Politics Thread!

[k345y]

It's just another pump to help keep the property market from deflating and when it all get's too much it will go bang

[tufty]

Maybe they need to add a few places or move some services around

ISTR you talking about a long-term goal of around quarter of a million new homes per year, more in the short term. That's not a "few" places.

You talk aout closing a secondary school; that's easy to do. It's much, much harder to open a new school, open new classes in an existing school, or even provide additional seats in existing classes in an existing school. Likewise hospital beds, GPs, dental care, public transport, sewage treatment, and so on.

[merman]

Maybe they need to add a few places or move some services around

ISTR you talking about a long-term goal of around quarter of a million new homes per year, more in the short term. That's not a "few" places.

You talk aout closing a secondary school; that's easy to do. It's much, much harder to open a new school, open new classes in an existing school, or even provide additional seats in existing classes in an existing school. Likewise hospital beds, GPs, dental care, public transport, sewage treatment, and so on.

A&E departments in London, the Midlands and Yorkshire now scheduled to close - who trusts the Tories with the NHS?

[zip accident]

Maybe they need to add a few places or move some services around

ISTR you talking about a long-term goal of around quarter of a million new homes per year, more in the short term. That's not a "few" places.

You talk aout closing a secondary school; that's easy to do. It's much, much harder to open a new school, open new classes in an existing school, or even provide additional seats in existing classes in an existing school. Likewise hospital beds, GPs, dental care, public transport, sewage treatment, and so on.

A&E departments in London, the Midlands and Yorkshire now scheduled to close - who trusts the Tories with the NHS?

I always thought "safe in our hands" meant "made safe" as a bomb is made safe, "made not dangerous to private medicine" i.e. destroyed.

[pogo]

You talk aout closing a secondary school; that's easy to do. It's much, much harder to open a new school, open new classes in an existing school, or even provide additional seats in existing classes in an existing school. Likewise hospital beds, GPs, dental care, public transport, sewage treatment, and so on.

It’s not that much harder: they have many ways to manage capacity, and already do so. Schools is perhaps easier as the trends are longer term. Get a student at age 5 and you generally keep them to age 11, or whatever. They can add and remove classes within existing space by juggling the timetable. They can if they run out space in the main building add mobile classrooms. I was taught in some in my first school.

Hospitals have to manage shorter term trends but they have more flexibility where they treat people. We have had treatment at four different hospitals recently, including the big general but also a local one and two specialist ones. Some of this is done by giving patients more choice over where they are treated, some will prefer the nearest hospital, some a more distant one with more free slots.

We need some extra capacity whether or not we build houses. The people are here, or coming here. Hospitals and schools will cope, just as they always have.

[VNVObit]

Schools is perhaps easier as the trends are longer term.

Primary school places: Councils issue shortage warning

apparently not

Hospitals have to manage shorter term trends but they have more flexibility where they treat people. We have had treatment at four different hospitals recently, including the big general but also a local one and two specialist ones. Some of this is done by giving patients more choice over where they are treated, some will prefer the nearest hospital, some a more distant one with more free slots.

We need some extra capacity whether or not we build houses. The people are here, or coming here. Hospitals and schools will cope, just as they always have.

32 hospital under threat of closure

Coupled with forcing people to a hospital that is rated inadequate

they'll cope alright just very badly, putting children at a disadvantage and creating unnecessary risks for this in need of health care.
that may be acceptable to you (but then you're an "I'm alright Jack") but to many others it isn't

[pogo]

32 hospital under threat of closure

Did you read that? The actual headline of that is “The (Same) Politics of Hospital Closures” It was written in 2014 and ends

Under these circumstances any future Government needs to be braced for pushing ahead with hospital closures soon after the election. Tempting as it might be block hospital closures in Opposition political parties won't want to tie their hands in Government.

It’s making the point that hospitals need to close to move the health service forward, a case that was being made by Andy Burnham in 2010. In the case of hospitals it’s not just demographics but also advances in technology and clinical practice that mean hospitals built decades ago may no longer make sense.

[VNVObit]

32 hospital under threat of closure

Did you read that? The actual headline of that is “The (Same) Politics of Hospital Closures” It was written in 2014 and ends

Under these circumstances any future Government needs to be braced for pushing ahead with hospital closures soon after the election. Tempting as it might be block hospital closures in Opposition political parties won't want to tie their hands in Government.

It’s making the point that hospitals need to close to move the health service forward, a case that was being made by Andy Burnham in 2010. In the case of hospitals it’s not just demographics but also advances in technology and clinical practice that mean hospitals built decades ago may no longer make sense.

Did you actually read my post?

32 hospital under threat of closure

Coupled with forcing people to a hospital that is rated inadequate

couple
ˈkʌp(ə)l/Submit
verb
past tense: coupled; past participle: coupled
1.
link or combine (something) with something else.
"a sense of hope is coupled with a palpable sense of loss"

So an ill thought out policy - again that doesn't fit the narrative that says you're right so you ignore it.

[pogo]

Well the headline and byline of the second article is:

A&E Crisis: Politicians demand Jeremy Hunt halts west London hospital closures
Eight Labour MPs have sent a letter to the secretary of health, saying he must stop further hospital closures to prevent a bigger crisis

But it makes no sense to “stop further hospital closures”. Again, the health service been transformed by advances in technology and clinical practices, so hospital configurations established ten, twenty, thirty years ago may no longer make sense, even without any demographic changes.

[VNVObit]

Well the headline and byline of the second article is:

A&E Crisis: Politicians demand Jeremy Hunt halts west London hospital closures
Eight Labour MPs have sent a letter to the secretary of health, saying he must stop further hospital closures to prevent a bigger crisis

But it makes no sense to “stop further hospital closures”. Again, the health service been transformed by advances in technology and clinical practices, so hospital configurations established ten, twenty, thirty years ago may no longer make sense, even without any demographic changes.

And if you have a number of A&Es that just about cope with current demographics it makes no sense to reduce their numbers to one which is not as accessible to all (particularly when it's "inadequate"). And if you couple that with a desire to increase the population through more housing (and there are significant high rise and brownfield developments planned for West London) then it looks short sighted and foolish.

[k345y]

But it makes no sense to “stop further hospital closures”. Again, the health service been transformed by advances in technology and clinical practices, so hospital configurations established ten, twenty, thirty years ago may no longer make sense, even without any demographic changes.

Clinical practices are actively researched and modernised in pursuit of 'clinical' excellence that's nothing to do with economics, which closures are!
As for comparing hospital configurations and practices to 30 years ago ? Bollox mate, everything changed when trusts were formed and local health boards were disbanded along with their crown immunity, there's no comparative to then and now. How you find reason to close hospitals from that is like pulling a fucking rabbit from a hat.

[pogo]

And if you have a number of A&Es that just about cope with current demographics it makes no sense to reduce their numbers to one which is not as accessible to all (particularly when it's "inadequate"). And if you couple that with a desire to increase the population through more housing (and there are significant high rise and brownfield developments planned for West London) then it looks short sighted and foolish.

Again, blanket opposition to closures makes no sense. Often closure is the only way to deal with inadequate provision. A&E in particular works best when it’s backed by a large hospital which deal with all the accidents and emergencies that can present. Too many small A&E can lead to worse medical outcomes if patients present themselves at A&E with urgent problems that hospital can’t deal with.

There may be economic reasons for this certainly. But it happens for clinical reasons primarily. Specialised equipment like MRI scanners, technetium generators can be too large, expensive or difficult to use to have one at every hospital. Specialist surgeons or surgery teams are not be available at all hospitals, or would be much less efficient if they had to move around too much. And many of these needs have arisen or grown in recent decades.

Apart from that hospitals are very high tech places today, with specialised systems built into the hospital itself. It may be too expensive or difficult to update an existing hospital, especially one that’s been around a few decades, and was maybe built to out of date building standards.

[VNVObit]

And if you have a number of A&Es that just about cope with current demographics it makes no sense to reduce their numbers to one which is not as accessible to all (particularly when it's "inadequate"). And if you couple that with a desire to increase the population through more housing (and there are significant high rise and brownfield developments planned for West London) then it looks short sighted and foolish.

Again, blanket opposition to closures makes no sense. Often closure is the only way to deal with inadequate provision. A&E in particular works best when it’s backed by a large hospital which deal with all the accidents and emergencies that can present. Too many small A&E can lead to worse medical outcomes if patients present themselves at A&E with urgent problems that hospital can’t deal with.

There may be economic reasons for this certainly. But it happens for clinical reasons primarily. Specialised equipment like MRI scanners, technetium generators can be too large, expensive or difficult to use to have one at every hospital. Specialist surgeons or surgery teams are not be available at all hospitals, or would be much less efficient if they had to move around too much. And many of these needs have arisen or grown in recent decades.

Apart from that hospitals are very high tech places today, with specialised systems built into the hospital itself. It may be too expensive or difficult to update an existing hospital, especially one that’s been around a few decades, and was maybe built to out of date building standards.

It makes no sense to close hospitals when your solution , a centrally located hospital, is rated as inadequate on current levels of provision never mind the increased level that would be a direct result of the closures proposed.

The main driver is economic as they are selling off part of the land a hospital that is sited in Hammersmith for a large residential development (luxury flats allegedly) not a new configuration of clinical provision. When the management have been questioned on their rationale it has focused on money and they've failed to convince local GPs/MPs and Councillors of the logic behind the move

[tufty]

The Hammersmith / West London closures have been going on for years. Frankly, I'm surprised there's anything left apart from Fulham these days. when I lived in Hammersmith, 25 years ago or more, the A&E units were closed down and moved to Fulham road, 40 minutes away at best, 2 or more hours away if there was a match on.

Who cares if the poor die anyway? It's their own fault - if they were more efficient, they would be able to afford to go private.

[Dio]

I'm not sure deploying the public / private argument makes too much sense in the case of A&E.

I mean, if there's a driver to degrade the health service caused by that, the one place you'd least expect to show the effect would be A&E because there aren't private A&Es and no bugger knows when they're going to need to use them, so the evolutionary pressure to keep them fit and healthy would still apply.