Twenty pounds to see your GP? The headlines are ablaze with the recommendation made this week by the Social Market Foundation in the report ‘From Feast to Famine: Reforming the NHS for an age of austerity’. The charge is suggested as a mechanism to constrain growth in demand for health care.
‘The person for Henry Kissinger to call if he wants to speak to Europe’ is just one of the ways that the potential post of President of the European Council is being described, writes Nicola Di Luzio (with the emphasis on ‘potential’ – since the new post is a part of the Lisbon Treaty, which… [Read More]
The Charities Act of 2006 demanded not unreasonably that, to qualify for the tax breaks that accompany charitable status, bodies seeking it must prove themselves of public benefit. Less reasonably, Parliament left the task of stipulating what constitutes public benefit to the Charities Commission.
Here’s a good question: where are the Tories going on health policy? Do they even know? It doesn’t seem so. First, the macro stuff. Is health spending to increase in real terms as pledged, or has – as today’s response to the King’s Fund and IFS’s projections for the NHS tends to suggest – reality… [Read More]
Problems with primary testing, from distorting the curriculum to painting a misleadingly positive view of basic standards in primary school have been at the forefront of the school standards debate for well over a year now.
Earlier in the week, the Health Service Journal published the results of a survey of NHS finance directors, in which 32 out of 35 participants, from PCTs, mental health and acute trusts. Two things are worth noting.
By Nicola Di Luzio The only symbol the opening ceremony lacked was the figurehead; all the other trappings of a fully-fledged parliament were in place. And in fact, first on the agenda this week for the 736 newly elected MEPs was the election of that figurehead: yesterday Jerzy Buzek, former Polish PM, was announced as… [Read More]
“This was a pilot scheme and the point … of a pilot scheme [is] to find out if something works. There is no dishonour in piloting something to see whether it works and if it doesn’t work then acknowledging it and trying to press on and find out what does work.” So did Harriet Harman… [Read More]
According to reports yesterday, Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons (the two British National Party (BNP) politicians who made headlines in June when they were elected to the European Parliament, becoming 2 of the UK’s 72 MEPs), are facing isolation in Brussels, writes Nicola Di Luzio.
Yesterday, European Union finance ministers decided that in periods of economic growth, bank loans will be tightened, writes Nicola Di Luzio. This is in order to make sure that funds are available when recession hits.