Rescuing
Democracy in the United Kingdom from our current Elected Dictatorship
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You will
notice that, since New Labour came to power, not a single
leading Cabinet member or party 'heavy hitter' has appeared
on the programme (BBC's Question Time). Spin, not face-to-face
confrontations with the voters, is the Government's chosen
method of communication. Ordinary
people are dangerous. Ordinary people might ask a question
which throws a politician 'off message'; the Cabinet member
might reveal himself or herself to be a human being like
us, and not a programmed android. Worse still, he or she
might tell the truth.
Ann Leslie - Daily Mail, September
16, 2004
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Dentists jeer minister
over crisis in the NHS
by Tim Utton,
Science Reporter, Daily Mail - June 12, 2004
A
Labour minister was jeered and laughed at by some of Britain's
leading dentists yesterday. Rose Winterton was forced to listen
as the Government was attacked for 'chronic underfunding' and
for a year of deadlock on plans to reform the NHS dental service.
Ministers
were accused of 'moving the goal-posts' so often over reform that
dentists have begun to 'feel that the whole stadium has been moved.'
Dr
Lester Ellman, chairman of the General Dental Practice committee,
said the profession was 'extremely frustrated' by the lack of
progress and detail on the biggest change in the service for more
tha 50 years. Many claim they will be forced to choose between
NHS and private practice under a new contract to be imposed next
April.
At
the Conference of Local Dental Committees in London, Dr Ellman
said:"In more than a year's talking with the Department of
Health we are effectively little further forward than we were
at the start. We still have no real idea of what it is that the
Government want us to deliver and we still have no idea how we
will get off the treadmill. And we still have no indication of
what new money will be brought to the table to rectify the chronic
under-funding of the service. All too often, we have felt that
the goal-posts have been moved. This has reached a point where
we begin to feel that the whole stadium has been moved. We don't
know whether we are in Wembley or Cardiff."
Dr
Ellman said dentists had been told funding would increase in line
with the overall spending increase in the NHS - currently around
7% above inflation. But this assurance had now been lost, he said.
He
added: "We must have answers now, not platitudes, nor sympathetic
words designed to buy more time. Answers to questions that we've
been asking for more than a year."
But
there were jeers and laughter as Health Minister, Rosie Winterton
repeatedly promised to make announcements 'shortly', adding: "Let
me reassure you that we will work this out." Challenged to
make a firm announcement on how she intended to address concerns
over reform, she added: "I know you are jeering about the
fact that I am not making announcements off the cuff today. But
|I want to make sure that when I come forward with the plans that
we have the whole picture. Despite your jeers I can't just pluck
out one or another. Don't think dentistry is not a priority for
the Government because I can asssure you it is."
From
next April, all primary care trusts in England will take over
the £1.2 billion budget and commissioning of dental services
from central government. This will mean the Trusts will either
have contracts with dentists to provide care or will provide the
services themselves. The plans will also see dentists receiving
a fee per patient rather than a fee per treatment they carry out.
Miss Winterton said this would let them focus more on quality
of care.
Recent
figures show that half the English population does not have an
NHS dentist. The scandalous lack of NHS dental care was exposed
in Scarborough earlier this year when hundreds of people were
pictured queueing down the street to sign up with a new dentist.
