Tag: NHS

On the NHS budget black hole

Today’s FT carries a front page story (£), based on research by the Health Foundation, stating that the financial ‘black hole’ facing the National Health Service is bigger than previously forecast. This is a result of a sharp decline in productivity during 2013/14. It is suggested that the […]

Fiscal foolishness

I’ve had an unusual and vaguely discomfiting experience. I found myself largely in agreement with a leader in the Economist. I may need a lie down. I can console myself with the thought that what the Economist is saying – that the Conservatives’ fiscal plans for the next […]

The Mansion Tax as a symptom

Ed Miliband’s speech to the Labour Party conference earlier this week proposed an increase in spending on the NHS to be funded in part by a Mansion Tax.  This has sparked the debate about the whys and wherefores of property taxes back into life. Taxing property a topic guaranteed […]

The car crash Coalition and the corrosion of democracy

Is this Government corrupt? It depends on how you define corrupt. If the focus is upon demonstrable criminality then the answer would have to be no. More pertinently, is it corrupting? Recent events should concern anyone who believes that healthy democratic practice is important for a healthy society. […]

Adam Smith writes … on NHS Reform?

Yesterday I was rereading a paper by George DeMartino entitled The economist as social engineer. DeMartino’s main argument is that economics needs a professional ethics because the prescriptions it offers to policy have the potential to do great harm, as well as deliver benefit. In the course of […]

A last desperate throw of the dice?

Is that it then? Has the single transferable vote system allowed the Liberal Democrat leadership to breathe a huge sigh of relief? The motion to drop the Health and Social Care Bill won the first round of the ballot to select an emergency motion to debate on Sunday […]

Appraising health reform

Blogging is a fantastic medium for providing a brief statement of your views. Or for building an argument involving a small number of points. Or, perhaps, for giving a high level summary of a more complex argument. But it’s not a great medium through which to appraise complex […]

The Dorries distraction

What is Nadine Dorries for? Obviously she is very much for reducing the number of abortions. And, it would appear, is the willing purveyor of any amount of nonsense in pursuit of her objective. Today Channel 4’s Factcheck blog has her bang to rights. Dorries has made a […]

Pressing on with NHS Reform – a less than rational process

The central question in the current debate over the Government’s NHS reforms is whether the “listening” exercise taking place during the recently discovered “natural pause” in the legislative process is genuine or symbolic. Concerns that the exercise is cosmetic will only be fuelled by an article in yesterday’s […]