Filed under: Health
The ‘debate’ about education and in particular grammar schools is apparently ‘pointless’ – even though there isn’t much else in the Sunday papers to talk about and even though this subject affects the majority of parents across the country – all of whom no doubt have strong views on what is and is not going on in our education system today.
That said I found one story today on yet another fundamental bread and butter issue which warrant’s a mention – our health service.
The Mail on Sunday reports that Labour’s policy of bringing back matrons to hospitals is in disarray due to, surprise, surprise the lack of money in the NHS or to put it bluntly cash-strapped NHS trusts across the country cannot afford to pay them. So where matron does exist she will be made redundant as the Trust cannot afford her any longer.
Firstly, it was news to me that Labour even had a ‘robust’ approach to bringing back matron, apparently this was part of their drive to reduced MRSA – another failure. Secondly and no surprises here, where the hell has all the money gone in the NHS? With the countless number of ‘managers’ being employed to ‘run’ local NHS Trusts, it seems to me that some of them need to go back to school to learn the basics around adding up and balancing the books. Now who says that the ‘debate’ about how we educate in this country is ‘pointless’.
Filed under: Health
For all the funding received by the NHS today we hear of yet another fear that the NHS will not be able to afford the next generation of cancer drugs. Cancer is a disease which increasingly seems to touch more and more people’s lives, either through friends or family and yet when it comes to treatment it is still somewhat of a lottery. Many readers will recall the dreadful saga over Herceptin the breast cancer drug which only after campaigners fought a high profile battle finally won NICE backing to be made available on the NHS. Other, more recent drugs such as Tarceva, which can extend the life of lung cancer patients, have failed to receive the NICE seal of approval which means that patients have no other choice but to privately pay for this drug. As a country we urgently need to address how the NHS plans to accommodate newer drugs into its health care system and pay for them so no patient is denied the life-saving treatments they need.
