Has Tory de-funding of health and care deliberately fuelled huge rise in death rate?
Councils have warned Britain is facing a care crisis [Image: Unattributed].
NHS expenditure has failed to keep pace with demand – as we all knew it would, because funding has fallen, in real terms, ever since the Tories returned to government in 2010.
And councils have seen a 17 per cent decrease in spending on services for the elderly.
Oxford University’s Professor Danny Dorling, whose expertise in these matters is second to none, has said the government has not even bothered to estimate the number of deaths that this de-funding has caused and has refused to take responsibility.
His words were confirmed by a Department of Health spokesperson, who denied responsibility.
According to the DoH, the research reflects the personal bias of those who carried it out, because “every year there is significant fluctuation in reported excess deaths”, and because the NHS budget has risen.
The spokesperson’s comment is, of course – and as we have come to expect from the Conservative Government – blinkered, arrogant, nonsense. It is an insult to our intelligence.
The research has taken account of average age-specific death rates, so it will have compensated for any fluctuations.
And spending on the NHS has not increased in real terms, despite the claimed £15 billion investment.
Let’s all bear in mind these facts:
“The only reason there is a humanitarian crisis in the NHS is underfunding by the Conservative Party in government. They will have inflicted nearly £40 billion of cuts by 2020, and have already passed on around £20 billion of funding to private companies, much of which will be transferred to shareholders’ bank accounts as profit, rather than having anything to do with treatment of illness.”
We can see that £15 billion of investment isn’t going to reverse the effects of up to £60 billion of cuts.
Possibly the worst point to make about this Torygraph report of the issue is that no attempt was made to fact-check the Health Department spokesperson’s claim. If that had happened, the story would have been much bigger.
Cuts to social care budgets and the “widespread failure” of NHS services may have fuelled the biggest rise in death rates for 50 years, research by Oxford University suggests.
The study said an “unprecedented” spike in mortality – with 30,000 excess deaths in 2015 – could be linked to budget reductions for councils, and a rapid deterioration in performance by health services.
Researchers said increases in death rates were likely to continue, with recent levels the highest they have been for three years, without “urgent intervention” to boost funding for health and social care.
But the Department of Health last night disputed the findings, accusing report authors of “personal bias” and ignoring regular fluctuations.
Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of Oxford and Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council found a steep rise in death rates in 2015, amounting to the greatest percentage increase since 1968.
Source: Care cuts may have fuelled largest rise in death rates for 50 years
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I believe that some of the Private Companies profiting from NHS contracts don’t pay UK Tax either, so there is an extra reduction to United Kingdom’s, er, er, Kingdom’s income, meaning less funding for health and social care, meaning more Privatisation, more private profits, less tax paid and more reduction of K’s income.
no truer words culling the stock by any means
First terminate all those who can remember the U.K as it used to be (pre EU), spread fear and mistrust of your neighbours, give ‘the masses’ a group they can focus their anger on to deflect the the sight and mind from the true causes!
Divide to rule, has always been the way ‘keep your ‘public’ fearful you can ‘rule’ with more authority, take more and more ‘rights’ away and they’ll believe it’s in their best interests to keep them safe!
Make people believe they have no chance of ‘Going it alone’ and they’ll even turn their backs on democracy!
After 6 years of camerons endless mantra of for hardworking people, whoever he considered hardworking no one knows, in other words not for anyone not working for any reason whatsoever, the most vulnerable have been deliberately discriminated against leading to an increase in the death rates of this group.
Unfortunately the current governments civil servants might see this as a great result in cutting down on benefit payments, long term care and hospital bed blocking. Quite understand why increased death rates are not being collected to show just how far their culling exercise has got.
When I found a breakdown of this data (still trying to relocate it) what was striking that historically the majority of excess deaths were usually in those aged 80 and over, but the new figures show one of the biggest jumps is in the 60+ group – those affected by the pensions and benefit cuts.
The excess mortality figures were declining and had been for many years , with the biggest drop the year the Winter Fuel allowance was introduced by Gordon Brown. This trend went into reverse 2012 – 13. Also one must remember that in Scandinavian countries there is no such thing as excess winter deaths.
Mike, I don’t know what your circulation figures are but this information is vital for people to understand how the Tories tell lies.
The whole premise of the private sector is that it is more efficient and cheaper than public provision.
The absolute opposite has always been the case.
People have allowed themselves to be brow beaten into believing Neo-Liberal propaganda and are sadly confused by the fact that New Labour posing as the Labour Party carried through Tory policies as though there was no alternative; and Thatcher herself stated: “that her greatest political achievement was Tony Blair”.
We now have to face up to the fact that the NHS has been abolished and the only recourse is to get these Tories out of office and to renationalise the NHS.
That means getting the Labour Party to adopt wholly the NHS reinstatement bill, that is presently going through parliament. In truth it will be killed off by Neo-Liberal politicians of all colours, which is why we need Labour to adopt this bill as part of it’s manifesto commitments for the next election.
This document is so important for people to understand how the Tories are pathological liars who have constantly deceived people about their real political intentions, not withstanding the fact this was written in 1982 long before the financial crash of 2008.
https://skwalker1964.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/cab-129-215-6.pdf
Just scroll down to read how Thatcher laid the ground plans to dismantle and privatise the state.
Then compare George Monboit’s article and links which expose the global scale of this agenda:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/02/corporate-dark-money-power-atlantic-lobbyists-brexit
The links between the Tories and the other extreme right wing political factions such as the tea party, show how the direction of travel has been co-ordinated throughout the world to serve the interests of the few at the expense of the many.
My circulation figures are among the healthiest of all political blogs – but at the moment, for This Site, they’re pretty low.
I think people in general are a bit tired of politics at the moment, with the huge defeats over things like Brexit, the collapse of the NHS in England and the disruptive right-wingers in the Labour Party collaborating with the Tory mass media to make people think the Tories have no opposition.
That’s why I – like so many other social media writers – need people to share my stories around their own friends and contacts.
Thank you Mike, I do share and hope others do both on twitter and Facebook.
There is no doubt that many more see your blog than perhaps your records show.
That’s a welcome thought.
Very interesting Monboits piece confirms that Trump really is a drone Trojan Horse operated by nearly the same team that would have manipulated Hillary Clinton had she not been such a dangerous loose cannon with personal deep pockets even for this cabal. There is no doubt the US lobbying is totally out of control and in the pockets of the politicians who have also implanted their their teams high in the decision making of all the regulatory and intelligence agencies. This is already rampant here in the UK and bad news for the NHS and other agencies as we saw with the government fracking agency team composition. Just hand out the rubber stamps. The EU was already under attack from this globalist force so not sure now the EU would offer any defence from this lot. .
It is of the utmost importance that people understand the power relationship between the corporate sectors and governments throughout the world.
When Bernie Sanders stated in Congress that the 1% were at war with its own people being the 99% this is exactly what he meant.
The reason I believe they have been able to get away with it is because the 99% do not realise the real power we have at our disposal. The Bank of England issues money into the economy as debt through the private banks.
97% of the money in circulation was issued as debt, printed electronically out of thin air which did not exist before it was issued.
The remaining 3% was issued as notes and coins for the Banks to use as cash.
If only people realised it is the government that issues all the money and therefore does not have to borrow a penny from anywhere, the money it creates itself. Therefore can spend into the economy when and where it is needed, such as our NHS for example, but doesn’t because Neo-Liberal politicians choose to issue it as debt.
We are all working to give private banks their profit, This Bank of England document explains how it happens:
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q102.pdf
The government should issue money directly into the economy when and where it is needed, not as it does today as debt.
The question we should all ask ourselves, is, why should we support the mega rich by protecting their financial assets, before we provide for the basic needs of ordinary people.
We bailed out the Banks with £375 billion but when we ask for £79 billion for public expenditure, suddenly we are broke.
In a word – DEMOCIDE…