Big Pharma rules UK?

From the BBC: "Cancer doctors have told the BBC they fear the NHS will not be able to afford the new generation of cancer drugs."

The cost of drugs has been rising at about 7% every year compared with the rest of the costs of the NHS at about 3%. Big pharma has the NHS over a barrel and spend a great deal of time selling its wares through talking to patient groups, doctors and the media. Headlines such as 'NHS refuses to treat alzheimers patients' are a clear example - perhaps it is because the new drug is unproven, unreliable, ineffective , and therefore pointless.

Big pharma have been running away with this and there are no easy solutions. For greedy corporate capitalists it must be heaven to work in a sector with a guarenteed 7% year on year increase.

The Green Party policy is clear on medicines:

H318 Novel compounds will not be introduced into general use unless they can be shown to have significant advantages over existing drugs. Limited list prescribing will be extended across the full range of pharmaceuticals. The direct advertising of prescription- only medicines to the medical profession will cease. Information to the medical profession will be the responsibility of medical schools and independent authorities with no vested interest in companies which manufacture or market pharmaceuticals.

H319 The Green Party recognises the huge profits made by the drug companies out of the NHS. This is often through a form of cartel pricing, and we do not believe it is right that the National Health Service as a public health service should have to pay unfair prices. Therefore we will set up an independent NHS Pharmaceutical Body with power to set the price of drugs provided to the NHS. The Body will be composed of doctors, healthcare professionals, economists, and a legally trained chairperson, which will look at the cost of research and development in drugs and their manufacture, and receive evidence from chemists, the pharmaceutical companies, and other countries' health services. The Body will then decide what is a fair price for a drug which is to be provided to the NHS by the manufacturer, and that will be the price which the NHS will pay for the drug.

Stuart

Any hospital as long as it is the one next door

From the Guardian: " Labour's health policy giving people the right to choose between NHS hospitals in England is regarded by most patients as irrelevant, the government's health watchdog will disclose this week.

"The Healthcare Commission found the issues people regard as most important are whether they have confidence in a hospital's doctors and nurses, whether staff answer questions clearly and whether they wash their hands after contact with a patient before they touch another."

This is scary stuff, it appears that people are not interested in travelling 50 miles to get their operations at a slightly better hospital, they would rather the one next door was up to scratch...

Of course the whole choice agenda underpins the current NHS care marketisation. A similar report was removed from the DH website last year after they figured just how embarrasing it was for Labour's flagship policy.

Stuart

NHS quangofied

I sent this to the Guardian a couple of days ago in response to the BMA's call for the NHS to be turned into a quango.

Sir: The call by the BMA for the NHS to be managed by an independent body free from political influence will simply reduce the accountability of our health service to an all time low. Instead we should follow the example of social care and move control of health care to local government.

Only when people have a say in how the NHS is run will they be truly engaged; health care requires difficult choices - choice that should be made by users, not by unelected unaccountable bureaucrats. The NHS is a flagship service of this country and should not be turned into a quango.

Stuart Jeffery
Health spokesperson for the Green Party

Petitions

Another great petition that is worth signing...

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/NHSprivatisation/

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Stop the diversion of National Health Service monies to the private sector through the award of contracts to private companies to establish CATS centres."

Privatision is creeping across the NHS. We must call a halt to it - I urge people to sign.

Stuart

Big pharma attacks complementary therapies

The pharma lobby have attacked university courses in complementary therapies as 'gobbledygook'. Hardly a surprise...

Big pharma has little interest in seeing other approaches to health care being promoted - they are interested in the sale of drugs and the subsequent profits only. This attack has come from Professor Colquhoun, of University College London's department of pharmacology.

Perhaps Prof Colquhoun ought to complete one of these degrees? Surely it would be difficult to understand it without sitting at least half way through the course, especially if you come from a field that has little understanding of CM!

Stuart

Parking charges

So hospitals are raking it in through car park charges. It is a difficult one this, on the one hand we need to discourage the use of cars, on the other hospital car park charges often hit poor and vulnerable people.

Of course if hospitals had been built in the centre of towns with good supporting public transport, then we wouldn't have a problem, there could be an expectation that public transport is the best way to get to hospital. Sadly our hospitals are often built out of town - we are told that ambulances can access them better there! Of course if the roads were clearer in town (where people actually live) then ambulances would have no problem accessing the hospitals.

Stuart

Stay healthy

"Tony Blair is thinking the unthinkable about the NHS. He's proposing that people should be given money by the government to spend as they like on healthcare - even if it's in the private sector." Channel 4.

So what is wrong with this?

1.Thinking about purchasing of healthcare is not something that I want to do when I need the healthcare, my concerns would be to get effective treatment.

2. Worrying about the costs of health care is exactly what the NHS was set up to avoid.

3. What happens when the cash runs out, healthcare is not equal provision - personally I don't want to receive any healthcare, I'd quite like not to need to - the NHS was set up to provide healthcare to those who need it, not those who can afford it.

Stuart