Monthly Archives: March 2011
‘Ghost list’ purge: NHS removing people from surgery registers
‘Ghost list’ purge: NHS removing people from surgery registers if they have not seen a doctor for six months
By Mail On Sunday Reporter
Thousands of patients face being removed from GP practices if they have not seen their doctor for six months.
After this time, if they fail to respond to two warning letters, their names will be removed from the surgery register.
NHS managers say they want to ensure lists are accurate and up to date.
But GPs claim many patients will be struck off without reason and then forced to re-register when they need to see a doctor.
Why did no one foresee these problems years ago?
The scandal of ageism in the NHS must end
As demography changes our society, the institutions and services we rely on must also change to meet the needs of an older population. Nowhere is this truer than in healthcare.
By Paul Burstow, Care Services Minister
In 1948, when the NHS was formed, a person’s life expectancy was a shade over 65. Hospitals were geared to treat infectious disease, industrial accidents and emergency cases.
NHS reforms will return health service to 1930s
NHS reforms will return health service to 1930s
The government’s NHS reforms will return medical care to the standards of the 1930s and 40s, a leading doctor has warned.
He claimed that for patients in some parts of the country, care would return to “what we thought we had left behind when we founded the NHS in 1948”.
Private healthcare firms could “cherry pick” patients with the simplest conditions to treat while local hospitals could face closure if they are forced to compete with independent, profit-driven healthcare providers, he said.
This would leave the NHS as a “provider of last resort” for patients denied treatment by private practises because their conditions are too expensive to deal with.
