NHS hospital car parking charges to be abolished

Health chiefs in England were under pressure to scrap hospital car parking charges after a move by the Scottish government to abolish the charges at 14 NHS hospitals.

The move to scrap the charges on December 31 this year comes after a review of the car parking policies of NHS boards across Scotland.

A temporary cap of £3 a day on parking charges at hospitals has been in place since January.

The charges will remain at three of Scotland's biggest hospitals which were built under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) - Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, and Ninewells Hospital in Dundee.

The charges have been particularly unpopular with staff and visitors but some health boards argued that they need to apply them to deter commuters and others not visiting hospitals leaving their cars on site.

By removing the hospital parking charges, the Nationalist government has again demonstrated its populist touch, leaving its opponents with no option but to agree with the move.

However, the decision will irritate patients and staff south of the Border who will ask why English hospitals cannot do the same.

Scrapping the charges will cost Scottish health boards about £5.5million in lost income each year. The boards will get £1.4million from the Scottish government this financial year but will get no more cash. The £1.4million is roughly equivalent to the income lost in the final three months of this financial year once the charges are scrapped.

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish Health Secretary, said that it was “simply not fair” to expect patients or visitors to have to pay when they come to hospital. “Put bluntly, a car parking charge is often the last thing people need,” she added.

Ms Sturgeon said she was “determined” that the founding principles of the NHS should remain. “Chief among these is that the NHS should be free at the point of delivery and it is my firm belief that this would apply whether one comes to hospital as a patient, visitor or member of staff,” the health secretary added.

She said that the only exception to the initiative would be car parks in hospitals built through PFI where the cost of early termination would be “prohibitive”, because of the nature of the contracts. However, even in these hospital, she said that boards should work with contractors to limit and reduce charges until the contracts came to an end.

The 14 hospitals where charges will be scrapped are: Aberdeen Royal Infirmary; Dr Gray's Hospital, Elgin; Gartnavel General Hospital and Gartnavel Royal Hospital; the Southern General Hospital, Stobhill Hospital, Victoria Infirmary, Western Infirmary and Yorkhill Hospital, all in Glasgow; Raigmore Hospital in Inverness; the Lauriston Building, Royal Hospital for Sick Children and the Western General Hospital, all in Edinburgh; St John's Hospital in West Lothian, and Perth Royal Infirmary.

Before the charges are scrapped the five health boards which apply them will be asked to bring forward plans for meeting increased demand and promoting environmentally-friendly transport.

The move was welcome by the AA motoring organisation, which urged hospitals in England to do the same.

Edmund King, the AA President, said that the scrapping of car park charges at these 14 hospitals was “great news”, particularly for long-term sufferers and their families.

“For cancer sufferers undergoing chemotherapy on a day-patient basis the parking costs soon add up. Also, due to the risk of infection many such sufferers are unable to use public transport,” he added.

Unison, the NHS union, criticised the decision not to scrap charges at PFI hospital car parks. Cathy Miller, the Glasgow and Clyde branch secretary, said that Ms Sturgeon seemed unwilling to be bold enough to remove charges from these sites.

“This decision will create a two-tier system with staff and patients who are unlucky enough to be on a PFI site, such as Glasgow Royal Infirmary, being charged for the pleasure”, she added.

Organisations representing doctors and nurses welcomed the move. Charles Saunders, chairman of the BMA's Scottish consultants committee, said that charging to park at hospitals was an indirect tax on healthcare.

“The founding principle of the NHS is that healthcare should be free at the point of delivery and we are pleased that the Scottish government has recognised the burden that these charges have put on patients and their relatives when they are at their most vulnerable,” he added.

From:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article4663759.ece

Health Direct wonders if Gordon Brown had any sense he would have rather done the same for England.

A majority of people in England would have benefited from this simple measure. Stamp duty holiday for houses under 175000 for a handful of people for a year is neither here nor there.
I wonder who advises him?

NHS at 60- Labour no longer trusted on National Health Service

NHS at 60- On the eve of the NHS's sixtieth aniversary a new poll shows that Labour is no longer the party trusted to bring in the health reforms that are needed to safeguard the NHS for future generations.

Despite the billions Labour has poured into health, the YouGov poll shows that public satisfaction with the NHS is dropping. Barely one in five people believe the Labour party will deliver a better health service over the next ten years, the You Gov poll shows.

It comes on the day Gordon Brown is to publish Lord Darzi's package of reforms to overhaul the way the NHS is run.

The Prime Minister hopes the comprehensive review will transform Labour's fortunes and restore the party's reputation as guardians of the NHS on its 60th anniversary.

The results of the poll show he Tories have a clear lead on health policy with 31 per cent of people saying they would do a better job of running the health service, compared to 23 per cent who think Labour would deliver on the NHS.

The results of the latest poll confirm a shift in the political debate over health care, away from funding and towards improved management and organisation.

After years of above-inflation increases in health spending, most voters now believe the NHS has enough money. But they worry that the service has become bureaucratic and over-burdened with managers.

Sixty-nine per cent of people said reorganising the NHS is more important than spending more on it, up from 38 per cent in 1998. Only 24 per cent now want more spent on health, down from 59 per cent a decade ago.

Seventy-eight per cent of voters believe the NHS has too many managers.

And despite the billions Labour has poured into health, the new poll shows that public satisfaction with the NHS is dropping. In 1998, some 91 per cent of recent patients said they were happy with their treatment. That figure has now fallen to 81 per cent.

Some 44 per cent of people said they think "a great deal" of money is being wasted in the NHS. Another 38 per cent said a "fair amount" is wasted.

"David Cameron's unambiguous commitment to the National Health Service means a great deal to the public. They know that the NHS needs reform and that Labour have failed them on this crucial issue," said Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary.

"But they also know that Conservative reforms for healthcare will not threaten the security that comes with a health service available to all, based on need. This poll shows that the public, like staff across the NHS, are now willing and ready to trust the Conservatives with the stewardship of the NHS."

In the foreword to the Darzi report, the Prime Minister hails the document as the blueprint for a "once-in-a-generation" shake-up in the NHS.

The report will usher in the creation of "polyclinics" with several doctors and nurses to replace hundreds of GP surgeries in the biggest cities, despite opposition from patients and the

British Medical Association.

It also says that hospitals should publish death rates for dozens of conditions, allowing patients to make "informed choices" about where to get treatment.

Hospitals should offer more home births for mothers, and old and terminally-ill will get the right to chose to die at home instead of in hospital.

And a new NHS constitution will enshrine rights to confidentiality, control of patient records and a second medical opinion.

Mr Brown writes: "Lord Darzi's report is a tremendous opportunity to build an NHS which provides truly world-class services for all. It requires government to be serious about reform, committed to trusting front-line staff and ready to invest in new services and new ways of delivering services."

But Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman said he feared the Darzi package would be vague and impractical. He said: "What does all this mean? Will patients be able to enforce their rights?"

And despite Mr Brown's bold claims for the review, there are doubts about whether Lord Darzi has been allowed to go far enough in drawing up his reform plans.

His report is not expect to deal with the controversial issue of "co-payment," where patients can pay extra to top-up NHS care with private provision. That omission has drawn accusations that the review is too limited to prepare the health service for the demands of the next century.

A separate opinion poll for Reform, a think-tank, has suggested that most doctors believe top-up payments should be introduced to the NHS.

The ComRes poll showed that 79 per cent of GPs believe patients should be able to top-up their NHS care with private treatment.

• YouGov polled 2,163 adults across Great Britain between June 23 and 25.

From:
Labour-no-longer-trusted-on-NHS-reforms.html

NHS constitution- another bad labour idea- FT Editorial

The key test of any health reform should be whether it will actually improve the quality of care that patients receive.

By any measure, the latest big new idea from Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, fails the test: that, after muddling along without one for 60 years, the National Health Service in England (healthcare is now devolved in Scotland and Wales) should have a constitution.

The very origins of the idea betray its weakness. It was initially dreamt up by Andy Burnham, then a junior health minister, as a means of celebrating the NHS’s 60th anniversary this July.

Why not, he mused, lay out the service’s values and ethos, setting out what patients can expect in terms of rights and responsibilities?

The real motivation, however, was far tawdrier.

Labour hoped that something could be written about the service being tax-funded and largely free at the point of use in language that the Conservative opposition would balk at. Labour would then go into the next election arguing that the NHS was not safe in Tory hands.

There was never a chance of that. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, has been at great pains to commit his party to the current model of the NHS, sealing off the subject as an election vulnerability.

But the idea, once born, has refused to die. Even now, weeks before its intended publication, no one in Whitehall seems to have much idea of what might be in it.

The plan may set out some responsibilities (not to abuse the service), some rights to minimum standards of care and possibly some definition of who should do what in the NHS from ministers downwards.

But the odds are it will either be so vacuous as to be meaningless, or that it will open up cans of worms that ministers will wish they had never touched.

If the constitution tries to define entitlements, ministers risk having to decide what should be in (and not in) a “core” NHS. States round the world have tried the idea and found it lacking.

If the new model deals with accountability, it risks freezing what should be flexible: healthcare systems need to be malleable to respond to changing technology, disease and patterns of care. That risk will rise if it is a legal document.

And if it is not put into law it will count for nothing more than the stated principles of the NHS – all of which are contained in countless Department of Health documents, and some of which are already enshrined in law.

This futile exercise will create the illusion of activity while doing nothing to improve patient care. It should be dropped.

Ministers instead should concentrate on their other (and wholly welcome) proposals this week: ensuring that patients have choice and that hospitals have real financial incentives to improve the quality of care.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0840430e-22ab-11dd-93a9-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

Cannabis U Turn as labour again disregards scientists

Cannabis is to be reclassified as a class B drug, Jacqui Smith has said. The home secretary's statement to MPs came despite the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs' review - commissioned by Gordon Brown - saying it should stay class C.

She added that the government's change of heart - which is subject to parliamentary approval - was part of a "relentless drive".

Ms Smith told MPs: "There is a compelling case for us to act now, rather than risk the future health of young people.

In its report, Cannabis: Classification And Public Health, the advisory council described cannabis as a "significant public health issue".

But it said it should still remain a class C drug, as the risks were not as serious as those of class B substances, such as amphetamines and barbiturates.

The report said the evidence suggested a "probable, but weak, causal link between psychotic illness, including schizophrenia, and cannabis use".

However, in the population as a whole, it played only a "modest role" in the development of these conditions.

Council chairman Sir Michael Rawlings told BBC Radio 4's World at One: "The strength of things like skunk hasn't really changed very much over the last few years but it's now more widely used... The question of potency is a very complex area."

Sir Michael added: "The government may want to take other matters into account. That's their right. They are the government."

In its report the council called for a campaign to reduce the use of cannabis, particularly focusing on young people.

From:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7386889.stm

Health Direct notes that once again labour dithers over another dilemma. One which ignores there own advisers and the science.

On August 02, 2006 Health Direct posted: Risks of taking drugs compared- Scientific review of dangers of drugtaking- Drugs, the real deal

Health Direct reproduced the first ranking based upon scientific evidence of harm to both individuals and society. It was devised by government advisers - then ignored by labour ministers because of its controversial findings.

The analysis was carried out by David Nutt, a senior member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and Colin Blakemore, the chief executive of the Medical Research Council. Copies of the report have been submitted to the Home Office, which has failed to act on the conclusions.

NHS pay deal may be cut if offer is rejected

Health workers may have their pay offer cut if they refuse to accept the three year deal which Gordon Brown and labour ministers are offering.

Unions have warned that unrest among nurses and other NHS staff over the settlement could still lead to industrial action.

The proposed increase is worth 8.1 per cent over three years and is part of a new set of public sector pay agreements Gordon Brown hailed as ground breaking and vital to ensure wage stability.

Unison's health officer, Mike Jackson, told a health workers' conference in Manchester that the deal, worth 2.75 per cent this year followed by rises of 2.4 per cent and 2.25 per cent, plus extra for the lowest paid staff, was the best that could be achieved.

But in a stand-off with Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, his department's officials have written to unions saying the Government reserved the right to stage or even reduce the pay offer if it is not accepted.

Mr Jackson said the only way the deal could now be changed was if "effective" industrial action were taken.

Unison's head of health, Karen Jennings, said there were "huge risks" in accepting a long-term deal but she described the offer as "balanced".

The conference will decide whether to recommend acceptance of the three-year deal to Unison's 500,000 health workers.

Another union, Unite, which represents 12,000 members including health visitors, mental health nurses and some pharmacists, has already recommended that staff reject the deal.

Peter Allenson, a spokesman, said: "This deal is not sufficient for us to be able to recommend acceptance.

"We have reservations that the re-negotiation clause, which should come into effect in situations of rising inflation, is not strong enough and in a climate of economic insecurity, it is not at a level sufficient to meet members' needs."

A Department for Health source said the Government considered the proposal to be "generous".

"We are certain the majority of health staff will be happy with this deal and we hope the unions put it to a full ballot of their membership," he said.

"If that happens, we are confident we will win. If not, we can not guarantee the eventual settlement will be as generous as this offer."

Gordon Brown has repeatedly said he is determined to keep public sector wage rises down to tackle inflation.

Last year, police staged an unprecedented march through Westminster in protest at being awarded a 2.5 per cent increase, below the level recommended by the independent pay review body.

Teachers from the National Union of Teachers have staged a series of strikes over their award, the first industrial action in schools for 21 years.

College lecturers walked out on the same day over their demand that their pay rise by six per cent, to the same level as teachers.

From:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/15/nhs115.xml

Health Direct warns that the Labour bullies are up to their old tricks by attempting to blackmail hard working NHS staff to accept the DOH's meagre offer.

Private hospitals retreat from NHS

A drive to get patients to exercise their right to choose any accredited hospital, public or private, for their routine treatment was launched by labour ministers - just as some of Britain's biggest private hospital groups said their appetite for work in the National Health Service had diminished sharply.

Richard Jones, commercial director of Spire, formerly Bupa Hospitals and Britain's second largest private hospital group, said NHS work "is no longer core to our strategy". The company had invested heavily in adapting its business model to take on NHS patients.

"We will offer spare capacity to the NHS when it suits us," Mr Jones said. But Spire is refocusing on the private patients that make up 90 per cent of its business and it now expects "on average no more than 10 per cent" of its business to come from NHS patients.

At the same time David Mobbs, chief executive of Nuffield Hospitals, which had also invested heavily in NHS work, said there was now "a limit to how much effort we will put into this, whereas before we thought that NHS work would be a major part of our business.

"We are all recalibrating our expectations," he said. Nuffield also expects only some 10 per cent of its work to come from the NHS.

BMI, Britain's largest private hospital group, has never seen the NHS market as vitally important, but Ramsay, appreciably the smallest of Britain's big four private providers, stood apart from the others saying yesterday it still saw the NHS market as "a significant one".

David Hillier, its chief executive, said it retained "a huge amount of interest" in what it saw as "a dynamic and growing market" for NHS patients. NHS work was already "significantly above 10 per cent" of Ramsay's hospital business and "growing by the month", Mr Hillier said.

Mr Jones, who is also chairs the NHS Partners Network, the trade association for private NHS providers, said: "Three or four years ago we, like many others, saw a very significant opportunity and a very significant threat from the NHS reforms."

There were projections that NHS patients would make up almost half of private hospital admissions within a few years, and private patient numbers were projected to fall by 15 per cent.

NHS waiting times have reduced sharply but private patient numbers have held up well. "The threat [of private patient numbers falling] has turned out to be less," Mr Jones said, "but the opportunity [for more NHS work] has as well."

Mr Jones said Gordon Brown's government did believe in using the private sector but "the extent of the push for that, and therefore the scale of the opportunity, is less pronounced that it appeared to be a few years ago. That is a conclusion that quite a lot of the independent sector providers have reached".

Only about 5 per cent of NHS waiting list operations are carried out in the private sector - against projections of "up to 15 per cent" a few years ago. While £200m was set aside to allow NHS patients to choose private sector treatment during this financial year, only £10.5m had been spent by December with only 5,000 patients choosing to go private. "I do think the NHS business will grow," Mr Jones said, "but our private business is growing as well and that is what we are focusing on."

From:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b8397dca-f61e-11dc-8d3d-000077b07658.html

Health Direct notes that the U turn by the private health sector is primarily a result of labour's dithering for years- which has not only raised expectations, but costs.

Hospital managers to blame for MRSA, say eight out of 10 Brits

Today all NHS hospitals should have completed a "deep clean" in an effort by the Department of Health to tackle superbugs according to Gordon Brown.

New research shows that the British public lays the blame for MRSA squarely at the feet of hospital managers, rather than cleaners, doctors, patients or visitors.

In fact, Brits are now so worried about contracting the superbug, that it ranks as one of their top three concerns when choosing a hospital.

Today's findings from a study commissioned by Bupa of over 1000 adults in Great Britain, show that the British public not only holds managers responsible for dealing with MRSA, but also blames them for the high level of the superbug in NHS hospitals.

Eight out of 10 said that hospital management are responsible for the rise of MRSA, making them 10 times more to blame than cleaners, 80 times more guilty than doctors and 100 times more to blame than patients.

Concern over the superbug has risen to such an extent that when Brits consider which hospital to choose for treatment, the rate of MRSA is now one of their top three issues - along with waiting times and the reputation of the hospital itself.

According to the study, people also now rate the level of MRSA in a hospital as on a par with the reputation of the consultant handling their treatment.

But while fears about MRSA are high, Brits are not prepared to travel to find a clean hospital - they want one on their doorstep. In fact, seven out of 10 people said they would not go more than 20 miles to find a hospital with a low rate of MRSA.

Dr Paula Franklin, deputy medical director at Bupa UK Health Insurance, commented: "Clean hospitals have become so important to the British public that they now represent the biggest reason why people buy health insurance, with two out of three people taking out health insurance because they want to make sure they are treated in a clean hospital.

"While our survey shows the public place the blame for superbugs squarely at the door of hospital management, people need to be alert to the fact that MRSA is largely brought into hospitals by patients and visitors. Greater awareness is needed so that everyone - and not just hospital staff - can play a part in the fight against superbugs".

From:
http://www.bupa.co.uk/about/html/pr/310308_mrsa.html

Health Direct points out that contrary to our esteemed leader- Gordon Stalinist Brown's promises up to twenty per cent of hospitals will fail even to miss this deadline.

Cancer patient runs out of time in NHS drugs funding postcode lottery

A woman suffering from breast cancer has run out of time to benefit from a potentially life extending drug which the National Health Service (NHS) denied her, even though she was prepared to pay for it.

Colette Mills has been told by doctors that in the four months since she asked for the drug the disease has taken such a hold in her body that the cancer will no longer respond to the treatment.

She is the victim of a ruling which states that any patient who wants to pay for additional drugs not prescribed by the NHS should lose their entitlement to their basic NHS cancer care and pay for all their treatment. She was prepared to pay for the drug but not her whole treatment.

Mills, a 58-year-old former nurse, said: “I am just absolutely gutted. I just cannot believe people make these decisions about other people’s lives. It wasn’t going to cost them. I was going to pay for it. How can they say this policy is far more important than somebody’s life?

“The NHS has taken this opportunity away from me and, if they are doing it to me, they are doing it to a lot of other women as well.”

The labour government claims that to allow some patients to pay for additional drugs on top of their NHS treatment creates a two-tier system between those who can and cannot afford them.

Asked about her future prospects, Mills said: “They are not hopeful of halting it. They will give you no promises. I didn’t ask and he [the doctor] didn’t say. It is not something I want to know just yet.”

Mills, a mother of two, launched a legal action to try to force the NHS to allow her to pay for the drug Avastin which she wanted to take alongside another medicine, Taxol, which is prescribed by the health service.

But during her four-month battle with the NHS, the breast cancer has spread to other parts of her body and doctors have told Mills it is too late for her to benefit from the combination of Avastin and Taxol.

An American trial has shown that taking the drugs in combination doubles the chance of preventing the disease from spreading compared to taking Taxol on its own. Taking Avastin in addition to Taxol is also likely to keep the disease under control for almost twice as long. Leading oncologists say Avastin offers a small but significant advantage in treating breast cancer.

Mills will now be prescribed an alternative medicine but does not know how successful this will be in stopping the cancer.

Several other cancer patients are also taking legal action to win the right to pay for medicines that are not available on the NHS. The patients’ lawyer, Melissa Worth, of the law firm Halliwells, said: “Colette has been told by her medical team that she may have missed her chance. "

"If she had been given the opportunity to take the Avastin when she first contacted her medical team about it, then she would have had three months’ treatment by now. Months down the line, the policy will need to change but for those patients currently fighting their NHS trusts, it might be too late.”

Becoming an entirely private patient would have cost Mills, from near Stokesley, North Yorkshire, about £10,000 a month instead of about £4,000 solely to pay for the Avastin and its administration.

Although she could have tried to raise the funds such as finding a loan, she believes it is a fundamental principle that the NHS should continue to fund her basic care for which she has paid through her taxes.

The Department of Health, however, said top-up payments would “undermine” the “fundamental principle of the NHS, now supported by all the main political parties, that treatment should be free at the point of need”.

Mills’s case has provoked a national debate about whether NHS patients should be allowed to pay for top-up treatments.

NHS chief executives, the Patients Association, Doctors for Reform and Saga, the organisation for the over-fifties, have all backed Mills and other patients in her situation since The Sunday Times and Health Direct highlighted their plight last year.

A group of Conservative MPs, including former shadow health minister John Baron, are campaigning for co-payments to be allowed.

From:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article3257529.ece

Health Direct finds it scandalous that the labour government is letting voters die just to save the NHS money.

The labour government wants to avoid a two tiered health system, but this is precisely what we have, not least as some have private health insurance and most of us do not. Their argument just does not work.

Health Direct can hardly understand why it is that the government would rather its citizens die in situations where they could receive treatment (albeit at private expense) all to satisfy the ideological goal of avoiding a two-tiered healthcare system.

Since it is clear this already exists with widespread healthcare postcode lotteries which they are creating- how many more people will die at Gordon Brown's hands?

NHS trusts lose patients' records

Gordon Brown was facing further political embarrassment over the labour government's handling of personal data after the Department of Health confirmed that nine National Health Service trusts had admitted losing patient records.

The loss, thought to involve personal information on hundreds of thousands of people, emerged as part of a government-wide review following security breaches in other departments.

The Department of Health said the affected patients had been informed about the loss and there was no evidence the information had fallen into the wrong hands. It added investigations were under way and action would be taken against anyone who had failed to fulfil their responsibilities under data protection laws.

Andrew Lansley, shadow home secretary, said the latest loss underlined the Conservative party's case against the government developing centralised databases. It also raised questions over how the planned electronic patients database in the NHS would protect sensitive medical records.

"For over two years we have argued for data to be held locally, with networking rather than one central database. The government should accept that this would offer us greater protection," Mr Lansley said.

The NHS data loss comes after police admitted they had failed to discover the whereabouts of two computer discs lost last month in the post by Revenue & Customs. The discs contained the names, addresses, dates of birth and bank account details of every child benefit claimant, in the biggest recorded loss of data ever in Europe.

While law enforcement and the banking sector have in recent weeks developed a new coordinated system for checking on suspicious transactions, senior investigators say the failure to find the discs containing data on 25m people risks exposing large swathes of the population to possible fraud and identity theft in the future.

The latest loss also follows the more recent revelation, on Monday last week, that details of 3m learner drivers had been lost after being sent to a private contractor in Iowa in the US.

By yesterday afternoon the details of what data had been mislaid by the trusts had not been disclosed by the Department of Health. But according to a report in the Sunday Mirror, one of the breaches was thought to involve the loss of names and addresses of 160,000 children by City and Hackney Primary Care Trust after a disc containing data failed to arrive at a London hospital.

Patient Care, the patient support group, said ministers should not try to gloss over the latest "scandal" affecting the poor handling of data.

Joyce Robins of Patient Care told the BBC: "It's the tip of the iceberg, actually, because there's such carelessness within the NHS and it's always impossible to hold anyone to account and find out who's actually done anything. It may be only a matter of time before records fall into the wrong hands and we see not only our ex-directory phone numbers posted on the internet but the record of our abortions, HIV and Aids status.''

From:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1e6bccd8-b1c3-11dc-9777-0000779fd2ac.html

Brown bounce wanes on public services says another poll

Labour's "Brown bounce" in the polls has receded as far as public services are concerned, according to polling by Ipsos Mori.

Ben Page, public affairs managing director, said that the public's expectations about the economy and whether public services would improve had returned to the level they stood at when Tony Blair left office.

The polling company's quarterly "delivery index" has long been used in Downing Street to track the public's views on public service reform.

In May, as Gordon Brown prepared to take over as prime minister, fractionally more of those interviewed believed the government's policy would improve the state of the economy in the long term.

By this month the net score between those who believe things will get better and those who believe they will get worse was minus seven.

On public services generally, those who believe things will get worse outnumber those who believe they will get better by 22 percentage points, against 13 in May.

That is chiefly due to expectations over the future performance of the National Health Service declining from a net score of minus 14 to minus 19.

That is nothing like as bad as in September last year, when the proportion who believed services would get worse outnumbered those who believed they would get better by 32 points.

"The NHS remains a key concern for the government," Ipsos Mori said. But "crime, immigration and pensions are [also] key challenges for the Brown government - most of the public are currently pessimistic about these".

A mere 20 per cent are confident that the government will manage immigration well, 23 per cent that they will do the right thing on pensions and 23 per cent that crime will reduce over the next few years.

From:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/de5492aa-657e-11dc-bf89-0000779fd2ac.html

The dip in Stalinst Brown's fortunes were highlighted in Health Direct's post on 18 Sep 2007-
Labour lead halved as voters feel pinch when Gordon Stalinist Brown’s opinion poll lead has halved in the space of a month, making an early election much less likely, according to the latest Sunday Times-YouGov poll of more than 1,800 people.

Labour lead halved as voters feel pinch

Gordon Stalinist Brown’S opinion poll lead has halved in the space of a month, making an early election much less likely, according to the latest Sunday Times-YouGov poll of more than 1,800 people.

While Labour enjoys a five-point lead over the Conservatives, it has slipped three points from 42% to 39% while the Tories have climbed from 32% to 34%. The Liberal Democrats, on the eve of their party conference, have edged up from 14% to 15% but remain well down on their 23% share of the vote in the May 2005 general election.

One threat for Brown is over the crisis in the financial markets, which led to the Bank of England’s rescue of Northern Rock last week. YouGov asked about the outlook for people’s finances over the next 12 months.

Only just over a quarter, 26%, said their finances would remain healthy, compared with 50% who said they would be under some pressure and 21% who predicted that they would be under a lot of pressure.

Even before the crisis, families were being squeezed by the five interest rate rises since August last year, higher energy costs and increases in food prices. Earnings have risen at a slower rate than prices.

According to the poll, 46% of people say they will spend less on non essential items over the next 12 months, against 12% who expect to spend more. Further increases in mortgage rates could add to the pressure, the poll suggests, with 16% expecting to face serious problems.

Another potential problem for Brown is over the new European Union reform treaty, which the government is expected to accept in the coming months. He has rejected a referendum on the treaty claiming it differs from the original EU constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters.

But, with some Labour MPs, the trade unions and the Tories backing calls for a referendum, the prime minister appears to be setting his face against public opinion. By 60% to 16%, voters think there should be a referendum on the treaty. Worryingly for Brown, this is also the strong view among Labour supporters, who back a vote by 47% to 28%.

Because Labour promised a referendum on the original constitution, voters believe, by 61% to 12%, that Labour would be breaking its pledge if it refuses to hold one on the treaty. As for how people would vote in such a referendum, more than a third don’t know, but of those who declared a view, 41% would reject it, with 17% in favour.

The poll also examined attitudes to the National Health Service, following Sir Derek Wanless’s report last week, which said that the NHS had not improved enough in return for the 50% real increase in spending poured in since 2002.

Only 6% think the NHS has got “much” better in recent years, while 21% say it is slightly better. In contrast, 22% say it is slightly worse and 19% much worse. By 68% to 18% they say taxpayers have not got good value for the extra money.

From:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2461294.ece