Our precious NHS: 3 little myths and a REALLY BIG FACT

Myth 1: 

“Let me draw a little contrast between what the Health Secretary is delivering here – real-terms increases in health spending...” David Cameron

Myth 2: 

“Too often, the decisions of frontline doctors and nurses are over-ridden by a top-down system which doesn’t allow professionals the freedom they need.......

Myth 3: 

.........this is the reason that despite spending the European average on health, some of the outcomes are poor in comparison. For example, someone in this country is twice as likely to die from a heart attack as someone in France,” David Cameron

First of all the little FACTS -

FACT 1

According to the Office of Budget Responsibility, by the end of March 2012, inflation will have risen by a cumulative 10% since the Con Dem Government came to power.  Over the same period, NHS spending in England will have risen from £103bn to £105.9bn – that’s a 2.8% increase, a fall in real terms of 7.2%.

FACT 2

A few professionals don’t completely agree with you Dave.....The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) have voted 99 percent in favour of a no confidence motion against the government health reforms – the first time a motion has been carried against a minister in more than 30 years.

A BMA press release on 6^th April stated..... we believe the Bill as it is currently written is taking the NHS in England in the wrong direction.

FACT 3

According to the OECD health indicators 2009, current figures back the common hypothesis that different levels of deaths from heart attacks between countries are explained by underlying risk factors such as diet and lifestyle. 

A year 2000 article in The Lancet has confirmed that, [The lower coronary mortality figures in France compared with other countries] is a consequence of different ways of coding coronary mor­tality.

But you know, you could spend a lifetime's bank holidays challenging the inaccuracies and misinformation pumped out by the government about the NHS - and that's just what they want: argue about the details - miss the big picture.  

1 BIG FACT
“The [Government's Health] Bill relieves the Health Secretary of his existing responsibility for providing a universal and comprehensive health service, and doesn’t allocate it to anyone else.

It leaves it up to unaccountable local GPs grouped in Consortia to decide what services their particular patients will be entitled to, and what they will have to pay for, and how much, and this can vary from one consortium to another – goodbye both comprehensiveness and universality.

It leaves an unaccountable healthcare market regulator (Monitor) to decide what private companies can offer NHS patients, and whether they can underbid NHS hospitals on price, and it mandates Monitor to promote competition –
goodbye free care at the point of delivery.”
 Colin Leys Cameron's rhetoric is wearing thin

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