The NHS porky of all time
The policy that if you are living in an area where people are healthier, you should receive less money may sound reasonable until you look at the consequences. If the good burghers of Sedgefield are getting 37% more per capita on NHS spending than people in Suffolk, then you could feel confident that they would not be at the receiving end of a health service financial crisis.
The destruction of community hospitals in the name of modernisation has little to do with patient care, but more to do with financial constraints. In West Suffolk, however, such was the absurdity of a consultation exercise to remove beds at our local community hospitals that now the new Suffolk PCT will reconsider the problem. Hooray!
Do you remember Tony Blair saying that there was 24 hours to save the NHS? Instead it is being ravaged in many parts of the country, and saddled with debts impossible to repay without cuts. Of course patients come first, but let us spare a thought for all those wonderful nurses, doctors and ancillary workers in our hospitals and in our communities who face a very bleak and insecure winter indeed.