Doctors in Unite believe that the current model for social care is not working and that this has been brought into sharp focus during the COVID 19 Pandemic. Care homes bore a huge burden of deaths during the first wave, for many reasons, but not least due to the fragmentation that privatisation has imposed on […]
Category: Defend the NHS
Dr Applebee proposed the motion by TOWER HAMLETS DIVISION of the BMA: That this meeting, in response to COVID 19, demands that government: i) ensure that workers are not under pressure to attend work either for financial or workforce reasons while they are unwell or self-isolating and at risk of inadvertently passing on the disease; […]
A review of where the UK is in its response to the Covid-19 pandemic 1. Policy failure Richard Horton, editor of the prestigious medical journal ‘The Lancet’, described the management of COVID-19 as the “greatest science policy failure for a generation” in his book on the pandemic. Currently the numbers of newly diagnosed patients are […]
5th July 2020 The 72nd birthday of the NHS takes place in the shadow of the COVID 19 pandemic. The progress of the virus underlines the absolute importance of having an NHS as Bevan intended when it was founded in 1948, a comprehensive health service, publicly funded from general taxation, publicly provided and free at […]
In the middle of March 2020, it was clear that the NHS would not have the capacity to deal with the increased demands of the Covid-19 epidemic. This lack of spare capacity is clear evidence of continuing government failure to invest in the NHS to provide the required flexibility to meet unplanned needs. As a necessary but panic measure to deal […]
June 1 2020 heralded the official start of the easing of the lockdown that has been in place since 23rd March to try to contain the spread of Covid 19. The current reality is that due to the Westminster Government’s repeatedly vague and confusing messaging, compounded by their unwavering support of the Prime Minister’s rule […]
In January 2019, Doctors in Unite issued proposals relating to public health and primary care. This document has now been revised, and can be found here. (This is distinct from a similarly titled set of proposals called Primary Care & Public Health: A Vision For Revitalising General Practice). In the light of the COVID-19 pandemic the […]
Doctors in Unite would like to remind the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care that the NHS is not a charity but a government funded health service, set up in 1948 with the specific intention to remove health care from the precarious state of reliance on income or beneficence. Matt Hancock has his […]
Richard Horton, respected editor of the medical journal ‘the Lancet’, aptly summed up the current pandemic in the following words: “Coronavirus is the greatest global science policy failure in a generation. Austerity blunted the ambition and commitment of government to protect its people. The objective was to diminish the size and role of the state. […]
It is an insult for the government to claim that a life assurance pay out of £60,000 to the families of a health or social care worker who dies of COVID-19 in any way compensates for the loss of life. Despite their protestations that they “will do whatever it takes”, this again shows the scant […]
Doctors in Unite 