ONCE again PM Gordon Brown and the Labour Party have revealed that while they rushed to handing over £150 billion to the bankers, they intend to end the provision of hospital care for the sick and free medical care and free accommodation for the sick and elderly.
Yesterday Brown, when he spoke concentrated on the elderly.
Brown pledged three ‘major reforms, which he refused to detail. He said:
‘• First, our current system needs to respond to the new financial pressures.
‘• Second, our current system needs to be more personal to people’s needs as individuals and to deliver the high standards of service they now have a right to expect.
‘• Third, it is essential that in future there is fairness for those who work hard and save for their retirement. And we know that differences in entitlement between different areas of the country create anxiety and uncertainty for people when they are most vulnerable.’ This was taken as a very unsubtle hint that the days of free care for the elderly in Wales and Scotland are numbered.
The nearest that Brown got to the particular was when he concluded by saying: ‘Now is the time to look at how we can create a new social care and support system, fit for the 21st century,’ revealing that Labour intends to amalgamate social and elderly care together.
He finished leaving it to his Health Secretary Alan Johnson to lift the veil slightly on what is proposed.
Johnson stated: ‘Funding is a vital part of this debate, but it is not just about money. . . Today also marks the beginning of the £31 million Whole System Demonstrator Programme that will test the potential of innovative technologies like Telecare and Telehealth in supporting care for those with complex health and social care needs.’
While Brown spoke about the elderly, Johnson emphasised that Labour was going to bring adult and elderly social health care together, with the caring taking place in the home.
He said: ‘The pilot is being rolled out across Kent, Cornwall and Newham where people with complex health and social care needs such as diabetes, heart and chest problems and the elderly and the frail will use the technology.
‘Clients can also trigger requests for help should they fall and automated safety devices will be installed to ensure people are able to live at home for longer.’
The Department of Health notes go a little further.
Proving that finance is the issue it stated: ‘If current levels of service provision and patterns of care continued, public expenditure on Personal Social Services for adults is projected to rise from £12.7 billion in 2007, to reach £24.1 billion in 2026 and £40.9 billion in 2041 at 2005 prices.’
This is a £29 billion rise in costs over 34 years for all adult social health care. Compared with the expense of propping up banks this is a bargain!
It adds that ‘Telecare is the continuous, automatic and remote monitoring of real-time emergencies and lifestyle changes over time in order to manage the risks associated with independent living.’
It continues: ‘Telehealth is the delivery of healthcare at a distance using electronic means of communication — usually from service user to clinician e.g. a service user measuring their vital signs at home and this data being transmitted via a telehealth monitor to a clinician.’
This means that one operative will be remotely monitoring, on banks of TV screens, large numbers of pensioners and the acutely ill who will be expected to electronically communicate with the monitor.
Can you imagine the rich and the well off putting up with this warehousing of the sick and the elderly. Of course they won’t. This is strictly a ‘service’ for the poor, who cannot afford to pay for tip-top individual treatment and retirement. it will be a betrayal of everything that the NHS stands for.
This is just a system for managing the descent of the elderly and sick into the grave with the minimum of trouble and expense after the district general hospitals have been closed.
It must be rejected out of hand in favour of specialised hospital treatment for the ill and free health care and free first class accommodation for the elderly. Nothing else will do!
