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... is Nick Seddon, recently of [url= http://www.reform.co.uk/ ]Reform[/url], from where he has issued a constant stream of [s]platitude-filled rhetoric[/s] review papers. He spent some time working for [url= http://www.circlepartnership.co.uk/ ]Circle[/url] - who profit* by cherry-picking healthcare services, whilst [i]depending[/i] upon NHS infrastructure, critical care capacity and workforce training. Needless to say, Seddon is gunning hard for further privatisation - and has lost no time in spouting [url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9870706/The-NHS-we-can-make-it-better.html ]PR puff[/url] on behalf of his corporate pals.
He also appears to be a schoolboy - and if there's one thing (there's many, of course) that pishes me off about UK politics, it's the preponderance of university-hacks-turned-think-tankers who are given roles in Government. For all his missives on what's wrong with the NHS, I doubt the fresh-faced get has the slightest idea of what it's like on the frontline. He actually makes me want to puke.
*Circle's financial engineering is somewhat opague, e.g. see: http://nhsvault.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/fair-playing-field.html
I think we'll have a fully 'americanised' healthcare within 20 years
Well the Tories despise the NHS with a passion and are hell bend on destroying it as quickly as they can, to be replaced with the most expensive and inefficient system they can come up with, whose sole purpose is to line the pockets of themselves and their mates as shareholders / directors.
How long until the next general election?
Too long unfortunately..
I would love to say what I think of him and his ilk but unfortunately not only would the swear filter remove it but I would receive a ban that would persist beyond death into the [s]afterlife[/s] I mean eternal void.
PS it's worth remembering that Nick Seddon used to do [s]PR[/s] media spin for Circle (he's an English graduate, not clinical staff) - hence the number of times Circle appear in his various pieces at Reform as an example of the kind of "outside expertise" that should be brought into the NHS, don'tchaknow.
Naturally, there'll be nothing in there about the [url= http://falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/bbc-radio-4-today-programme-gives-a-huge-pr-boost-to-circle ]NHS effectively subsidising Circle or providing acute capacity when things go south[/url]. That kind of stuff doesn't make for oh-so-smooth soundbites.
His kind really boil my urine.
These people are leeches on society.
He's a Jeremy Hunt of the first order.
Please don't call him a PR, there's plenty of us who hate the slippery, lying knobsac too, he's just a clanging empty vessel, full of the hyperbole and vile doublespeak so beloved of his new best friends. He's a Tory lickspittle, to be despised and loathed as much as his former paymasters.
Other than that he seems a fine chap. 😀
Please don't call him a PR
Amended accordingly - I've no wish to denigrate the profession. 😀
eternal void
Bikeradar's not [i]that[/i] bad...
Excellent (if depressing) article here: [url= http://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/andrew-robertson/this-cant-go-on-cameron-hires-private-health-lobbyist-into-heart-of-governme ]This Can't Go On" - Cameron hires private health lobbyist into the heart of government[/url].
This is just par for the course with this shower of leeches.
They basically invited Rupert Murdoch to write their media and broadcast policy before the last election. Note how much has changed in the media, post-Leveson. Absolutely sod all!!! Nor will it!
Then they got McDonalds and the supermarkets in to write their policy on food and agriculture, and advertising. Note: no moves to restrict advertising junk food to children, and no action on supermarkets after all the horse-meat nonsense, and no increased labelling of salt content etc. What a surprise!!!
Now with this, its just a continuation of them saying to their mates - all of course donors - What would you like? Write us a list and we'll sort it out for you. Just sign the cheque and leave it blank, we'll fill out the rest. Do you reckon you'll be looking for a non-exec director in a couple of years, by any chance?
I love it when they then refer to this as 'self-regulation'. I wish they'd refer to it as what it actually is: a total absence of regulation
Write us a list and we'll sort it out for you
That pretty much sums up the current health reforms - indeed, Mckinsey & co more-or-less wrote 'em.
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But what he actually meant was, we Conservatives hate the NHS and will do everything we can to smash it while lining the pockets of our mates.
If they get in at the next election we can wave the NHS goodbye. Frankly a nation that votes them in deserves to lose it.
To be fair, as a nation we didn't vote them in last time round. They're just acting like we did. In fact, they're acting like they won a landslide with the greatest electoral mandate in democratic history. The ****s!!!
Remember Daves manifesto pledge "There will be no top-down re-organisation of the NHS"
oh dear, do we really need to vote in Ed balls (and the other one) to get rid of these ***ts?
it seems we really do.
oh dear.
Papa_Lazarou - MemberFrankly a nation that votes them in deserves to lose it.
Why should Scotland, Wales and NI pay the price for the mistake of English voters?
Remember Daves manifesto pledge
The bare-faced cheek of it is pretty amazing... even though nothing [i]really[/i] surprises me about our incumbent politicos.
Besides which, if joe public's experience doesn't match the justification for these pish-poor reforms, you have to seriously wonder at the ConDem electoral strategy, or what their response will be when things go seriously/even more pear-shaped*. Whatever the platitudes about choice & competition and the merits of "outside expertise", the [b]actual[/b] reality consists of [url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/may/12/ambulance-wait-times-up-coalition ]overloaded acute care[/url], dangerously [url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/may/12/hospital-staffing-levels-nurses ]understaffed wards[/url] and GP/out-of-hours cover being run by skeleton crews (often by private providers - Serco & Harmoni have form for this). Now, there's plenty of things about the NHS that [i]need[/i] changing... but the top-down confusion of these reforms is actually making things worse. And in that context, Seddon's comment about Staffs & South London (in his [url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9870706/The-NHS-we-can-make-it-better.html ][i]Daily Mailograph[/i] puff piece[/url] - essentially, why we should hand the NHS over to Corporate Health, Inc.) was either deeply-disingenuous or wilfully ignorant about what went wrong at those Trusts.
Dear gawd above, the creep makes my skin crawl.
*Service fragmentation is all part of the plan, of course...