Thread by @MerryMichaelW

THREAD.

The Government "response" to the petition "Protect the NHS, Press Pause on the White Paper for Health and Social care".

Those of you who signed this petition - if you did not, please do now - will have received an email in response this morning. To dignify it with a full-on critique would, in my view, be a mistake.

The nature of the response can be gauged by the documents they provide in support. We can, perhaps, spend some time on the ridiculous and insulting market speak - I hesitate to call it language - a little later.

First up: The NHS "Plan" - a summary:

longtermplan.nhs.uk/wp-content/upl…

Please notice this is dated 2019. Have we had a pandemic since then? I'm sure we did ...

I'm afraid that the main document is no better:

longtermplan.nhs.uk/wp-content/upl…

either in language, deposition or date.

The document is full of aspirations and wonderful visions, none of which bear any relation the the realities of your relationship with your GP or with your NHS Trust with you.

The most egregious lie comes right at the top:

"1. Doing things differently: we will give people more control over their own health and the care
they receive, encourage more collaboration between GPs, their teams and community
services,

as ‘primary care networks’, to increase the services they can provide jointly, and
increase the focus on NHS organisations working with their local partners, as ‘Integrated Care
Systems’, to plan and deliver services which meet the needs of their communities."

You will be aware by now, that there is zero democratic input into any NHS Trust, and any involvement of local councillors in an ICS will be - not might be, will be - overshadowed by corruption.

I am in contact with my local trust, who have invited me to get involved.

I will not, because, without election, my voice carries no weight.

The sort of person who wrote this document, then proceeds:

"5. Getting the most out of taxpayers’ investment in the NHS: we will continue working with doctors and other health professionals to identify ways to reduce duplication in how clinical services are delivered,

make better use of the NHS’ combined buying power to get commonly used products for cheaper, and reduce spend on administration."

Firstly, we are not talking about bloody "taxpayers' money". #MMT

It is PUBLIC MONEY, administered by the wretched Government.

Secondly, since there is zero local involvement in any Trust or ICS - every single job is bought in - and no political input on a local level, it is clear that all planning will be done on an ad hoc basis, which brings us to:

"4. Making better use of data and digital technology: we will provide more convenient access to services and health information for patients,

with the new NHS App as a digital ‘front door’, better access to digital tools and patient records for staff, and improvements to the planning and delivery of services based on the analysis of patient and population data."

"Convenient" for whom? Hint: it won't be the patient.

Now we can return to the original email.

"Although this Bill captures learnings from the response to the pandemic and makes permanent(!) some of the innovations we have seen in the system,

it is also the result of long and careful consideration and engagement with NHS workers that precedes the pandemic."

It is not. As we constantly seen, doctors' and experts' advice is routinely ignored.

"The introduction of the Bill at this time, to allow the system to make progress with integrating care in a way that will be crucial to the recovery from the pandemic,

was supported by stakeholders including the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the NHS Confederation and NHS Providers."

@TheBMA Any comment to this? Are you on board with this Bill? We would like to know?

"This Bill builds on the work of existing ICSs by establishing new NHS bodies known as Integrated Care Boards alongside Integrated Care Partnerships in each local system area.

Together they will empower local health and care leaders to join up planning and provision of services, both within the NHS and with local authorities, and help deliver more person-centred and preventative care."

This is all grade A level bullshit.

"Local authorities will have clearly defined roles within the structures of both Integrated Care Boards and Integrated Care Partnerships.

This will reinforce the role of local authorities’ as system leaders and will give local government a greater voice in NHS decision making than ever before."

This is a flat-out lie. Local authorities will be sucked dry of more funding, to mitigate the waste that these systems generate, to provide profits for the eventual shareholders in the ICSs.

Oh, yes.

"Integrated Care Boards will be public bodies and will be driven by health outcomes."

They will not. There is no-one elected on them.

As for the second part ... are you ALREADY paying for your "elective" surgery? I thought so.

Enough for now, I am suffering palpitations. What a blatant con. There are a lot of medical people who have actively colluded in all this shit.