What we need is a national social care service | Anne Perkins

Neil Kinnock was on the radio at the weekend, talking about his hero Aneurin Bevan with the journalist Matthew Parris and one of Bevan’s biographers, John Campbell. Any conversation about Bevan’s life is mostly about the NHS and so it was this time, too. But it was a useful reminder of how, among all the battles fought over its creation, among the fiercest was the question of replacing a patchwork of local provision with a single centralised structure that tried to guarantee that everyone got the same level of care wherever they lived. At that the point the radical, big-government approach petered out. Social care was left where it always had been, with local councils.

Now the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has published a study looking at the difference in social care provision across England that raises the question of whether it too should be centrally funded. After all, whether it’s soaring demand for A&E or delayed discharge from hospital, the impact of inadequate or ill-designed social care services on the overall state of the health service has become the stuff of daily headlines.

Then there is the ageing population. Although we are all healthier in old age, the need for care doesn’t track changing demography exactly: men’s life expectancy is growing faster than women’s, so there are more old couples looking after each other rather than relying on formal care.

George Osborne’s response to the incipient social crisis was to set in motion plans to shift the entire cost of locally incurred spending to local taxes, with a system of equalisation that has yet to be explained. He introduced a social care precept allowing an increase of up to 2% in council tax to be spent on social care.

Since the amount councils can raise through council tax depends on their tax base, these changes are – as the IFS points out – hitting poorer councils much harder than well-off ones, even though in theory, the introduction of national criteria for eligibility for paid-for social care should mean a reasonably equitable approach. The IFS study found that cuts in social care were much steeper in metropolitan areas such as Greater Manchester, Tyneside and Greater Birmingham, which typically have significantly higher levels of need, than in the south of England (although that may be partly because there are more older people in the south).

But the distinction between what we pay for and what we expect wider society to support is more than just a matter of an arbitrary geographical divide. We are so familiar with it that we rarely ponder the palpable inequity between providing free care for, say, a cancer patient, regardless of their wealth, while charging someone with dementia who also has some modest assets.

Councils argue that keeping older people well is about much more than care homes and clearing hospital beds

Because social care is provided locally, the national focus is always on the NHS. So although last month’s budget made another £2bn available for social care, it is being delivered in a way that ties it in to supporting the kind of services that will ease pressure on the NHS. Councils rightly argue that keeping older people well is about much more than care homes and providing a bed clearance service for their local hospitals. It’s about wellbeing in the widest sense of the word, and the NHS’s provision of community services like stroke rehabilitation also have a significant role to play.

In some ways, NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens’ sustainability and transformation plans with their objective of integrating health and social care in ways that meet local priorities are an attempt to synthesise the national with the local. Yet there is such an inbuilt conflict between a free-at-the-point-of-use NHS and means-tested social care that it is hard to see how they can continue to coexist.

It comes at a high cost to patients. When hospitals are in effect incentivised to shovel the old lady who’s had a fall out of bed and off their books pronto (I exaggerate, a little), leaving her local authority to pick up the bill for getting her back on her feet, it seems the two arms of care that ought to be wrapped protectively around her are instead locked in a standoff. It is more arm-wrestling than hand-holding.

The government now promises (another) green paper on paying for social care in the autumn. But successive plans, each of which points to more central government funding, have crashed and burned on the runway. Oh, for a Bevan (and a Clement Attlee) with the courage and determination to sort it out.

Anne Perkins is a leader writer

What we need is a national social care service | Anne Perkins

National Intelligence Council Report Describes the Final Solution for “Fake News”

Trends or revolutions can be unexpected. Even with total information awareness. The best laid plans often go astray. Take “fake news” for example. A report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on January 9, 2017 highlights one of the greatest trends and unexpected consequences of the information age. Produced over the last four years by the National Intelligence Council the report titled Global Trends Assessment: Paradox of Progress chronicles current and emerging trends in the geopolitics, military affairs, and technology. The only paradox is that the globalist’s progress has taken an unexpected turn.

Coming in at 235 pages it is bristling with themes on a dystopic future from malevolent AI to out of control geoengineering and break away civilizations. Not kidding. Echoing other globalist white papers with three future dystopian scenarios or a combination of them.

All with the same solution for “fake news“. Just like the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2017 with it’s calls to “smooth the information flow” and this report that questions “democratic ideals like free speech and the market place of ideas“.  Direct quotes!  These documents released at the end of the Obama Administration represent the capstone in globalist thinking about the problem of “fake news“.

In the chapter Trends Transforming the Global Landscape there is a section titled Converging Trends Will Transform  Power and Politics. This word product puts in stark terms how the internet has empowered individuals and alternative media to influence opinion and spread information on a global scale as never before. It offers only one solution at the end of the chapter to the problem of “fake news” that has broken the monopolies. Can you guess what that is?

Technology and wealth are empowering individuals and small groups to act in ways that states historically monopolized—and fundamentally altering established patterns of governance and conflict

The ICT revolution placed in the hands of individuals and small groups the information and the ability to exert worldwide influence—making their actions, interests, and values more consequential than ever before.    GTA p26

When the internet was introduced to the public it had already been in use for years by the military as ARPANET. Developed by the forerunners to DARPA this technology was given to the public for many reasons. One of the major reasons was to “close the loop” and get real time data on what populations are saying, thinking and doing. This allows for increasingly accurate prediction of future trends and how to influence them by introducing strategic stimuli at certain points along the way. Before this governments and corporations did not have instant and reliable methods of gauging the public mood and how they were reacting to social engineering and advertising. Total information awareness is now making the globalists totally aware that people around the world are fed up with them. Now the script has been flipped and the people are making up their own minds.

The information environment is fragmenting publics and their countless perceived realities— undermining shared understandings of world events that once facilitated international cooperation. It is also prompting some to question democratic ideals like free speech and the “market place of ideas“.  GTA p26

Undermining the “shared understanding” provided by complete corporate control of  almost all media that made globalization possible. Leading “some” to question democratic ideals like free speech and the marketplace of ideas. Wow. It doesn’t take a technocrat to figure out who the “some” are. The sky is falling and the information environment is fragmented because the globalists cannot compete in the market place of ideas. So shut it down. Competition is a sin.

 When combined with a growing distrust of formal institutions and the proliferation, polarization, and commercialization of traditional and social media outlets, some academics and political observers describe our current era as one of “post-truth” or “post-factual” politics    GTA p26

Growing distrust of formal institutions is putting it mildly. Trust in government and mainstream media are at historic lows since data began to be compiled by surveys. Once again that mysterious “some” pops up again. A little more specific this time identified as academics and political observers. Blaming citizens of the world for speaking their mind and finding facts that answer legitimate questions. Free speech is at fault is this “post truth” era with it’s “post-factual” politics muddying the waters so globalist programs cannot continue unopposed. These same nebulous academics and political observers identified in the document that question free speech and democratic ideals know that they have a fight on their hands.

The power of individuals and groups to block outcomes will be much easier to wield than the constructive power of forging new policies and alignments or implementing solutions to shared challenges, especially when the credibility of authority and information is in question.    GTA p27

Questioning authority is the very bedrock of free speech and democracy. Freedom will get in the way of forging new globalist policies and international alignments. Implementing globalist solutions to manufactured challenges is difficult when being continually exposed by a fair and open press. This is considered “post-factual” politics.

So what does one do when confronted with this dangerous freedom where people decide what to think for themselves? What would be the solution for those who question democratic ideals like free speech and the market place of ideas?

For authoritarian-minded leaders and regimes, the impulse to coerce and manipulate information—as well as the technical means to do so—will increase.   GTA p27

Almost laughable if it were not so dark in it’s prescription for a final solution to “fake news” and echoed in countless other recent globalist white papers.

Visit RaptormanReports for news, science, and history.

Sources:

https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/224-press-releases-2017/1467-national-intelligence-council-releases-global-trends-report

https://www.dni.gov/index.php/global-trends/trends-transforming-the-global-landscape

https://www.dni.gov/index.php/global-trends/letter-nic-chairman

Easier to read pdf at https://info.publicintelligence.net/ODNI-NIC-ParadoxProgress.pdf

 

National Intelligence Council Report Describes the Final Solution for “Fake News”

Binge drinking turning NHS into "national hangover service", says chief

The NHS is being transformed into the “national hangover service” as binge drinking diverts vital resources, the head of the health service in England said. Simon Stevens condemned “selfish” partygoers in a stark warning as the nation gears up for one of the most alcohol-steeped nights of the year.

The chief executive of NHS England added that the health service was already facing considerable strain from the annual spike in winter emergencies.

Millions of revellers are expected to pack bars, pubs and clubs across the UK to celebrate the arrival of 2017 on Saturday night. Figures from the health service show that admissions for alcohol-related incidents rocket on the first day of the new year.

Stevens told the Daily Telegraph: “At a time of year when hospitals are always under pressure, caring for a spike in winter emergencies, it’s really selfish to get so blotto that you end up in an ambulance or A&E. More than a third of A&E attendances at peak times are caused by drunkenness. Casualty nurses and doctors are understandably frustrated about the NHS being used as a national hangover service.

“In our towns and cities this Christmas and new year, the paramedic called to a drunk partygoer passed out on the pavement is an ambulance crew obviously not then available for a genuine medical emergency.”

Binge drinking turning NHS into "national hangover service", says chief

Act on children"s mental ill health or risk national crisis, warns expert

The UK should brace itself for a “tsunami” of adults with mental health problems unless urgent action is taken to help today’s children, according to one of the leading experts in the field.

Prof Dame Sue Bailey, chair of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, says the government needs to spend heavily now on mental health services for children if a crisis is to be averted.

“I describe mental health services as a car crash waiting to happen,” Bailey said. “The government is starting to do the right thing, NHS England is pulling the money through, but there are so many factors mitigating against it succeeding that it needs a financial fuel injection, right now.”

Ahead of this week’s Conservative party conference, when the prime minister is expected to identify improving mental health as a key priority, Bailey, chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and a former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said baby boomers like her needed to do more to help young people, not just for their children’s sake but for themselves.

“We’d see immediate benefits, a better transition from primary to secondary school, a better transition of children into the world of work; they’d be more robust, more resilient.”

She suggested that her generation owed it to those that followed.

“The pressures on young people today are very different. We do know there has been a record number of phone calls to ChildLine from children with suicidal thoughts; that 55% of headteachers are reporting large number of pupils with anxiety and distress; and that rates of admissions for self-harm are at a five-year high. I think part of trying to convince both government and my generation [to invest in mental health services] comes from understanding that actually we did have it relatively well. This is one generation being asked to think about … the needs of the younger generation.”

Last week an inquiry found that more women aged between 16 and 24 were experiencing mental health problems than ever before. One in four had harmed themselves, according to the government-funded Adult Psychiatric Morbidity survey. The number who screened positive for post-traumatic stress disorder was found to have trebled from 4.2% in 2007 to 12.6% in 2014.

Many of the problems identified by the inquiry were attributed to pressures that had arisen in childhood.

Prof Dame Sue Bailey says her generation should support the needs of the next. Photograph: Anna Gordon

“If there was more money going into schools to help children self-support around mental health problems, it would have an amazing payoff,” Bailey said. “You’d get better attainment for all children, not just the brightest, and fewer disruptive pupils. I think we’ve got a generation who feel that they are having their freedoms and opportunities taken away from them. This does require a substantive injection of funding into child mental health, for the voluntary sector, schools, community projects.

She said that supporting a mentally sustainable future generation was in her own interests because one day she would be “frail and elderly with incontinence, dementia” and would need people to care for her.

“Is this just another set of bleeding-heart special pleaders? No, it’s the thing to do if we want a sustainable society that can help young people support themselves. We need to listen to them more about what their problems are, with all the risks that surround them, such as all [those] that come out of social media.”

Last week the government announced that it was allocating an extra £25m to clinical commissioning groups across England to accelerate plans for improving mental health services for children and young people. It said the money would help to cut waiting times for treatment, reduce backlogs and minimise the length of stay for those in in-patient care.

But Bailey said the cash would still mean that, by 2021, “instead of one in four children being seen by child and adolescent mental health services through referral, it will be down to one in three”.

“We have to welcome what the last two parliaments have done, which is to recognise mental health and give it parity [alongside physical health] but we need to make a complete leap with extra funding. If we don’t, we are going to have a tsunami of children with mental health problems being taken into adulthood who are less able to cope in families and in employment.”

She acknowledged that mental health had always been vulnerable to budget cuts. “[With] austerity, things going wrong, mental health problems rise and it’s easy for money to go into other things. As a coalition, we’re monitoring that.”

• In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Helplines in other countries can be found here
  

Act on children"s mental ill health or risk national crisis, warns expert

Lib Dems will turn NHS into National Health and Care Service, says Farron

Tim Farron will tell the Liberal Democrat conference that the party would rebrand the NHS to include a fully taxpayer-funded care service, warning that governments must be honest about raising taxes to ease the healthcare crisis.

In his leader’s speech in Brighton on Tuesday, Farron will say the party needs to be honest about the costs of making social care fully government-funded.

“If the only way to fund a health service that meets the needs of everyone is to raise taxes, Liberal Democrats will raise taxes,” he will say, promising to campaign to transform the NHS into the National Health and Care Service.

“For years, politicians have chosen to paper over the cracks rather than come clean about what it will really take – what it will really cost – not just to keep the NHS afloat but to give people the care and the treatment that they deserve.

“If the great Liberal William Beveridge [1879-1963] had written his blueprint today, when people are living to the ages they are now, there is no doubt he would have proposed a National Health and Care Service.”

The party insists it believes there is enough affection for the NHS for British people to feel positive about paying more taxes, not normally seen as an election-winning strategy.

The Lib Dem leader will talk about his own grandfather’s Alzheimer’s disease, saying the first home he was put in was “despicable”.

“I’ve seen enough terrible old people’s homes,” he will say. “It’s not civilised to let people slip through the net. It’s not civilised towards the people who love those people, who go out of their way to try and make their lives easier when everything else is making their lives harder. It’s not civilised and it’s not good enough.”

Earlier in the week Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb told the conference the government should consider moulding national insurance into a ringfenced NHS and social care tax, to make it easier to increase the amount paid with public support.

An expert panel – which the party will call its Beveridge commission – will report back to the party in six months on the costs, but Lamb suggested the tax could mean an increase of a “an extra penny in the pound”.

Farron will say the Lib Dems “will not join the ranks of those politicians who are too scared of losing votes to face up to what really needs to be done”.

“We will go to the British people with the results of our Beveridge commission and we will offer a new deal for health and social care, honest about the cost, bold about the solution.”

Earlier on Monday, Lamb announced cross-party support for a commission into the NHS funding crisis, backed by Labour MP and former leadership contender Liz Kendall, and Tory MP Dan Poulter, a former gynaecologist.

Speaking to the Lib Dem conference in Brighton, Kendall said it would be politically difficult to dedicate a new tax to the NHS. “It’s very tough for anybody in any party to say any tax should go up,” she said.

“That’s the reality, however passionately we might think this is the right solution, but certainly when Labour was in government and we did the penny on NI [national insurance] for the NHS, it was a semi-hypothecation to say it’s going to go on this specifically. It’s an important option.”

Lib Dems will turn NHS into National Health and Care Service, says Farron

"Moonshot" cancer panel calls for US to create national research database

Top US cancer scientists have urged the Obama administration to create a national cancer database for clinicians and patients as part of a slew of recommendations presented on Wednesday by the White House-supported cancer “moonshot” panel.

Vice-president Joe Biden assembled the scientists as part of the administration’s effort to make the US the country that cures cancer “once and for all”.

The Cancer Moonshot Blue Ribbon Panel report said the recommendations, if implemented, “will transform our understanding of cancer and result in new opportunities to more effectively prevent and treat the disease”.

The ten recommendations include existing programs that need more funding – such as research to update guidelines for patient symptom control – and brand new initiatives including a human tumor database to monitor and analyze multi-dimensional cell behavior.

The panel also called for the creation of a network of databases for patients to profile their cancers and pre-register for clinical trials; the organization of a cancer immunotherapy clinical trial network; and the study and development of therapies that prevent or overcome drug resistance.

The panel also recommended initiatives to improve the understanding of a protein tied to pediatric cancers; increase monitoring and management of symptom care and treatment; support development of new testing and treatment technologies; and improve prevention and early detection.

But the funding necessary to fulfill these recommendations has not been approved by Congress despite lobbying by the Obama administration, which said it hoped to spend $ 1bn on the program.

“Congress should seize this historic opportunity – when researchers are on the brink of so many new and potentially life-saving developments in diagnostic tests and treatments – to boost funding for the NIH [National Institutes of Health] and NCI [National Cancer Institute],” said Gary Reedy, CEO of the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the not-for-profit organization’s action network, ACS CAN, in a statement.

The ACS said in January that it expects 1.6m new cancer cases to be diagnosed in 2016, the equivalent of about 4,600 new diagnoses each day.

Barack Obama announced that he had tasked Biden with leading the moonshot program in his final State of the Union address in January. The program aims to accomplish “a decade’s worth of cancer research progress in five years”.

It is a personal effort for Biden, whose son, Joseph “Beau” Biden III, died from brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46. Last year, Biden helped secure a $ 264m increase in federal funding to the National Cancer Institute in the spending bill.

The panel report is a major step in that direction, and will be presented to the National Cancer Advisory Board on Wednesday, where it is expected to be formally accepted.

To determine the recommendations, the country’s top cancer scientists were divided into seven working groups to focus on elements like immunology and clinical trials. More than 1,600 ideas and comments were also submitted by the public.

Along with the recommendations, the panel also listed policy issues that needed to be addressed so that the recommendations could be efficiently implemented, including laws around patient privacy, the clinical trial system and insurance coverage.

Biden and Obama have acknowledged that it is unlikely cancer will be cured in the next five years, but they have said the moonshot program could create unprecedented strides in the fight against the disease.

“The key for us now is to put a lot more money into research,” Obama said in January. “If we do, I think we’re going to see some really big breakthroughs soon.”

"Moonshot" cancer panel calls for US to create national research database

From long jump to rowing: Britons take part in national sports day

Hundreds of thousands of people across the UK have been taking part in sports events after clubs and sports centres opened their doors for free to celebrate Team GB’s Olympic success.

About 2,600 free sporting events were being held, involving up to 60 Olympians, while ITV switched off all seven of its channels for an hour at 9.30am to encourage people to get involved.

The national sports day, called I Am Team GB, aimed to rally the British public to get active, and follows a mixed legacy from London 2012, when sports participation slumped despite GB climbing the medal table.

The Olympian Greg Rutherford opened his back garden, complete with long jump, to young people in Woburn Sands, near Milton Keynes. “It’s an interesting concept, come to my back garden and jump into the pit that I train on for the world championships, Olympics and everything else,” he said.

The long jump has a 52 metre runway and a 9 metre pit for children from the local athletics club to try out.

“For me, it’s just very important for kids to be getting involved. We live in a day and age now where there’s so many different distractions; there’s so many different things youngsters can do. When I was growing up, we didn’t have a computer in the house until I was 13 or 14. Nowadays kids learn to walk and they can play on an iPad. When I was younger I was getting out climbing trees and being active.”

Max Whitlock ‘switches off’ ITV. Photograph: ITV/PA

At London’s Copper Box arena, which was used to host the London 2012 Games, people were trying out activities, from handball to belly dancing, alongside the double gold medallist and gymnast Max Whitlock.

Nicole Sherapin, from Stratford, took her two children to the event. “I watched the Olympics every time it was on. It’s great that Team GB came second in the medal table, so when I saw this on the TV this morning I thought I’d bring the kids here because they’re really into sport and it’s something fun to do with it being the school holidays. They’ve tried the bikes, badminton, table tennis. I want my youngest to have a go at handball because it’s an alternative to football.”

In Reading, the Olympic rowing champion Helen Glover was offering advice to people who wanted to try out the sport. “There’ll be some challenges on the rowing machine. I think we’ll try to get some boats out if anyone wants to have a go at rowing. It’s really good that we’re challenging ideas and trying new things, it’s the first time ever a TV channel has been switched off to encourage people to leave the house and I think it’s amazing.”

She added that although she may give out some tips on the secrets of becoming an Olympic success, the event was about encouraging newcomers to have some fun. “I won’t be talking, unless people ask specifically, about how to be the next big thing, it will be about how to enjoy it and what sport to try.”

I Am Team GB is organised by the national lottery, ITV, UK Sport and the British Olympic Association.

Adam Chataway, the marketing manager at Camelot, said he expected hundreds of thousands of people to take part. “The Olympics has obviously caught the imagination of the nation and what we really wanted to do was bottle that and use the excitement of the Olympians returning to their communities to get out there, get active and give people the encouragement to get involved and give sport a go.”

From long jump to rowing: Britons take part in national sports day

Local difficulties in the cash-strapped National Health Service | Letters

I pity the civil servants in the Department of Health who are forced to give platitudinous responses to the press (Leak reveals doubts over ‘seven-day NHS’, 23 August). In 2012 the then secretary of state for health, Andrew Lansley, fought tooth and nail (using taxpayers money) to hide the risk assessment done before the disastrous health and social care bill, despite intervention by the information commissioner. There, the “worst case scenario” has occurred after the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Civil servants are right to be worried that there is not enough money or sufficient trained staff available to carry out the policy, as there is insufficient money to run the NHS as it exists, providing a five-day elective (planned) and seven-day emergency service.

The lack of detailed planning of the proposed service is analogous to the way the Cameron government approached the EU referendum. What the NHS needs is more money to deal with rising demand, which could easily be found by scrapping the wasteful tendering processes which have resulted in almost £20bn of contracts going to the private sector since 2013, reviewing PFI debts costing over £2bn per year, reducing expenditure on the CQC, which has become unwieldy but arguably has failed to prevent hospital disasters, and reducing the six-figure salaries that too many top managers are now paid. Private contracts are expensive and have not yielded the promised innovation or improved services.
Wendy Savage
President, Keep Our NHS Public

• Most people will agree that the NHS is the jewel in the crown of British life and prized by almost everyone. David Nicholson wrote on his retirement as chief executive of the NHS, “It is built into what it is to be British” (Sunday Times, 2 March 2014).

Yet it is “threadbare, scrappy, perilously understaffed and barely held together by legions of nurses, doctors and allied health professionals” (These leaks show Hunt’s deception on the seven-day NHS, 23 August).

As a retired NHS physician and former independent MP, I talk to many people about the NHS and, without exception, they would willingly accept an increase in income tax, if it was hypothecated to the NHS, and if all measures for increasing efficiency and economy within the NHS had been adopted.

Would the Guardian consider carrying out a survey of its readers to assess the support for such a measure to rescue our beloved NHS?
Richard T Taylor
Kidderminster, Worcestershire

• You report that NHS England expects local doctors, hospitals and councils to work together in each of 44 “footprint” areas for the “first time on shared plans” (Revealed: plans to fight NHS deficit, 26 August). We recall how, in a 1968 green paper, health minister Kenneth Robinson proposed just such area health boards, to meet his paramount requirement that all the different kinds of care and treatment should be readily available to the individual citizen. We, who were involved in the preparation and promotion of those novel ideas in 1968, can but hope that our successors will get past the green stage.
Dora Pease and Tim Nodder
Ministry of Health long-term study group 1967-74

• Save Our Hospitals: Hammersmith and Charing Cross has been campaigning for more than four years against the downgrading of hospitals in north-west London, where we have already lost two A&Es, with dire effects on other A&Es in the area, and where two further major acute hospitals, Charing Cross and Ealing, are to be downgraded to as yet undefined local hospitals. As you note, these hospitals will be little more than glorified urgent care centres (Councils reject plans to ‘transform’ NHS, 26 August).

Already all hospitals in NW London are working at full capacity, failing to meet A&E targets, and with accelerated population growth in NW London, out-of-hospital care is even less likely to meet the health needs of our local population.

For four years we have been asking the local health authorities for the evidence that the proposed out-of-hospital provision can replace acute in-hospital care. For four years we have been promised this evidence. And for four years we have been presented with no evidence that suggests the changes can work.

It has become increasingly clear that financial considerations are driving the plans for this new top-down restructuring of the NHS. The outcome will be even greater privatisation of the NHS.

That two council leaders have been prepared to stand up to the NHS bullies and reject this attack on local health provision and local democracy is admirable. We know that the leaders of Hammersmith & Fulham and Ealing councils have the support of the local population as well as local campaign groups.
Merril Hammer
Chair, SOH: Hammersmith & Charing Cross

• Among your articles on the “sustainability and transformation plan” for the NHS, you mentioned the current efforts to remodel healthcare in North, West and East Cumbria. My local community hospital is threatened with removal of all inpatient beds. Alston Moor is a sparsely populated area of high moorland with four of the five roads leading over high passes; all are slow, frequently impassable in winter. The nearest hospitals are 20 miles from Alston, another five miles for some parts of Alston Moor; the nearest main hospital is over 30 miles away, in Carlisle. There is no meaningful public transport; even by car, it takes 40 minutes to the smaller hospitals, an hour to Carlisle.

If there are no inpatient beds, there will be no nurses. If there are no nurses, there will be no nurse-led minor injuries unit, and all will have to get to A&E in Carlisle. Without the hospital, our GP surgery is not viable (the relatively low returns of GP services for a mere 2,000 people are supplemented by the hospital work).

What family will want to live here with children if there are no medical services? Without children, our schools are doomed. What older person will want to live here knowing that their dying days will be spent in a hospital far from family and friends? What carer will cope with the burden of their task with no respite care?

How can it be OK to destroy a community? First they came for the small rural communities and I did not speak out because I did not live in a small rural community…
Alice Bondi
Alston, Cumbria

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

Local difficulties in the cash-strapped National Health Service | Letters

How Sweet It Would Be: National Law Would Tax the Stacks Of Sugar In Soda

If you want to see anything really scary, go to the website Sugar Stacks and seem at the pyramids of sugar cubes stacked up subsequent to soda containers. That twelve-ounce can of Coke (now seen as a little serving) has 10 sugar cubes subsequent to it. The 20-ounce Mountain Dew has 19-and-a-half. And the 64-ounce Double Gulp Coke offered at 7-Eleven has 45—45!—cubes of sugar piled alongside it. That is how a lot of cubes or teaspoons of sugar a person consumes every single time they drink one of these sodas.

America has a sugar addiction issue that rivals our addiction to cigarettes a generation ago and it is fueled by the very same types of marketing and advertising campaigns once (and, in some ways, nonetheless) employed by tobacco companies. Soda consumption is a significant purpose why:

• Virtually 26 million Americans, eight.three percent of the population, have diabetes, in accordance to the American Diabetes Association American Diabetes Association.


• 79 million grownups, 35 % of the grownup population, have prediabetes.


• Obesity in the U.S. has risen from about 15 % of the population to about 35 percent more than the past forty many years.


• The estimated cost of weight problems-connected medical care is $ 190 billion a yr.

Photo: Sugarstacks.com

Photo: Sugarstacks.com

Comparable measures have been positioned on the ballot in numerous cities and localities and so far each has been defeated, buried in a barrage of campaign paying funded by the soda market. The SWEET Act will encounter the exact same opposition and has little possibility of passage in today’s congress. Nevertheless it is vital that such efforts be experimented with, that the pot get stirred, that we get started to set off a sustained nationwide conversation about the damage that soda marketing and advertising and consumption is carrying out to our country’s health.

The proposed bill is well thought by means of. Due to the fact the tax is primarily based on the quantity of added sugar—not beverage volume—it goes soon after the real enemy: sugar and the calories that go with it. It also generates an incentive for individuals to switch to drinks that have less sugar.

Far more importantly, probably, the bill also dedicates the income generated from the tax to the Prevention and Public Overall health Fund to support “programs and study created to lessen the human and financial expenses of diabetes, obesity, dental caries and other diet-associated overall health problems.” Based mostly on today’s consumption patterns, the Center for Science in the Public Interest estimates it would raise about $ 10 billion a yr that could fund overall health and schooling programs—like the enormously effective anti-smoking media campaigns that have assisted slash the quantity of smokers in the U.S.

That implies far more individuals all around the country could do what Jaquoby Tyler, now 20, has been undertaking for the last many years. Tyler is portion of a group of young individuals working with Neighborhood Partnership for Youth in Seaside, California, to advertise wholesome living in their neighborhood. He and his pals go into classrooms to speak about health with other youngsters and show them the stacks of sugar cubes they eat with each soda.

“We asked them: ‘Would you eat this much sugar by itself?’” Jaquoby informed me. “They stated no. They weren’t mindful of some of the poor results that consuming that considerably sugar can have like diabetes, heart illness, obesity.”

Opponents will criticize the DeLauro bill as nanny-state overreach and make the argument, primarily based on a couple of modest studies, that soda-tax increases haven’t carried out considerably to alter consumption patterns or obesity costs. But these scientific studies have looked at locations that imposed considerably smaller sized tax levies and that didn’t target the revenues at efforts to reduce consumption. That could be essential. A poll performed by the Area organization for the California Endowment and launched early this year showed that two-thirds of Californians supported a soda tax if the proceeds had been utilised to fund school nutrition and bodily exercise efforts.

An intriguing check will come in November when each San Francisco and Berkeley voters will vote on measures to impose soda taxes of one cent per ounce in Berkeley and two cents an ounce in San Francisco. Berkeley’s measure will direct the funds to the standard fund and call for simple bulk approval. San Francisco’s will reserve the proceeds for health-promotion efforts, which could boost its appeal, but will need to have to get support from two-thirds of voters.

In Mexico, a peso-per-liter tax on soda that started at the starting of 2014 has led to declining sales of sugary drinks, with Coca-Cola Coca-Cola and other beverage businesses reporting product sales declines of two % to three percent for the 1st half of the year. The proceeds of the tax are being targeted at rising entry to fresh water, specially in schools.

Fidel Cortes, who shines footwear in Mexico City, told Bloomberg Bloomberg News in March that he’s consuming fewer sodas because the price climbed. “Before I at times had three Cokes a day, now I’m down to 1 or two,” he said. “It’s simply because the price tag went up.”

Mexico imposed a similar tax on calorie-dense junk food final yr, when it passed the soda tax, and just this month place into spot regulations that will maintain advertisements for soda and junk meals from appearing on afternoon and weekend television packages and ahead of children’s movies in theaters. If Mexico—which consumes far more soda per man or woman than any other nation in the world and has among the highest charges of obesity and diabetes—can regulate marketing, tax soda and use the proceeds to advertise health, why not the U.S.?

Just as early proposals to limit smoking have been dismissed and belittled only to turn into law when public attitudes altered, I think the American people and our political leaders will come to understand how vital it is to limit the consumption of sugary drinks. My colleague at Prevention Institute, Larry Cohen, saw individuals alterations initial-hand as a leader in the battle towards smoking. He helped organize the 1st multi-city no-smoking laws in the nation, shifting the debate in the method. “Soda and sugary drinks are the new tobacco and the fight to minimize their advertising and consumption is the subsequent fantastic public well being battle,” he says.

How Sweet It Would Be: National Law Would Tax the Stacks Of Sugar In Soda

Lawrence Dallaglio manufacturers NHS cancer treatment a "national disgrace"

Former England rugby captain Lawrence Dallaglio has written to the wellness secretary, Jeremy Hunt, describing NHS England as a “national disgrace” for going back on a deal to fund cutting-edge cancer therapy, it was reported.

Dallaglio accused the overall health service of “turning the clock back” on the way the illness is currently being treated by not paying for patients to have stereotactic radiotherapy.

The sports star turned charity campaigner, whose mom Eileen died of cancer in 2008, was asked to function with NHS England on the problem following previously approaching David Cameron with his concerns that not enough individuals had access to the treatment method.

The method includes targeting radiotherapy very exactly at the tumour, that means that higher doses of radiation can be delivered with significantly less threat of it affecting surrounding organs, but the quantity of individuals getting supplied it has fallen by a lot more than ten% since NHS England took handle, the Sunday Occasions reported.

In Dallaglio’s letter, components of which are published in the paper, he accused NHS England of “going back on its word”.

He advised Hunt: “The way NHS England are approaching this is turning the clock back on the way we’re treating cancer. We’re not just standing still and undertaking nothing, we’re turning the clock back. It angers me.”

He stated the engineering that “the rest of the civilised planet uses as a matter of regimen” would be employed by only “pitiful numbers”, without having a assure they would even commence becoming treated in the subsequent economic 12 months.

Dallaglio has raised hundreds of thousands of lbs for charity because launching the Dallaglio Basis following his mother’s death.

Lawrence Dallaglio manufacturers NHS cancer treatment a "national disgrace"

Failure to protect women from FGM is "ongoing national scandal", MPs say

As portion of the petition towards FGM, Fahma Mohamed and fellow campaigners gather to meet Michael Gove earlier this 12 months. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/The Guardian

The failure of successive governments to protect vulnerable girls from female genital mutilation is an “ongoing national scandal”, according to a report by MPs published on Thursday.

The cross-celebration Commons property affairs decide on committee calls for schools to get rid of funding if their headteachers do not read through advice issued earlier this yr following a Guardian campaign.

Soon after hearing from victims, wellness and social employees, police and attorneys the MPs also explained there was a situation for emulating the French model by checking up regularly on at-danger youngsters,but they stopped quick of endorsing necessary gynaecological checks. It is estimated that 24,000 girls under the age of 15 are at danger of female genital mutilation in the United kingdom.

Keith Vaz, the committee’s Labour chairman, said victims had been badly let down. “FGM is an ongoing national scandal which is probably to have resulted in the preventable mutilation of thousands of ladies to whom the state owed a duty of care,” he said.

“Successive governments, politicians, the police, well being, education and social care sectors need to all share responsibility for the failure in recent many years to react adequately to the developing prevalence of FGM in the United kingdom.”

The MPs welcomed the determination taken by the education secretary, Michael Gove, to publish to all schools in England and Wales warning them of the dangers of FGM, following a Guardian-backed petition attracted more than 230,000 signatures this 12 months.

Even so, the committee members mentioned the Division for Training had to do a lot more to make sure teachers had been informed and need to send the guidance out once again.

The report stated: “To guarantee that the guidance has been looked at, the Division for Education should link the receipt of a proportion of school funding that relates to social training and youngster safety to the electronic notification that the guidance has been viewed.

“We further advocate that headteachers and little one safety officers, where they have not presently done so, undergo compulsory safeguarding education which specifically bargains with FGM.” The MPs also say:

• Any little one seen as becoming at danger of female genital mutilation must have that view regularly recorded in the child’s individual wellness record. Safety orders need to be introduced for individuals at danger…, as well as provisions to make certain women living in the Uk but with no British passports do not slip through the net.

• Much better solutions are essential for survivors, which includes refuges for ladies at danger of female genital mutilation.

• Failure to report female genital mutilation ought to be produced a criminal offence if reporting of the practice does not improve in the subsequent 12 months.

Keir Starmer, the former director of public prosecutions, mentioned the report was a considerable milestone for the campaign to end FGM. “The proposals are far-reaching and will want to be worked by means of, but the recognition that all companies have a duty for FGM prevention and reporting is considerable. Even though prosecutions right after the occasion send a quite crucial message, schooling and instruction to avert FGM in the first location is greater.”

Starmer extra that even though proposals to support victims better, such as anonymity, have been welcome “in the end, the greatest prospect of success in enforcing the law lies with proactive policing and intelligence-led instances”.

Campaigners largely welcomed the pick committee report but voiced aggravation with a lack of some specifics. Lisa Zimmermann, of Integrate Bristol, welcomed the proposal to make training of teachers compulsory. “We are thrilled by the report, education is definitely crucial in placing a quit to FGM – we just hope that the government now acts on these suggestions,” she said.

Efua Dorkenoo, director of the Finish FGM campaign at Equality Now and a long-time campaigner, stated the report was “extremely good” but could have gone additional.”To have the endorsement of the house affairs committee on this is really important and it is the most significant acknowledgement of the issue we have had so far from parliament,” she mentioned. “I would have liked for them to make the failure of pros to report FGM a crime, because there is nevertheless resistance between some specialists – the government wants to make the decision for them.”

Sarah McCulloch, who runs the grassroots anti-FGM charity ACCMUK, said: “The report is wonderful but for me it has failed to give recommendations as to what experts need to do or make the government supply funding for neighborhood groups to tackle the practice on the ground.”

Dr Peter Carter, standard secretary of the Royal School of Nursing, said the RCN was currently in the procedure of updating its personal guidance on FGM. “The report correctly identifies the need for education, advice and assistance to help health care workers talk about this issue with sufferers, determine these who are at chance of FGM, and get proper action,” he mentioned. “It is essential that this momentum is stored up, with improved coaching and help for employees, enhanced awareness, and prosecutions, to send the message that FGM has no place in the United kingdom, or any other society.”

Failure to protect women from FGM is "ongoing national scandal", MPs say

Nice calls for national database for weight-loss programmes

Lifestyle weight management programmes focus on reducing calories consumed and increasing physical activity. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

A national database for lifestyle weight management programmes that have achieved positive long-term results should be set up to help combat the obesity epidemic, government advisers have said.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) said participants in such programmes – which focus on reducing calories consumed and increasing physical activity – lose 3% of their body weight on average, which if sustained would be enough to lower the risk of type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

Carol Weir, guidance developer for Nice and head of service for nutrition and dietetics at Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “Obviously, if you need to lose weight, the more weight you lose the better, and the health benefits derive from that, but even a 3% loss, kept up long-term, is beneficial and that is why we are recommending sensible changes that can be sustained lifelong.”

The NHS recommends that obese people should aim to lose between 5% and 10% of their weight, and Nice emphasised that it was not replacing that guidance. But it said people needed encouragement and achievable goals.

It found that Rosemary Conley, Slimming World and Weight Watchers had been shown to be effective at 12 to 18 months, and said lifestyle weight management programmes were “one part of the solution”, but robust data was not available for many of them.

Gill Fine, chair of the Nice guidance group, said: “The issue is the variation in the types of programme available, and this is a real challenge for local authorities who have limited resources available when commissioning programmes. If there was a central resource that local providers could go in and see those programmes which are effective, it would help them to commission.”

The group has also published guidelines on best practice for programmes, including ensuring the tone and content of all communications.

Dr Alison Tedstone, chief nutritionist at Public Health England, said: “Elements of PHE’s work to support effective commissioning are already contributing to delivering some of the recommendations that Nice has developed. PHE is currently developing its future obesity work plan, which includes supporting local public health teams to deliver lifestyle and weight management services that meet local needs.”

Richard Welbourn, president of the British Obesity and Metabolic Surgery Society, welcomed the Nice guidance but stressed the benefits of surgical interventions. “The fact remains that significant weight loss is hard to achieve and even harder to sustain, even with the help of health professionals,” he said. “We promote the safe and effective use of surgical strategies as part of a coordinated pathway of care for people who are obese. There is compelling evidence that weight-loss surgery is clinically effective, safe and cost-effective.”

Nice is reviewing its guidance on bariatric surgery, which it currently recommends for adults with a body mass index of more than 40 who have tried but failed to lose weight using non-surgical techniques. The revised guidance is due to be published in November.

Nice calls for national database for weight-loss programmes

Why we require to have a national conversation about dying

Hundreds of thousands of Britons never make adequate strategies for their death and will not know their loved ones’ wishes. Photograph: George Doyle/Getty Images

Every minute, a person in Britain dies. But for numerous men and women, talking about dying and dealing with up to their very own mortality stays anything to be delayed for as extended as possible, or ignored altogether.

Even though dying is one of life’s couple of certainties, the reality is that the vast majority of folks still shun important conversations and practical actions to manage their finish-of-existence wishes and last affairs.

As new ComRes analysis, published to coincide with Dying Matters Awareness Week (twelve-18 May), exhibits, millions of Britons are failing to make sufficient ideas for their death and do not know the wishes of their loved ones.

Speaking about dying isn’t going to come effortless to a lot of of us: the ComRes figures display that 83% of the public feel folks in Britain are unpleasant about discussing dying and far more than half of men and women (51%) with a spouse say they are unaware of their finish-of-daily life wishes.

This reluctance to talk about dying has led to a lack of preparedness for death: just 36% of British adults say they have written a will, only close to a third have registered as an organ donor, just 29% have allow a person know their funeral wishes and a mere six% have written down their wishes or preferences about their potential care, must they be unable to make selections themselves. Men and women usually consider there’s lots of time to get their affairs in purchase, but the sad actuality is that frequently there is not.

It is not just the public who are failing to talk about dying, but medical doctors as well. In spite of quite welcome progress in recent years, not least as a consequence of concerted efforts to help GPs to speak with patients approaching the end of their lives about dying, one particular in 4 GPs still report never ever getting initiated a discussion with a patient about their end-of-life wishes. This is in spite of the fact that about twenty of a GP’s sufferers will die each and every year.

As a practising GP, I know that discussing dying with sufferers is hardly ever effortless, but it can make a actual difference by helping to make certain they get the appropriate care and support and have time to make their wishes recognized.

Physicians are qualified to remedy, but as individuals dwell longer with prolonged-term problems, the healthcare occupation needs to change how it operates with dying patients. With 90% of the public agreeing that all healthcare professionals ought to obtain compulsory instruction in how to talk sensitively to people who are dying and their families, we basically can’t afford to be complacent. In quick, we need to have to modify our technique to how we speak about dying, and how we care for men and women approaching the end of their lives. Doctors have a crucial function to play, not least in assisting to help people to be cared for and die in which they want to, which for most people is in their own house.

There have been some recent appalling incidents of bad finish of lifestyle care which includes in hospital, and it is understandable that these might discourage individuals from considering their very own death – but suitable preparing and an comprehending of the choices available is crucial and can play a important role in how dying men and women are cared for and supported.

To aid all of us become far more comfortable in facing up to our personal mortality and that of those close to us, what we require now is a national conversation about dying – anything Baroness Neuberger powerfully named for in last year’s independent overview into the Liverpool care pathway.

It truly is only by possessing this national conversation and speaking far more openly about dying that we will be in a position to ensure that people’s end-of-life care is as excellent as it can be and appropriate for them. Dying matters, which is why we require to talk about it.

Prof Mayur Lakhani is a GP and chair of the Dying Matters Coalition and the National Council for Palliative Care

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Why we require to have a national conversation about dying

"Do not resuscitate" orders not a matter for national policy, appeal court hears

Addenbrooke’s hospital: health department attorneys explained the position on DNRs was a decision for nearby health trusts rather than nationwide policy. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

Forcing medical doctors to adhere to a national policy on choices about whether or not to attempt resuscitation of critically sick individuals would run counter to the political will of ministers on how the NHS is run, judges have been told.

Attorneys for the Division of Well being (DH) and the hospital trust at the heart of a family’s challenge on the concern also informed the appeal court in London that courts need to not rush in to prescribe or override the judgment of physicians.

The husband and daughters of Janet Tracey, who died at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge, want Jeremy Hunt, the wellness secretary, to institute a national policy requiring medics to seek advice from patients and family members ahead of putting ‘do not resuscitate’ (DNR) orders in the notes of critically sick individuals.

Tracey, who broke her neck in a auto accident quickly right after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, died in March 2011, aged 63, possessing had two this kind of notices.

Vikram Sachdeva, representing the DH, stated the place on such troubles was for nearby well being trusts “and a matter of expert obligation rather than binding national policy”. Problems that arose from such an arm’s length technique could be dealt with in a variety of ways, such as audits, patients’ or coroners’ issues, analysis groups and other avenues that could bring accountability.

The Tracey family’s want for Hunt to phase in was, Sachdeva stated, “inconsistent with the clear political will” on how well being companies were presented.

Lord Pannick QC, for Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation trust, of which Addenbrooke’s is portion, earlier said the court need to be “exceptionally slow” to override the judgement of medical professionals acting sensitively and in very good faith.

Tracey’s death had occurred regardless of the medical doctors and health-related personnel delivering “devoted” care, attempting to involve Tracey and her household, and “undertaking their very best in situations that had been difficult for all concerned”.

"Do not resuscitate" orders not a matter for national policy, appeal court hears

"National shame" of cancer late diagnosis

1 in 4 individuals was only diagnosed following they had been admitted to hospital as an emergency, the report identified.

It warns that this kind of circumstances were twice as most likely to die inside of a 12 months compared with those provided an urgent referral by their GP.

Ciarán Devane, the charity’s chief executive, explained the findings ought to be handled as “a wake-up call” to the Government about the way sufferers have been getting taken care of and warned of a “looming crisis” in cancer care.

He explained: “It is a national shame that our cancer survival rates are amongst the worst in Europe, that patients are getting treated with a lack of dignity, or being denied a ‘good’ death.”

By 2020 virtually half of the population can assume to be diagnosed with cancer for the duration of their lifetimes, forecasts show.

The charity stated urgent improvements have been needed in diagnosis and treatment of sufferers, given the inability of the NHS to cope with today’s demands.

Mr Devane stated: “With the quantity of folks living with cancer set to increase, political parties should inquire themselves – how will we cope with these growing numbers when we can’t even meet the demands of numerous folks these days?”

The report identified that 1000′s of individuals had been denied “a good death” with ample soreness relief, and in a location of their selecting.

Whilst 73 per cent of sufferers expressed a need to die at property fewer than a third had been ready to do so, the study located, and much more than half did not have complete discomfort relief in the final 3 months of their lives.

Main strides have been created in the therapy of cancer in latest decades.

Earlier this week, researchers explained 50 per cent of individuals who are diagnosed today can anticipate to reside for at least 10 many years.

But progress diagnosing cancer has been far slower. Most current figures show that 68.2 per cent of people diagnosed with six of the most frequent cancers are alive 1 yr later, in contrast with 59.two per cent 15 years ago.

Authorities said survival rates in the United kingdom are lagging far behind individuals in a lot of countries in Europe simply because so several cases are not picked up right up until a patient arrives at Accident &amp Emergency departments, suffering acute signs.

Study demonstrates the Uk has the lowest 1-year survival prices for 4 cancer varieties (colorectal, lung, breast and ovarian) compared with five countries – Australia, Canada, Sweden, Denmark and Norway – with comparable well being programs and ranges of wealth to the United kingdom.

In December a review of 29 countries which compared five-12 months survival located that the UK’s charges were worse than the EU typical for nine out of ten typical cancers, which includes breast, bowel, prostate and lung cancer.

"National shame" of cancer late diagnosis

Uk cancer care a national shame, says Macmillan charity

Cancer patients receive chemotherapy at Harrogate district hospital. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Cancer care in Britain has been dubbed a national shame, and despite a lot of people with the ailment living longer, sufferers are currently being denied a dignified death, according to a top charity.

As well numerous individuals are diagnosed as well late, are proven a lack of compassion throughout their care and truly feel abandoned after remedy, stated Ciarán Devane, chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Assistance.

His damning verdict accompanied the charity’s first state of the nation report which condemns United kingdom governments for lagging behind western European countries and other people on cancer survival prices.

“Any notions that cancer care in the United kingdom is ‘fixed’ are rubbished by our findings,” explained Devane. “While the NHS does amazing things every single day, it is a national shame that our cancer survival charges are among the worst in Europe, that sufferers are becoming treated with a lack of dignity, or being denied a ‘good’ death.

“Cancer sufferers no longer either basically get cured or die. Many reside a extended time but struggle with severe wellness problems,” mentioned Devane.

“With the quantity of folks residing with cancer set to increase, political parties need to ask themselves – how will we cope with these growing numbers when we are not able to even meet the needs of numerous individuals nowadays? … With a Uk cancer crisis looming, we have to consider action now.”

Macmillan’s report says 1 in three (32%) individuals with cancer die inside of a year of diagnosis, suggesting for numerous diagnosis is too late, and lambasts lack of data and support for individuals and shortages of specialist cancer nurses. It says there is lack of compassion towards some individuals when they are at their most vulnerable. Substantial numbers of people with cancer “knowledge extended-phrase bodily, emotional, monetary and perform troubles”.

Calling for a shift in funds from hospitals to local community care, the charity calls for government concentrate on minimizing late diagnosis, priority for patients’ experiences alongside clinical matters and to allow individuals commit their final days in the location of their picking and with free of charge social care.

Macmillan factors to the disparity in patients’ wishes on in which they want to die, shown in its own on the internet survey in 2010, and the place they do die, as recorded for England and Wales in 2012 by the Office for Nationwide Statistics. Therefore although 73% of people with cancer want to die at property, much more than a quarter elsewhere, and much less than one% in hospital, in actuality only thirty% die at residence, 32% elsewhere and 38% in hospital, the report says.

It cites evidence from the British Journal of Cancer that 1 in four cancers in England are diagnosed by means of emergency admission to hospital, rather than through screening or GP referral, rising to half all instances of pancreatic and virtually two-thirds of brain or central nervous system cancers.

It also says that there is “a shocking postcode lottery” inside of the Uk more than survival charges, treatment method and care for those with cancer.

The report also points to investigation on cancer survival published in the Lancet health care journal 3 years ago, for colorectal, lung, breast and ovarian cancer in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Britain.

It was persistently reduce in Denmark, England, Northern Ireland, and Wales, particularly in the initial 12 months after diagnosis and for sufferers aged 65 many years and older.

The proportion of folks with lung cancer dying inside a 12 months of diagnosis in the United kingdom was 70%, compared with 65% in Denmark, 61% in Norway and 56% in Sweden.

The Division of Health in England said: “We want the Uk to be the best place in the world to survive cancer. We have invested £750m over 4 many years to support early diagnosis and boost accessibility to screening and have previously observed considerable enhancements in some cancer survival prices.

“The current cancer knowledge survey has shown higher amounts of satisfaction with the care and compassion shown to patients. Even so, the NHS always operates to improve specifications. We are starting up a evaluation looking at the situation of option in finish-of-existence care.”

Uk cancer care a national shame, says Macmillan charity

Girl forced to phone national NHS variety to see physician in following area

“We are so cross and angry and what issues the household is that this could occur to a person who is in a vulnerable state and has no household or friends nearby to support.”

Ms Riddle, of Midsomer Norton, Somerset, was sooner or later capable to book in to see the doctor in the following room at Paulton Hospital close to Bath.

But there was a even more complication when the system showed she had been booked into the Royal University Hospital in Bath without having becoming advised.

The household is writing to the NHS to complain.

A spokesman for the Bath and North East Somerset Medical professionals Urgent Care explained: “Healthcare professionals which includes Small Damage Unit Nurses can contact our support directly employing a focused phone line to go over patient requirements with a single of our physicians who will then decide an proper program of action. An appointment for the patient to see 1 of our medical professionals for a face to encounter consultation will be organized by our service if suitable.”

He mentioned medical professionals primarily based in centres will talk to patients on the cellphone to give tips as well as see them encounter to face, meaning appointments are not always obtainable.

He added: “Appointment times presented to patients are primarily based on the patient’s assessed clinical want.”

Girl forced to phone national NHS variety to see physician in following area

Labour considers raising national insurance coverage to fix £30bn NHS "black hole"

Andy Burnham is mentioned to be concerned about asking people in function to pay out far more for the fees of individuals previously retired. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Radical plans to boost national insurance coverage contributions to plug a looming £30bn a yr “black hole” in NHS funding and pay out the spiralling fees of care for the elderly are currently being examined by Labour’s policy evaluation.

The Observer has learnt that the concept is among options getting regarded to ensure NHS and care fees can be met beneath a potential Labour government, with out it getting to impose crippling cuts on other providers in successive budgets.

Senior party figures have confirmed that a scheme advanced by the former Labour minister Frank Discipline – underneath which money from increased NI would be paid into a sealed-off fund for health and care costs – is getting examined, even though no decisions have been taken.

Latest figures based mostly on information from NHS England and the Nuffield Believe in and created by the Commons library recommend that NHS costs alone will go from £95bn a 12 months now to a lot more than £130bn a year by 2020.

Discipline, who has discussed his ideas with the shadow wellness secretary, Andy Burnham, and the chair of the policy evaluation, Jon Cruddas, argues that with out drastic action the NHS will not survive in something like its existing type. He believes that folks would accept the concept of contributing added to the NHS, the most well-known public support, if they had been guaranteed that the additional income would be spent solely on overall health and social care.

“Labour desperately demands two or 3 big suggestions to capture the imagination and this need to be one,” Discipline explained. “In no way can we have anything at all like the NHS we have now if we are working such a large deficit each and every yr. We have to consider about the 2nd phase of the daily life of the NHS. It has to be reborn. Otherwise it will be unsustainable in a few years’ time.”

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, is under growing stress from some in his shadow cabinet to create radical, eyecatching policies as the economic climate improves and the election nears.

Some senior party figures say NI increases to save the NHS in its present kind would demonstrate the celebration is fiscally responsible and totally free folks from the nervousness that they may well have to promote their homes to spend for care in previous age.

Burnham, while keen to discover radical choices, is wary of rising NI in a way that would imply younger people in work possessing to spend the care expenses of those currently of pensionable age.

For the elderly, he favours other choices like a strategy floated by Labour ahead of the last election for a levy of ten% to 15% on people’s estates after death to shell out care charges. But NI rises for the rest of the population are currently being deemed as a feasible long-term resolution.

To handle Burnham’s considerations, Field proposes that individuals now in excess of pension age would be asked to carry on to shell out NI if they needed cost-free care. Otherwise they would have to pay out beneath the recent system.

Although the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, is noticed as a prospective obstacle, it was his ally Gordon Brown who in 2002 launched a 1% hike in NI to fund the biggest ever boost in well being funding – a move that proved remarkably common.

Discipline says an NI rise of one% would plug the fast “black hole”. Further contributions thereafter would go into a devoted fund that would be run as a mutual with elected members negotiating every year’s contributions.

A spokesman for Burnham said: “The issues of the ageing society are so wonderful that the debate about how to meet them demands to be open to new considering, as prolonged as it is constant with the enduring values of the NHS.

“Proper now, we are seeing large cuts to social care foremost to ever-better hospitalisation of older individuals. That is no response to the ageing society. There can be no lengthy-phrase resolution for the NHS with out also a sustainable remedy for social care.”

Labour is presently committed to combining the budgets for health and social care. Critics of the existing program say there is no incentive for social solutions to try out to hold old individuals out of hospital, due to the fact hospital charges come from a various budget.

NHS expenses are growing rapidly due to the fact of an increasing elderly population and the rising charges of new technologies, therapies and medicines.

Labour considers raising national insurance coverage to fix £30bn NHS "black hole"

National Youth Violence Prevention Week: Brady Center To Prevent Gun Violence Launches "Communicate Up" Campaign To Conserve Lives

A targeted and revolutionary new public awareness campaign was launched by The Brady Center to Stop Gun Violence yesterday as component of National Youth Violence Prevention Week, April seven-11. The public awareness campaign, referred to as Talk UP, enlightens college students about potential techniques they can aid avert violence, and features posters and poster contests, public support announcements, interactive BuzzFeed-style quizzes, as well as pledge drive and action and resource kits.

According to data, in four out of 5 college shootings, the attacker informed somebody about their prepare. The truth that advance knowledge usually exists makes communication and transparency a key element of assisting to reinforce a sense of urgency among those who have the potential to end this kind of violence.

“I constantly wish an individual had spoken up if they saw any red flags with Eric Harris Harris and Dylan Klebold, explained Crystal Miller, survivor of the April 1999 Columbine shooting. “I really do not think in this day in age we can afford to be overly cautious. I want men and women to know that if there’s any hint of suspicion, they have a responsibility to speak up and talk to the authorities, even if it’s anonymously by means of a hotline.”

“I do think there are constantly indications and red flags. I believe people didn’t understand the place issues could lead in the case of Columbine,” Miller explained.

Placing this in point of view, Miller believes that “in the submit Columbine planet we are not able to afford to be overly overcautious, meaning that anything at all that we see that is out of the ordinary for a younger person should draw our consideration and be addressed.”

Speak UP CAMPAIGN

“SPEAKING UP”, which includes improving communication amongst teens and dad and mom, is the cornerstone of building and marketing security in our communities.

The Talk UP site revolves close to BuzzFeed fashion interactive super hero quizzes expanding upon speaking up narratives of other students who have spoken up prolonged with on-line, Television and print adverts. Adding to this hard work, an action kit put collectively by the Nationwide Association of College students Against Violence All over the place (Conserve), a founding spouse in the National Prevent Youth Violence Campaign contains a Talk Up pledge drive as well as poster contest.

“We are devoted to identifying true solutions that can assist keep our schools and communities safe”, said Dan Gross, President of the Brady Center to Stop Gun Violence. “When college students communicate up, they can save lives. This public awareness campaign is about something actual that students can do to assist make their schools and communities safer.”

“Forty little ones are shot or killed by guns each and every day in our nation. It is occurring in huge cities and small towns, in private homes and public places – even colleges. It is clear that guns in the incorrect hands are a main contributor to this violence, and this campaign offers college students with important equipment they can use do anything about it,” mentioned Gross.

“Signs,” one of the new public services announcements, focuses on recognizing and reporting threats as nicely as other warning signs of violence. The PSA, which will be run on cable television and key network stations and will be posted on You Tube and Facebook, encourages and empowers students to make anonymous reports about “signs of violence” by calling the hotline, one-866-Communicate-UP. The hotline, which was launched in 2002, has obtained practically forty,000 calls.

The shootings at Columbine 15 years ago have been a dark day in our nation’s background. Multiple other mass shootings including the tragedies at Virginia Tech, as nicely as Newtown, emphasize the want to empower our society to assist seek out techniques to avoid more bloodshed. The effects of mass gun violence on youngsters and families has led to alterations in how we method preventive techniques to identify signs of likely ideas to inflict harm on people in public settings.

National Youth Violence Prevention Week, especially in the context of the 15th anniversary of the Columbine High College shooting, holds unique relevance to the victims and survivors of this tragedy, as properly as to all Americans who continue to witness senseless gun violence.

The Mechanics of “SPEAKING UP”

Encouraging teens and youngsters to talk up about any indicators of prospective violence against other people is an critical facet of empowering our society to assault gun violence.

“There is powerful proof that an overwhelming bulk of younger people value the importance of speaking up to avoid violence and are inclined to do it if they are offered a protected, reliable and anonymous signifies to do it, ” explained Gross.

National Youth Violence Prevention Week: Brady Center To Prevent Gun Violence Launches "Communicate Up" Campaign To Conserve Lives