Dennis Benson

Despite the mild weather the football fans amongst our allotment gang seemed slightly uneasy this morning. On the one hand they all want their team to succeed but the price of doing so has just risen to ludicrous levels. Torres was deemed to be worth three times the amount that the coalition wish to save by selling off our forests and even a new boy on the block from Newcastle is apparently worth twice the saving. Express those amounts in policemen or nurses and you have the final proof that our society has lost all sense of values. Of course the money is being provided by cash-rich tycoons from abroad but it still leaves a nasty taste. No doubt the seemingly benevolent will hike up admission charges again for next season, so the fans will ultimately pay if they still have jobs to provide the readies.

Who knows, we may be heading for foreign ownership of the NHS once the overseas speculators tire of playing with Premiership football clubs. If the prestigious Lancet is to be believed the NHS is heading for an inglorious end so anything is possible. The Lancet is THE organ of the medical profession and is not given to hyperbole. It’s editorial is therefore worrying in the extreme. It predicts the end of the NHS and goes on to say that “for the Tories to call themselves the party of the NHS was a commitment that seems particularly hollow now”.

Yesterday the results of a survey carried out by the Royal College of General Practitioners were published. 1800 GPs took part and a clear majority said they were concerned the reforms would not improve patient care. Chair of the College, Clare Gerada, said that GPs are worried about the pace at which the reforms are being implemented, the danger of fragmentation of services, and the great emphasis on competition. She added “GPs fear that these reforms could cause irreparable and irreversible damage to the NHS”.

Having been involved as a Chair of both a Primary Care Trust and an acute hospiotal I had already realised that to make such drastic changes at the same time as imposing cuts of £20 billion will inevitably lead to chaos. Yesterday I learned that the government’s bill incredibly includes a payment from the NHS budget to private sector providers. For each billion contracted out, the NHS must pay a ‘subsidy’ of £140 million. The logic here escapes me, it is a further blatant example of the Cameron/Lansley determination to privatise services.

As I have commented before this will lead to cherry picking with the NHS hospitals left to provide acute services from a limited number of hospitals.Expect whiolesale closures, expect postcode medicine the like of which we have never seen before, expect waiting times to double, expect already overworked GPs to simply delegate commissioning back to the PCTs wearing a different hat.

Perhaps the most telling judgement of all came yesterday from a member of the health select committee, Andrew George. Mr George is a leading Lib Dem MP. He told the BBC that “most of the informed and authoritative commentators on this all agree this may result in a race to the bottom, and it certainly will. And I think it will compromise quality of treatment too”

Can everyone, including members of the coaltion, be so wrong. I think not. David Cameron remarked that even his brother-in-law (a doctor ) is apprehensive. We should all be, for on the rare occasions when the Lancet has taken up a position, it has always been proved right.

When every member of  a family is in good health it is easy to laugh at the antics of someone like Andrew Lansley. But to current users the man is a walking nightmare. We should perhaps remember that there will inevitably be a time when the whole family is not well!. By then it may be too late and right now we have to decide whether we trust the professionals or Cameron/Lansley. Easy choice really isn’t it?

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THOUGHTS FOR TODAY;  ” A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle”…Florynce Kennedy   ” Ask a woman how she feels and she will tell you all about every relationship she’s ever been in. Ask a man and he’ll tell you he feels like a pizza”….Diana Ford    ” A man has to be Adolph Hitler to be called ruthless. All a woman has to do is put you on hold”….Marlo Thomas   ” Feminism is a wonderful idea – until the car goes wrong”..Nicola Zweig   ” The Woman’s Movement would be a lot more successful if men were running it”……. Alan Clark   “In Newcastle being gay means ’owns a coat’ “….Jimmy Carr   “Do men who like to dress up as women find that they can no longer parallel park?”…Roseanne      “Its better to be black than gay because when you’re black you don’t have to tell your mother”….Charles Pierce   “Most women are attracted to the simple things in life. Like men”….Sophia Loren   ” Remember if you smoke after sex, you’re doing it too fast”….Woody Allen   ” My wife and I were happy for twenty years, and then we met”….Rodney Dangerfield

ANSWERS TO YESTERDAY’S QUIZ;   1.Michael Crawford   2.  Last of the Summer Wine

TODAY’S QUESTIONS;  1. Where was Gough Whitlam once prime minister?  2. What organisation did the Rev ‘Tubby’ Clayton (died in 1972) found?

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