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This article appeared in the New Statesman in July 2015 George Osborne quietly slipped into his budget some news that the medical staff perhaps dreaded, perhaps didn’t even imagine was possible: the public sector pay freeze will continue. For another four years. I’ll just let that sink in. For months, doctors and nurses have been begging the public and the government to take notice: pressure on the wards is building to dangerous levels. Medical staff are overworked, under-appreciated and underpaid, and now there’s this insult to injury – a further slap in the face from a Chancellor unwilling to reward their graft with a shareRead More →

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A new Bill plots the way back for the NHS – but it’s not Labour who are behind it First published in the New Statesman on Wednesday March 11th Later today, in the dusk of this parliament, a new Bill will get its first and perhaps only reading in the Commons. It’s unlikely to set pulses racing in any of the main party machines, but in certain circles the NHS Bill [3] represents the last ditch to save a dying public service. It is the result of three years of patient work led by two leading public health experts, Professor Allyson Pollock and Peter RoderickRead More →

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The following article appeared on the New Statesman’s online blog, The Staggers in July 2014 To save the NHS, Labour must face the ugly truth of PFI debts Labour is right to focus on rescuing the NHS from the harm done by this government, but must face the truth that it was the party that introduced private finance into the health service in the first place. Ed Miliband has said that this is going to be an “NHS summer”. He has sensed, rightly, that there’s something in the air, a tension over the precarious health service. Strain on services is rising, the number of hospitalsRead More →