The background
The NHS hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons in July. Here are the top three attention-grabbing stories about the UK’s beleaguered health service.
Hospitals ‘letting patients die’
Hospitals in the UK may be letting terminally ill patients die in order to save money, according to The Telegraph. “Tens of thousands of patients with terminal illnesses are placed on a ‘death pathway’ to help end their lives every year,” pointed out Stephen Adams. However, six doctors wrote to the paper to suggest some hospitals may be using the scheme as a cost-cutting measure, rather than to ease the suffering of terminally ill patients. “If you are cynical about it, as I am, you can see it as a cost-cutting measure, if you don’t want your beds to be filled with old people,” said Dr Gillian Craig, one of the signatories of the letter.
Wealthy patients jumping the queue?
“Hospitals have been accused of allowing wealthy patients to ‘jump the queue’ after it emerged some are charging patients for treatments available on the NHS,” reported Fiona McCrae for The Daily Mail. According to McCrae, the hospitals involved insist the treatment is “self-funded” rather than private: “However, the practice has raised fears of a ‘two-tier NHS’ – in which those who can afford to pay get ahead while the less well-off suffer.”
Cameron accused of NHS £1.4 billion money-grab
“David Cameron has been accused of hypocrisy over the NHS after official figures revealed that the Treasury has taken back £1.4bn of money earmarked for health spending which was not spent by the Department of Health,” wrote Dennis Campbell in The Guardian. According to Campbell, Whitehall sources said the ‘underspend’ would be used for key public spending, including major infrastructure projects. But “the British Medical Association, the doctors’ union, said that any savings made in the NHS should go into improving patient care, not to the Treasury”, Campbell said.