Tag Archives: Health Policy

Dec 06 2015
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Health Policy, News, Rant, Thoughts

NHS may charge migrants for GP services

There’s been coverage on the BBC today about a proposal to begin charging non-EU migrants for various NHS procedures.

Some of you who know me personally may remember when I ranted about the government’s decision to introduce charges for the NHS for migrants, and that this would be how the government introduces charges for NHS services across the board. That it would start with NHS fees with visa applications, then extend to GP and hospital charges for migrants, and then to the general citizenry. That the Tories couldn’t resist the opportunities presented by an NHS that suddenly and oh-so-conveniently has an infrastructure for charging for services.

Well, step 2 of that plan is already in evidence. If you didn’t believe me before, perhaps you should believe me now.

Oh, and Jeremy Hunt: I’ve been here for ten years, I’m not a ‘visitor’. I paid my own way as a PhD student and spent the years after that as a tax-payer, paying taxes for services I can’t even legally use as a migrant. I’ve even been doing research about health and social care provision in the UK.  So don’t you dare tell me I don’t ‘make a fair contribution to services’.

Do yourself a favour, people, and respond to the government consultation on Monday. Even if you don’t give a damn about people like me, us so-called non-EU ‘visitors’, and how this change would make my life in the UK unlivable and unaffordable, then at least look out for yourself by stopping this nonsense before the Tories extend it to everyone.

It’s time now to make a decision: is the NHS free at the point of delivery, or is it not?  If we want it to remain a free service, then we must stop this creeping commercialisation before there’s no turning back.

Let’s not forget too that the recent changes in April 2015 also included charges for 150% of the cost for non-emergency procedures for non-EEA visitors.  Perhaps a test run for introducing a profit motive within the NHS?

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Nov 25 2015
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Conferences, Health Policy, News

Evidence, Policy and Regulation: The Importance of Context

I’ve just confirmed my attendance next week at an interesting seminar at Durham University:

The Importance of Context: evidence, values and assumptions in public health policy seminar:  In Stockton-on-Tees, the difference in male life expectancy at birth between the most and least deprived areas is 17 years – the highest in England.  This reflects a larger pattern in which health inequalities are increasing in parallel with the rise of economic inequality, and despite stated policy commitments to reducing them.  Review of current policies suggests that the application and interpretation of research evidence in public health policy relies on questionable assumptions about a high degree of choice and control over lifestyle, income, and quotidian living/working environment.  Rich and poor live in different ‘epidemiological worlds’, and some have far more control over those worlds than others.  Against this background, what forms of evidence, disciplinary perspectives and research methodologies are most relevant for the design of policies to reduce health inequalities?

I am writing on behalf of Linda McKie (Professor and Head of School, School of Applied Social Science, Durham University), Nancy Cartwright (Professor of Philosophy, Durham University) and myself  to invite you to an interactive workshop on 2 December, 2015 on Evidence, Values and Assumptions in Public Health Policy.  The seminar is part of the 2015-16 activity theme (‘Evidence’) of Durham’s Institute of Advance Study, and of the activities of an ESRC-supported seminar series on Revitalising the Health Equity Agenda.  Key contributors:

  • Dr. Katherine Smith (Reader, Global Public Health Unit, University of Edinburgh; author, Beyond Evidence Based Policy in Public Health: The Interplay of Ideas; winner of a 2014 Philip Leverhulme Prize for outstanding early career achievements in social policy), on the diverse journeys that characterise the movement of evidence and ideas about health inequalities into public health policy;
  • Prof. Ted Schrecker (Professor of Global Health Policy, Durham University; co-author, How Politics Makes Us Sick: Neoliberal Epidemics) on how the treatment of evidence, values and assumptions in environmental health policy sheds light on the question of how much evidence is enough to act on socioeconomic inequalities that drive health inequalities (the standard of proof question).

The seminar will be held at the Institute of Advanced Study seminar room, Palace Green, Durham on Wednesday, 2 December with coffee at 14:00; the seminar will run from 14:30 to 17:00. In order to maximise opportunities for interaction and developing an agenda for future activities, we will be distributing background materials and a discussion guide in advance of the seminar.

I’m hoping to do some work on how health inequalities emerge (using simulation, of course) so I’m excited for this seminar.  I want to make the case for simulation methodologies as a particularly useful approach for examining policies — given that they can provide insight into the individual-level impact of high-level policy decisions, and allow policy-makers to play around with possible changes in silico before actually inflicting them on the populace.

 

As usual I’ll report back with my impressions….

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