GPs bribed to send FEWER cancer patients for vital hospital tests – Mike Sivier

An important article from Vox Political (and the Mirror.) It needs to be shared.

Visit Vox Political for the full article

GPs are being offered cash to send fewer patients with suspected cancer to hospital for vital tests.Surgeries can claim thousands of pounds worth of “incentives” for not sending patients to hospitals for tests, scans and operations, according to an investigation by doctors’ magazine Pulse.

First appointments for cancer – which should happen within two weeks of a GP suspecting the disease – are included in some of the targets to cut referrals, the probe found.

The rewards are being offered by Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), local NHS bodies responsible for commissioning of healthcare across the country.

The move comes as the NHS is trying to slash £22billion in costs before 2020.

Source: GPs ‘bribed’ to send FEWER cancer patients for vital hospital tests – Mirror Online

The Mirror blasted the policy, run by CCGs that were created as part of the Health and Social Care Act of 2012 which began the mass-privatisation of the NHS, in its editorial:

Bribing family doctors not to send patients to hospitals for cancer tests is sacrificing lives by turning the NHS into a cut-price market place.

GPs should never be awarded bonuses at the cost of the public’s health. Those incentives are indefensible, because the likelihood is that cancers will go undetected.

Early detection is vital and when England’s cancer survival rates are already among the lowest in Europe, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt should be demanding that more people are tested sooner.

Doctors must be free to make objective decisions on medical grounds rather than receiving dangerous instructions that reduce patients to financial statistics.

But don’t blame your doctor. Blame the Government. A Tory Government. The NHS wasn’t perfect under Labour but the Tories don’t appear to care at all.

This wasteful party is handing down a death sentence for unsuspecting patients. And that’s unforgiveable.

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The Coalition has deliberately financially trashed the NHS to justify its privatisation

Selling off NHS for profit: Tories’ and Liberal Democrats’ links with private healthcare firms revealed

The commercialisation and undemocratising of the NHS: the commodification of patients

Picture courtesy of Robert Livingstone

4 thoughts on “GPs bribed to send FEWER cancer patients for vital hospital tests – Mike Sivier”

Yes, I am in a high risk area and group for Cancer so undoubtedly I will be one of the ones to get knocked off earlier than others. I maybe a tad facetious there but the picture presented when you scan across the social policy sphere and, well, VW et al., well, I think many can be forgiven for feeling that they have stepped into Susan George’s fictional scenario, The Lugano Report.

Interesting point of note is that whilst this scheme results in removing access to life and causing early deaths, clearly removing access to life seems an intended outcome of this scheme, Government on the other hand is encouraging the use of big data and data mining to identify amongst the populace those at risk of Cancer (probabilistic).

This is being discussed right now at the Local Authority level in Calderdale and elsewhere. Patient records, dietary history of kids in school (they thumb print the children and to pay for the meals they use a thumb scanner), facebook posts, social media i.e. significant parts of the GCHQ/NSA dataset in essence.

I have to question how these two things sit together and it is a very, very sobering thought experiment in my mind. Its happening and you all need to seriously considered these two cross overs.

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