A & E must not be used, to ‘save the NHS’ – again!

 

Firstly, apologies for the absence of yesterday’s column. I had an excruciating migraine and was even incapable of contacting Debbie until early afternoon. 

Now to the ‘news’ for today, as presented by our MSM. A glance at the print editions (link) shows how the MSM news editors amplify the divide between Westminster denizens and us oiks outside the M25: we are served the Ryan-Giggs ‘saga’ while they are presented with more ‘news’ on the still ongoing Truss v Sunak theatre.

Special mention must be given to the grauniad which relegated the article to which they gave first place in the print edition – “NHS cannot be put on a pedestal -Truss” to an ‘also ran’ place. online. I mention this not because the grauniad did this – other papers do this as well, e.g. the DM – but because it shows that the combined Left is preparing the ground for both a Truss Premiership and the expected Labour victory over her in the next GE. Their online headline is: 

“Revealed: Liz Truss personally supported cuts to NHS and doctors’ pay – Article by Tory hopeful arguing NHS ‘cannot be put on pedestal’ shows she fully backed 2009 cost-cutting pamphlet” (link)

This ‘news archaeology’, i.e. digging up articles and tweets from ten or more years ago to use as clobber material, is the well-know lefty instrument to discredit anyone whom they dislike. I hope you’ve kept the photo of ‘The Kneeler’ for later use, because ‘goose-gander: meet sauce’!

But let’s look at the latest news on Our Sacred Cow elsewhere, something the grauniad didn’t seem too interested in. The DT has three ‘NHS’ articles. The first has the headline “Avoid A&E, says NHS as winter crisis bites early – Covid-style campaign launched to keep non-emergency cases away from hospitals” (paywalled link). The Times duly copied this report (link, paywalled).

 It’s not even autumn yet and already there’s another ‘crisis’ we must prevent by ‘protecting’ the NHS? Yes, seriously:

“The NHS is to launch a campaign urging the public to avoid A&E in an echo of appeals to protect the health service during the Covid pandemic. The head of the NHS has instructed hospitals to prepare a public awareness campaign calling for people to “minimise” pressures on urgent and emergency services. Such an instruction has never been issued so early in the year, and comes amid concerns that hospitals and ambulance services are already facing strains usually seen in the depths of winter.” (paywalled link)

One has to scroll down quite a bit to find out who this ‘head of the NHS’ is: a certain Ms Amanda Pritchard. Who she? I dunno either, so here’s her wiki entry if you want to know more.  Here’s what Professor Carl Henegan had to say, namely that:

“[…] the NHS needed to be very careful about trying to dissuade the public from using services. The NHS seems to be the only business I know that doesn’t know how to deal with demand, and work with the needs of its customers,” he said. “As an urgent care doctor, I need to be in front of the patient to do my job.” (paywalled link)

Yes, well, what to do, as patient, when GPs are still preferring phone ‘consultations’, when the ambulance services are beyond breaking point? Here’s the second DT article on the NHS:

“National figures published by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE), show some 39,000 patients could have come to harm in July after experiencing handover delays of more than an hour. The figure is up 11 per cent on the previous month, when 34,000 patients were potentially harmed. Hours lost to 15-minute handover delays outside hospitals reached 152,000 in July, while 46,089 handovers took more than an hour, the data show.” (paywalled link)

This looks to me as if the various A&E departments are incapable of dealing with sick people, thus creating the ‘Ambulance Crisis’. As a card-carrying cynical old cow I suggest the NHS ‘director’ is trying to alleviate this scandalous situation by telling us plebs to ‘protect the sacred cow’ right now, by telling us not to dare to become ill and use A & E: problem solved, innit.

And so to the 3rd article in the DT. There’s this lobby group called “NHS Confederation”. It’s “a membership organisation that brings together, supports and speaks for the whole healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.” (link). Their chief wrote a letter to the current Treasury chief, Mr Zahawi, accusing

“[…] the Government of not doing enough to bail out hard-up households facing a huge increase in energy bills. The letter, signed by the confederation’s chief executive and chairman, claims the Government’s “current policy of providing £400… is not going to be nearly sufficient” and that it risks a “public health emergency”. (paywalled link)

While the energy situation is indeed beyond dire, while the government is clearly incapable of addressing it thanks to the PM ‘race’ and thanks to the current PM having washed his hands of doing anything at all about anything, it is still beyond belief that an NHS lobby group demands ‘moar money’ for all so as to ‘save the NHS’! Clearly, if people could heat and eat thanks to handouts, they’d not fall ill and litter the A & E Departments, correct? 

It doesn’t seem to have occurred to those NHS lobbyists that more and more of us think that the UK is just the NHS with a country attached. Their letter shows that they actually believe this to be the case. Now see who the top honchos of this NHS lobby group are:

“The letter was written by Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation and a former policy adviser to Tony Blair, and its chairman Lord Adebowale, a crossbench peer, “on behalf of NHS leaders”.” (paywalled link)

Ah! So that’s why we’re being treated to the first shots of the inevitable Labour campaign of “saving the NHS” from ’Toree cuts. After all, why not start this now when Labour is 13 points ahead in the polls because of inflation and the rest of it (link)? This chimes in with one of this morning’s headlines – in the ‘i’, as reported in yon BBC compilation (link), declaring that ‘voters want hand-outs, not tax cuts’.

However, I humbly suggest that Labour and all those NHS lobbyists who keep demanding ‘moar money’ take note of an article in the DM where the headlines always summarise the following report:

“NHS blows £1million on ‘woke groups’ for staff including ‘tea and rainbow cake’ picnics and a Filipino martial arts performance in the midst of growing cash crisis – Nearly 500 of the groups were set up by health trusts across the country – It has taken up around 36,000 hours of staff time a year to run events – Some groups use taxpayers’ money to put on the events, often during work day” (link)

“Blowing £1m” is peanuts – it’s the 36,000 working hours missed by staff at a time when we peasants are told not to become sick and when NHS lobbyists demand ‘moar money for energy’ in addition to the dosh the NHS always wants. Perhaps it’s those missing working hours which, down the line, create the ‘ambulance crisis’?

Meanwhile, the ‘solution’ by ‘experts’ to deal with that energy crisis is oh-so-predictable. It’s not ‘give them more handouts’ – how would they help when there’s no electricity or gas available? – it’s this: “The government must act urgently to reduce the risk of blackouts this winter by getting households and businesses to use less energy, leading experts say.” (link, paywalled) – and why not! “Experts’ and indeed governments on the continent are doing just that already. 

Perhaps the NHS and their lobbyists should better demand that all ‘vulnerable’ people be carted to NHS hospitals already: hospitals will have the heating on. Thus they wouldn’t need to be treated with costly drugs and they wouldn’t litter A &E departments. That would be a proper application of the ‘precautionary principle’!

Here’s my interpretation of all those ‘warnings’: tell the tax-paying public to stop using energy and to stop becoming sick, to protect and save the NHS and the energy sector. Don’t let them ask if all those experts, ministers and MSM writers are failing in their duty to protect us even as the claim that’s what they’re doing. 

We, the people, are a nuisance, disturbing the smooth work flow of government, organisations and lobby groups who live on the taxes pressed out of us. According to them, the country would be in a better place if we simply ceased to exist. Have a nice day …



 

 

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