The problem with the privatisation of the NHS.
Why Are Cows Tails Dropping Off?
Another article about the negative environmental impacts of ‘fracking’. The method of using high hydraulic pressure to fracture gas shale or coal-seams to extract methane (natural gas).
Why Are Cows Tails Dropping Off?.
This is another article explaining how the reserves of shale-gas have been exaggerated, and how it has led to another financial ‘bubble’:
The Fracked-up USA Shale Gas Bubble
Biomass Industry Plays With Fire, Gets Burned [The Biomass Monitor] | Energy Justice Network
Biomass incineration is not clean, green or sustainable and now even safety of these plants are suspect.
Biomass Industry Plays With Fire, Gets Burned [The Biomass Monitor] | Energy Justice Network.
Beyond Pro-Nuclear Propaganda: Pandora’s False Promises
A summary of a report debunking the myth of Nuclears environmental claims. Nuclear has a large carbon-footprint that proponents of nuclear never talk about. It also would mean this country would be dependant on imported ore that is becoming scarce, 1-1.5% per tonne of material mined. The UK has spent over £50 billion on building and running nuclear plants and it will cost an additional £50 billion to de-commission redundant plant. This dwarfs the amount of money spent of renewables and the amount of money the fossil fuel companies avoid through tax-breaks, given them by the UK Government.
TwoPageSummary_of_ Report_May2013 – TwoPageSummary_of_ Report_May2013.pdf.
Under successive Governments, Labour and Conservative, the NHS has been slowly privatised and had staff numbers reduced. The politicians have failed the NHS and the people of England and Wales.
Jeremy Hunt’s announcement in Parliament last Tuesday on the changes he is planning in the wake of the Francis Report into events at Stafford Hospital was remarkable for two things: the complete absence of the key factor that Robert Francis identified as being at the heart of the poor care at the hospital and as clear a case of “giving away the ‘master’-plan” as you will ever see.
Or not wish to see, since for all Hunt’s timorousness and petulance it will be an absolute disaster for hundreds of thousands of people.
The problem that never was, or ‘out of sight, out of mind?’
Hunt prefaced his announcement of his measures by genuflecting before the altar of the Francis report:
I also pay tribute to Robert Francis QC for his work in producing a seminal report that will, I believe, mark a turning point in the history of the NHS…Our…
View original post 1,654 more words
Inquiry behind NHS scandal omitted crucial data – Public Sector IT
The British public have been losing faith in Public Inquiries for some time, this just reinforces people’s mistrust of those in power:
Inquiry behind NHS scandal omitted crucial data – Public Sector IT.
And another blog worth reading about South Stafford NHS and the Francis Inquiry Report:
Media Jarman claim 20k avoidable NHS deaths – Why its nonsense
EUobserver.com / Social Affairs / Tuberculosis – an old plague comes back stronger
With the Conservative continuing with Labour’s dismantling of the National Health Service, the UK could see TB returning and it reaching epidemic proportions. We are an intensely populated island, which would make an ideal breeding ground for this disease spread rapidly and over-power the resources of the NHS.
EUobserver.com / Social Affairs / Tuberculosis – an old plague comes back stronger.
Frontline Online: Where should we be looking for waste we can turn to energy? – The Ecologist
Another article which follows on from an earlier reblog I posted on the 12th January:Video: The Dark Side of the Green Economy
Inappropriate biofuel and biomass development can exasperate the pollution, poverty and starvation we already suffer from. I cringe, every time I hear of a ‘ecohouse’ which has wood burners install as a ‘green’ answer to their space heating. It is not, especially on our already overcrowded and polluted Island. The CAT (Centre of Alternative Technology) has a lot to answer for, they have not really moved on since the 70s with regards to alternative technologies. Wood used to be the main source of energy on these Islands, but it was becoming scarce by the 1700s and the Islands nearly deforested. This changed with the onset of steam technology which allowed the exploitation of the ancient fossil fuel beneath our feet. As the Ecologist article mentions, using waste organic waste is a way forward. I have been pushing AD biogesters to turn organic waste to energy (Methane) which is happening all over the world. But is still in its infancy in the UK, just as wave and tidal technologies are. We should be looking at the Best Available Technology (BAT), instead of relying on 18th Century technologies which may be cheaper to build.
Frontline Online: Where should we be looking for waste we can turn to energy? – The Ecologist.
List of the Harmed | Pennsylvania Alliance for Clean Water and Air
When will politicians accept that ‘fracking’ for shale gas or coal-seam methane is harmful to the environment and human health? Or are they going to continually dismiss the evidence?
List of the Harmed | Pennsylvania Alliance for Clean Water and Air.
The continuing sad story of the Britain returning to the ‘Dark Days’ of the Industrial Revolution, where workers found their wages continually cut. Plunging even working families into dire poverty, welcome to 21st Century Britain and the end of a National Health Service. What is also sad, despite Miliband’s rhetoric, is that Labour will not vote against the Benefits Bill. Ed Miliband to wage war on George Osborne’s welfare.
‘Senior Labour figures stopped short of confirming that Labour would vote against the cuts in the Commons in January. But it is understood that unless fundamental changes are made to the coming welfare uprating bill, Miliband will be prepared to give the order.
One senior Labour figure said there were still tensions inside the party, with a caucus of “new Labour” figures believing it will be politically suicidal to leave the party open to charges that it sides with “scroungers” and is in denial over the need to cut the benefits bill’.
Another journalist summed up the situation as Osborne’s war on the poor and the vile stupidity of his workers-vs-shirkers narrative. Unfortunately as the Guardian hints at, there are millionaire members in the Labour Party who believe in this same rhetoric. That is why people need to realise they have to vote, to rid us of these two obscene political parties.
I’ve spent the last few days looking through the oral testimony given to the Commons Health Select Committee on 13 November, as well as through the lengthy written testimony given to the committee ahead of the hearing by various organisations, on ‘public expenditure’ – basically the state of NHS finances and the progress toward achieving the ‘Nicholson Challenge’ of £20 billion in savings over the period from 2011-2015.
I was initially drawn to this evidentiary session because, among the witnesses, was Tony Spotswood – the CEO of Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch NHS Trust. Spotswood, as revealed in an email exchange I was able to publish for the first time recently, discussed a ‘coup’ plan to bring down the ‘NHS Employers’ organisation (NHSE) with Chris Bown, CEO of the neighbouring Poole NHS Trust.
NHSE is responsible for national negotiations with unions on the pay and conditions of the UK’s 1.7 million…
View original post 2,513 more words
patricktsudlow 