Tag Archives: UK

News

UK patients denied treatment as “public option” system makes cutbacks

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From the UK Telegraph. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Hundreds of thousands of NHS patients are being denied routine procedures as dozens of trusts cut back on surgery, scans and other treatments in order to save money, a Daily Telegraph investigation has found.

Trusts around the country are refusing to pay for operations ranging from hip replacements, to cataract removal and wisdom tooth extraction.

The health service is also tightening restrictions that prevent patients undergoing procedures for lifestyle reasons.

Smokers and obese patients are being denied operations until they change their habits and trusts are delaying surgery and non-emergency treatments, the Telegraph has found in the most comprehensive snapshot of NHS cuts yet.

The cuts – which include the cancelling of MRI scans and x-rays – are taking place in defiance of the Coalition.

Ministers are determined that front line services should be protected and the savings needed can be found from management costs and efficiencies.

But there is growing evidence that NHS managers are sacrificing patient care instead.

Doctors and nurses said the ‘grim’ results undermine the ‘myth’ that front line services are being protected and warned they were just the ‘tip of the iceberg’.

The situation is predicted to get worse as the NHS struggles to save £20bn over the next four years.

Although ministers have pledged to protect the health service budget and provide a real terms increase, it will not be sufficient to keep pace with growing demand and increasing costs.

In addition from April next year the amount of money hospitals receive for each type of treatment will be cut by 1.5 per cent raising fears that managers will refuse to provide treatments that they make a loss on.

As part of the investigation, The Telegraph had responses from almost one in three primary care trusts.

Cuts were uncovered in 20 out of the 145 primary care trusts in England. Fifteen PCTs have said they are not cutting services and 11 were still undecided.

[…]Dr Mark Porter, Chairman of the British Medical Association’s Consultants Committee, said: “Each of these examples undermines the myth that the NHS has been protected from the financial crisis. These are all services that patients value.

“They are by and large not being axed for clinical reasons, but as an inevitable consequence of the massive cost savings that have been imposed on the NHS.

“Despite the continuing claims of real terms increases for the NHS, the reality on the ground is very different. The scale of the financial challenge facing the service is such that this is likely to be the tip of the iceberg.

Making health care “free” for patients and preventing people and businesses from making a profit on providing health care leads to higher demand and lower supply. The net result is a shortage. It’s the law of economics.

 

 

News

UK stores stocking almost no Christmas cards that mention Jesus

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From the UK Daily Mail.

Excerpt:

Supermarkets were accused of ‘airbrushing Christ out of Christmas’ yesterday after it emerged that less than one per cent of cards they stock have religious themes.

Many stores display hundreds of different Christmas cards yet offer just a handful featuring traditional Christian scenes.

Some had no cards at all with religious references in their extensive ranges.

The Daily Mail visited major outlets of the big four supermarkets – Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Morrisons – in seven towns and cities.

Out of 5,363 cards sold individually or in multipacks, just 45 featured Christian scenes such as the Nativity – 0.8 per cent.

The worst offender was Morrisons, which had six out of a range of 973 cards, or 0.6 per cent.

Second worst was Tesco, despite chief executive Sir Terry Leahy, a practising Catholic, writing to a customer in October to tell her: ‘We have increased the number of Christmas cards that will be available with a religious theme this year.’

[…]The Mail was contacted by a Tesco customer earlier this week who said her local store in Ely, Cambridgeshire, had just a ‘handful’ of cards with religious themes last year – and still had only three out of 67 last month, despite a personal assurance from Sir Terry.

After she had repeatedly contacted customer services, she received a letter from the company chief.

‘Sir Terry promised more cards this year,’ she said.

‘But the selection of cards with anything relating to the true meaning of Christmas was tiny, so he has not kept his word.’

Tesco said it had doubled the range of religiously themed cards this year but refused to give numbers, saying they ‘vary from store to store’.

An Asda spokesman said: ‘We sell five different Christmas cards that have religious sentiment and traditional designs.’

Morrisons said: ‘We stock types of cards that appeal to our customers.’

A Sainsbury’s spokesman said: ‘The ranges that appear in our stores reflect what our customers want to buy.’

In case anyone is trying to remember, this is the meaning of Christmas:

This makes me sad. I feel sad for Christians who are being marginalized. We are the only ones who can be mistreated and marginalized with impunity. Christianity is the religion of loving your enemies and turning the other cheek, after all. I think I know why people are doing this – because they are more interested in being liked by non-Christians than being liked by Jesus for telling the truth about him. They think that Christianity is about being nice to others first, instead of being nice to Jesus first. Well, I for one do not care what people think about my faith. I can do just fine without any earthly friends. I hope it doesn’t come to that, thought!

I am OK with not being happy and popular. I don’t mind if honor the real message of Christmas doesn’t make me happy and popular.

News

Young women now being paid more than young men

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From the UK Daily Mail.

Excerpt:

Young women have reversed the gender gap and raced ahead of men in the pay stakes.

Landmark official figures showed yesterday that a woman in her 20s working full-time will typically earn 2.1 per cent more than a man in her age group.

The average annual salary of a person in their 20s is around £20,000, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The turning of the tables comes after a decade in which younger women – increasingly better educated and better motivated than men – have been remorselessly narrowing the historic pay differentials between the sexes.

The achievement appears to be a death blow to the long-standing argument of equality campaigners that women are paid worse than men because they suffer from discrimination and disadvantage on the part of employers.

The new reckoning of the pay gap published by the ONS showed that until the age of 30, women can now expect better pay than men.

The majority of women ease up in their careers and devote more time to their children, a choice that in most cases hits their earnings potential.

[…]A spokesman for the Government Equalities Office said: ‘The narrowing of the gender pay gap is very welcome but it still remains too large, which is why the Government is committed to promoting equal pay and taking measures to end discrimination in the workplace.’

And finally, some sanity:

The insistence that the Government must act to close a pay gap that, for many women, no longer exists brought a scathing response from some critics.

Economist Ruth Lea, of the Arbuthnot Banking Group, said: ‘There is no pay gap for women who do not have children, and for women under the age of 40 the gap is now trivial.

‘We always knew that single women were paid just as well as men. The idea that women are discriminated against was always a fantasy. I think the equality lobby will be running out of things to say.’

But there isn’t any discrimination against boys in school – oh no, not at all. I’m sure boys do just as well as girls when they are taught female-oriented books by female teachers, all the way through school.

As men lose their traditional role of provider, and the authority and respect it brings, fewer men will want to marry, and women will have to settle for taxapery-funded IVF, taxpayer-funded day care and taxpayer-funded single mother welfare. The only upside to this is that it will be mostly women who will be paying those taxes.