were left lying in faeces and urine and were not helped to eat.

The horrifying report focused on 16 harrowing accounts of basic nursing and domiciliary care which the association says are just a tip of the iceberg. 2% of patients surveyed felt that their care was unacceptable.

Government-blessed nursing bosses and quango kids were quick on the defensive, arguing the NHS treats millions of people every day and the vast majority of patients experience "good quality, safe and effective care".

Never mind the vast majority - what about the silent minority? The proportions still represent hundreds of thousands of patients. Even two per cent is too many.

The hospital standards watchdog reckons its surveys show just 93% of patients rate their overall care as 'good or excellent'. So that means 7% are not happy with the service.

Every patient deserved to be treated with dignity. But relatives told of problems getting help from nurses and how patients were left with sandwiches or drinks in packaging which they could not open.

Treatment at the hands of some nurses was tantamount to cruelty.

Grave lapses in standards of care were highlighted earlier this year at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust which families described as "Third World" conditions, with some patients drinking water from vases and lying for hours in soiled bedding.

That kind of appalling treatment could be found across the NHS.

The group's president, ex-nurse Claire Rayner, called for "bad, cruel nurses" to be struck off. Fat chance.

Using the tired old excuse, nursing bureaucrats have repeated the bullsh*t mantra that the report may undermine public confidence in the "world-class" (sic) care and dampen staff morale.

The Orange Party is sure where the blame lies and it is not at the feet of the nursing profession.

Hospitals are bogged down with a management structure obsessed with targets and obsessed with making ends meet to pay for the legacy of a PFI build.

Something has to give and that's patient care, cleaning and the basic standard of care one would expect from the NHS.

Politicians were quick to fall over themselves professing their undying love for the dear old NHS as it was dragged into the US healthcare civil war. At a stroke that stifled the need for a proper debate over the future of the NHS and health care. The NHS has lost its way.

Once a byword for "free" medical care for all at the point of delivery, billions of pounds are now squandered on useless PR health puffs. Cash which should be going into patent care is being used to prop up and massage the egos of government ministers and quango cronies playing politics with the NHS and people's lives.

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Barbour Brown Is A Happy Bunny

Barbour Brown is having a field day hiding away while his enemies make silly season fools of themselves. And battered Brown didn't have to lift a nail-bitten finger. From haggard to happy, no wonder the relaxed Supreme Leader is looking so smug.

A couple of wet weeks in Windermere, wherever, was just what the spin doctor ordered. Beleaguered Brown badly needed a holiday - though the Orange Party has always suggested a very, very long one.

Last year's disastrous spot of summer modelling for the Matalan Man catalogue is just a distant memory. Now it's born again Barbour man on staycation with a trusty old waxed jacked, comfy jumpy, cuddly tum and an infuriating smug look on his face.

Sandra Parsons over at the Mail nails it in one: "What a lovely holiday Gordon Brown is having ... The picture of him ... revealed a man utterly at ease with himself and the world."

Someone has fired the starting gun for the general election campaign while the Dear Leader was squirrelled safely out of harm's way. Maybe that's all part of the plan and a sign of things to come?

But Gordon is lovin' it. Sworn enemies and sworn at rivals are dropping like flies.

What pleasure watching wannabe PM, Sister Hattie, getting up everyone's nose banging on about women's things. Right in the middle of measuring up the curtains, Hattie was quickly frog-marched out of Downing Street, to make way for unelected Malicious Mandy magically transformed into Pussycat Peter.

But getting caught out lording it up with his uber-rich pals on a sunbed in the Med, is not the way to run a country and PM was forced to promise he won't make a bid for PM. That won't stop powerful Pierre pulling the strings. Bunkered Brown still needs to watch his back.

The greatest gift was yet to come, with some fancy media Mandy footwork to plug the political gaps during the silly season.

Dunky Duncan's daft video had been gathering dust for months. Dave needed Dunky's rations whinge like a hole in the head.

But cross-patch Cameron stopped short of dumping Dunky despite grassroots Tories calling for his silver-haired head.

Gloating Gordon couldn't believe his luck when Dave had to deal with yet another Tory stepping out of line and up to firing line - this time NHS Hannan, sucked into an unhealthy US civil war and joining in the national sport of slagging off the sacred cow of the NHS.

As Gordon and Sarah, twittered truly, madly, deeply about their love of the good old days, Dave was not far behind, turning any proper debate about healthcare into an NHS slagging match to the refrain of Anything You Can Love, I Can Love Better.

In the battle of the two Andys, likeable Lansley beat boring Burnham hands down. But it says a lot about the new People's 'Progressive' Party when Dave only doles out a slap on the wrist for Dunky's put down of the poor, while desperate Dan's NHS outburst gets him tarred as a "traitor".

The Orange Party believes Cameron has had it all far too easy. In the cut and thrust of day to day politics all he's had to do was sit back and watch the fag-end government tear itself apart and deluded Brown and his bunch of tired old cronies suffocate on their own spin.

Revenge was a dish best served cold in a posh B&B in the Lakes. But it's not all plain sailing.

Sorry to spoil the holiday fun but unlike the crazy world of Gordon Brown, no Tory is calling for Cameron's head and there's the laborious September Party conference leaving party to get through. Goodness knows what cunning plans the Supreme Leaders-in-waiting and their hangers-on are hatching.

There's a real world out there full of hardship, misery and fed-up real people. There's a whole media for the Unelected One to feed and keep on side and some serious spinning to be done.

Barbour Brown should enjoy his holiday while he can.

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Smug Grins And Spins Fool No-One

Beaming Brown thinks he's on a winner playing the 'Tory cuts' card, lifting the gloom on his recession depression. But times have changed. The savvy public have seen through the sham. Never smile at a Crocodile. No-one is taken in by the great big grin. He's just imagining how well you fit within his skin.

With perfect timing, news on the economic 'recovery' front came at just the right moment for bullet-ridden Brown. What a co-incidence.

Prayers were answered in the shape of a think-tank report that the economy bottomed in March and has started to grow again.

So that's it. Time to come out of the Bunker with a large dose of "I told you so" to all the doubting Darlings? Time for a smug grin at September's Labour Party conference? Now Things Can Only Get Better - but only if you stick with Brown sauce.

Er, not quite. It all depends on where you are standing, according to The Times business editor, David Wighton.

The claim from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) was remarkably clear. The economy hit rock bottom in March. Growth is tiny, 0.2 per cent in April and 0.1 per cent in May but enough for its boss to declare: "The recession is over".

But even if the claims are accurate, it means the country is coming out of recession months before chancellor Darling predicted. No wonder Brownballs wanted rid of him.

Downing Street is pretending not to get too excited but behind scenes they must be rubbing their grubby little hands all the way to the ballot box. Or so they think.

Of course the recession depression will bottom out sometime. It cannot keep going through the floor. With billions of pounds borrowed and using the cute trick of printing even more money, it was bound to come to an end some day.

But the legacy of monumental debt piling up will still be there for generations to come. The economy may well grow but it will be darn slow. Unemployment will continue to rise.

Economic recovery may be V-shaped, U-shaped, W-shaped or pear-shaped. No-one knows and no-one can predict the unpredictable.

Back in the real world, unemployment is going through the roof, hard-pressed families are struggling to make ends meet and pay off their own mountain of debt. What little there was left of UK manufacturing has taken such a severe hit, it's impossible to predict when or even if it will ever fully recover.

Signs of improvement sure. The FTSE 100 rallied and sterling gained against the dollar. The City cats can start to make a fortune again. But if something looks too good to be true it probably means it is.

Look beyond this bottom and the country has still a long way to go. What is clear is the tired old mantras of "downturns" and "cuts" are still being trotted out and voters are frankly fed up to the back teeth with them. How times have changed.

'Tory cuts' was soo 2001. Painting New Labour as the Party of bountiful investment battling to keep out the nasty cost-cutting Tories cuts no ice anymore.

Once again it is the Sun wot captures the mood of the country as it sets about capturing votes for the Tories: "Where is the disgrace in making cuts? Who really believes some services WON'T need cutting to pay back the monstrous debts we are running up to beat recession?

Whoever is in charge there will be cuts and they will be deep. The legacy of Brown's smoke and mirrors accounting won't just evaporate. Who is to blame for that bloomin' Boom and Bust is not something voters will forget in a hurry.

Cameron had a hard job explaining away his shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley's revelation that Tories are planning 10 per cent cuts to public spending if they win the next election. But the Lansley "gaffe" line didn't last long. Now Brown's Burnham is in a pickle over NHS 'cuts' policy as he tied himself in knots.

It is all there in black and white in deluded Brown’s own treasury figures. The budget sets out plans for a seven per cent cut. But play the "Tory cuts" line they will ad infinitum ad nauseam. It's the only deceitful line they have left in a depleted armoury of spin.

The struggling Supreme Leader will play his last roll of the dice for all its worth. He was right while everyone else, including his own chancellor and Saint Vince, got it wrong. Who needs democracy and parliament when he's the only one to save the world?

But beleaguered Brown is forgetting vengeful voters. In case they need any reminding and it's doubtful they do, a little dose of reality from the wonderful world of retro Disney won't go amiss:

Never smile at a crocodile

No, you can't get friendly with a crocodile

Don't be taken in by his welcome grin

He's imagining how well you'd fit within his skin

Mid Picture: New Labour campaign poster 2001

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'Dark And Dangerous' Hospital PFI Con-Trick

Wheels are falling off New Labour's disgraceful con-trick with doctors warning hospitals built using the PFI scam will put a drain on the NHS for years to come. Faced with crippling debts and cash going straight into the pockets of big business, it's time to pull the plug on the shameful shiny temples to New Labour.

The British Medical Association is warning of 'dark and dangerous times ahead' as a whole generation is set to be left with a £50 billion building bill going straight into private pockets. The NHS is struggling to pay back the bill for its hospitals which are worth only one-fifth of the amount they cost to build.

Millions of pounds are being squandered on a vast army of hospital managers and private PFI consultants spawned with the sole purpose of trying to balance the books and plot the next PFI debacle. Front line services and patient care are left playing second fiddle to the obsession. The NHS could save around £350m a year just by cutting back on the management parasites.

But the disgraceful con-trick is being played out right under the noses of the long-suffering patient and public. Private firms design, build and finance more than 100 PFI hospitals, while the NHS is left to repay the costs plus crippling interest for decades.

Using public money to prop up these shabby deals is a ludicrous waste. Patient care is being forced to take a back-seat to the process of the PFI schemes. Hospital managers spend more time struggling for ways to pay off the debt and put in new bids, leaving patients and front line services to suffer.

The smoke and mirrors con-trick of PFI schemes has been pursued with fanatical zeal and obsession by the government. A crafty way was found of building its shamed legacy on the back of the magic trick without the spending appearing on the public balance sheet.

Hospitals, schools, colleges are the tip of the iceberg. College building projects too are on hold because of the PFI funding fiasco. The list is endless. A neat trick was found to fool the public into a false sense of security during the boom years when credit and the living was easy.

Just borrow the cash to pump into PFI schemes. Private firms and the government were onto a winner. Now it's pay-back time as the chickens come home to roost and the country is saddled with the huge debt of government folly.

The BMA is warning repayments could cripple the NHS at a time when the budget is set to be squeezed to pay for the years of borrowing.

Using public money to support private firms in this way doesn't make sense. Repayments will be a drain on resources that could be going on patient care. Private firms are struggling to get funding from banks because of the depression recession.

Hospital building projects could put NHS finances in serious peril in the coming years, warn doctors as they urge ministers to pull the plug on new projects.

Trotting out the tired old treasury spin that PFI hospital schemes are "value for money" is an expensive joke. Arguing that PFI projects are put through a rigourous testing process to make sure they hold their own in a private market doesn't hold up to close scrutiny.

PFI schemes simply use a crafty 'value for money' weighting to make sure they come out on top in the 'value for money' stakes.

Some 20 or so new hospitals are now in the pipeline as the government is set to use public funds to prop up the private firms so they can push ahead and make an obscene profit without a thought for the future or the patients.

But why should the government care? The shiny New Labour temples will be left as a legacy long after the fag-end government has bitten the dust, leaving behind a legacy of debt for generations to come and an NHS up to its ears in debt to pay for the scam.

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Lethal Legacy Haunts Ministers

A lethal legacy of misguided failures is coming back to haunt New Labour ministers, yet these hapless hypocrites hide behind a shield of accountability, blaming everyone but themselves. Shuffling up and saying sorry to parliament just isn't good enough.

Last week it was a damning report into the scandal of Baby P, this week an equally damning report from health watchdogs on needless deaths at a Staffordshire hospital. 

The arrogant response to both from ministers was to say 'sorry'. Burying their heads in the sand, sweeping it under the carpet, forgetting about the pain, suffering and deaths.

Both Brown and his health secretary, Alan Johnson, were quick to say sorry to parliament today. But not for the sorry state of their misguided and useless policies in the NHS which has left 400 dead. 

Brown apologised for the appalling failings at what has been branded a 'Third World' hospital. Johnson waded in and apologised for the "pain and anguish" caused.

But both steadfastly refused to own up to their  failures and mistakes. 

The deluded prime minister rejected suggestions NHS targets had contributed to the problems, instead blaming it all on "low standards of management."

But the damning report from health watchdogs exposed a bunch of health chiefs obsessed with form-filling and targets, while squirrelling away millions of pounds which could have been spent on helping patients. 

As with the Baby P scandal, when children's secretary, Ed Balls, refused to shoulder any of the blame, ministers can play the blame game and pass the buck on to someone else. 

Yet it is the obsession with form-filling, targets and a hospital more bothered about saving cash for a trust status bid than spending taxpayers' money on patient care, which is at the heart of the problem.

Tuesday's healthcare commission report revealed deficiencies at "virtually every stage" of emergency care and managers pursued targets to the detriment of patient care.

And NHS watchdogs said Staffordshire Hospital put the bid for foundation status ahead of patient care and up to 400 people died needlessly.

The report cited low staffing levels, inadequate nursing, lack of equipment, lack of leadership, poor training and ineffective systems for identifying when things went wrong.

But it's that pursuit of targets and a form-filling culture which are at the heart and that's down to government policy.

Targets and the application for foundation trust status are no excuse for neglecting responsibility to patients' safety but clearly they were.

The catalogue of failings identified by the report is a horrifying indictment of the way targets are placing financial goals ahead of the patient.

Once gain this exposes the target driven culture, where ministers and managers are obsessed with the process rather than the outcome. 

A management process of hospital or child protection administration, rather than putting the patient or the child as the number one priority. 

A process where, if everything looks good on paper, then it must be all right. Where managers spend all their time putting the final touches to some ludicrous trust status bid imposed on them by the very government which now hides away from any responsibility.

Arguing the toss over the rights or wrongs of Blairite New Labour policies and vision is one thing. Letting that get in the way of reality, when people suffer and die as a direct result of those miserable ideals, is a shocking indictment of a blind discredited vision which should be confined to the scrap heap, before any more pointless deaths. 

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Join Cuba's Free IT Revolution

Saving cash and breaking Microsoft's stranglehold are not government priorities but it could take a leaf out of Cuba's book, as the country gets to grips with the IT revolution, with plans to run computers on Gates-free, free software. 

In what smacks of a fresh salvo in a new Cold War, the island is following Russia's lead and moving away from Microsoft operating systems with its own take on the free, open source Linux-based system.

Here the government is paying lip-service to open source, vowing to boost its uptake in public services to reduce costs but with little evidence of action. A government 'action plan' is due to be published later this month.

The government's love affair with hugely expensive and utterly useless government IT projects is now beyond a joke, as gullible ministers continue to be taken in by the flannel of slick salesman, who promise the earth and deliver nothing. 

Today the biggest white elephant and biggest IT disaster, the £12.7 billion NHS computer shambles took a further knock, with one hospital trust claiming it's been forced to pump in £10m to prop up the useless system, causing the now all too familiar "heartache and hard work". 

As the NHS's Connecting for Health (CfH) computer system, dogged by problems and more than five years behind schedule, comes crashing down around the government's ears, beavering away in the background is the dominance of Microsoft in government departments and public bodies particularly schools, in return for a whopping licensing fee. 

Microsoft has a clear marketing aim to put its software in every computer in the world and who can blame them? But just because Bill Gates is big buddies with government doesn't mean ministers have to roll over and write a blank cheque with taxpayers cash. 

Computer sales to the public in Cuba only began only last year and the move is all part of a plan for "technological sovereignty".

The country this week launched its own variant of the Linux operating system in the latest fight against what it views as US hegemony.

According to Hector Rodriguez, dean of the School of Free Software at Cuba's University of Information Sciences, about 20 per cent of computers in Cuba, are currently using Linux. 

"I would like to think that in five years our country will have more than 50 per cent migrated to Linux," he said.

In Cuba it makes sense. The long-standing US trade embargo against the communist island makes it difficult for Cubans to get Microsoft software legally, as Castro's kid brother Raul tries to bring the country into the 20th century. 

But the movement towards free, open source operating systems and software has dedicated supporters throughout the world. 

Moving away from Microsoft is not pie in the sky. It's happening already in the new breed of Netbooks now on sale in the High Street. It makes sound economic sense as any issues over compatibility can be easily fixed. 

Rodriguez said free software better suits Cuba's world view: "The free software movement is closer to the ideology of the Cuban people, above all for the independence and sovereignty."

Now that's a tad controversial coming from a left-wing dictatorship but anything that's free and puts the brakes on Microsoft's plans for world domination is worth a serious look. 

Hasta La Victoria Siempre. 

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Why Alan Is Banging The Drum For Dave

Hide-away health secretary, Alan Johnson, has been opening his heart to a Sunday newspaper with Confessions Of An Ex-Postman and banging the drum for Tory leader, David Cameron. But why is this beaming working class hero singing Dave's praises? 

On the surface it seems the new Downing Street strategy is, if you can't beat them join them, as Johnson told the Sunday Times: “Cameron’s likeable ... He’s articulate ... He’s a nice guy ... I am sure he is genuine about the NHS,” before laying into Dave with a "killer hug". 

The Orange Party reckons there's a simpler motive at work here. Johnson is hedging his bets and saving his own skin. 

Johnson is MP for Hull West and Hessle, where angry construction workers travelled across to Immingham for the 'British Jobs' refinery strike. He's worried about his voter base, as time and again these solid Labour supporters feel betrayed by Brown and the government. 

Tellingly and ominously, international financial analyst Bloomberg reported to the world this choice quote from a Hull construction worker recently:

“They’ve sold us down the river,” said Charles Hilton, 61, an electrician from Hull in northern England who was out on strike yesterday with local oil-refinery workers. “We’re going to see civil unrest in this country. It’s already started. It will grow unless things are sorted."

Hilton, who calls himself a traditional Labour voter, said he’ll back David Cameron’s opposition Conservative Party in the next election.

As a former postman and union official, Johnson knows too well the mood of the workers. He's biding his time for when the Blairite elite finally get the boot. 

Meanwhile wandering around this whole New Labour thing with a bemused smile, Johnson is contenting himself with yet another meaningless and misleading campaign on obesity. After all, fat is still a political issue and if there's a bandwagon to jump on, let it roll.  

There's clearly something in the water in Hull, as Johnson joins another Hull MP, born again class-warrior and new blogging whizz kid, John Prescott, with outspoken attacks on the greedy bosses and fat cat bonuses.

But Johnson is in danger of disappearing up his own low public profile, happy to let Darzi take the knife to the NHS and as the wasteful disgrace of the £12.7 billion NHS computer comes crashing down around the government's ears. 

Ministers are steadfastly squandering billions of pounds of taxpayers cash on the useless NHS white-elephant, already more than five years behind schedule. 

The Tories already have that NHS Connecting for Health computer firmly in their sights as a prime example of rotten government waste and incompetence. No amount of sucking up to Dave will get the minister ultimately responsible off the hook. 

Nevertheless the Orange Party believes Johnson is one of the very few New Labour ministers who come anywhere close to being a solid, decent bloke. That boy will go far. 

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