Tony Blair recalled to Iraq War Inquiry

Tony Blair has been recalled to appear at Britain's inquiry into the Iraq War for the second time. The former Prime Minister is likely to give evidence at a public hearing in late January. It is thought Sir John Chilcot and his panel were concerned about gaps and possible inconsistencies in his evidence. Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time of the invasion, cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell and Lord Turnball, his predecessor, have also been asked to return. Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general, is among those the panel has asked to submit written evidence.
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Death from MRSA, following "awful" care in local hospital.

NHS critic's father dies after 'awful care' - Telegraph

Extract:

"A former nurse who tackled Tony Blair over NHS failures in her daughter's treatment has lost her father to the MRSA superbug.

During the 2001 election campaign Carol Maddocks confronted the Prime Minister during an appearance on the BBC's Question Time programme and told him that the health service was letting down her daughter Alice, who had a rare blood condition. She was later invited to Downing Street where he pledged funding to improve registries of bone marrow donors to help save Alice's life.

Now Mrs Maddocks has described how her father Harry Lister, 74, died an agonising death after contracting MRSA following "awful" care in their local hospital.

"My father was let down by the NHS and we, as a family, are really angry about it. Society now accepts that when we go into hospital we could contract MRSA, but this should not be a risk we run," she told The Sunday Times."

Blair's spin is ruining the NHS, says Dr Peter Carter, the new head of the Royal College of Nursing.

Nurses' leader: Blair's spin ruining NHS - Sunday Telegraph

Extracts:

"The Prime Minister has allowed the NHS to plunge into crisis by becoming trapped in a "parallel universe of spin", according to the new head of the Royal College of Nursing.

In a blistering attack on the Government's running of the health service, Dr Peter Carter, the RCN general secretary, said cuts in jobs, services and training were catastrophic for the country and a "personal tragedy" for the Prime Minister."

"Millions were wasted on repeated changes to structures that had now almost reverted back to the position they were in 10 years ago, with money lavished on salaries, redundancies and creating offices.

Worse still, the replacement of 100 health authorities with more than 300 primary care trusts created more jobs than there were talented managers, leading to poor decision-making and a "frittering away of much of the Government's investment".

Government figures show 15,000 managers have been recruited since Labour came to power. Dr Carter, who ran an NHS mental health trust in London for 12 years, said he believed one manager in five was not up to the job, while about the same proportion of NHS organisations were not fit for purpose.

The number of nurses emigrating to find work had doubled to 8,000 since Labour came to power in 1997, and the number will continue to grow, he said.

The Government expects that Britain will be short of 14,000 nurses in three years' time, which will force the UK to poach replacements from some of the poorest parts of the world, Dr Carter said."

More about poor treatment of UK's wounded soldiers.

We have betrayed our brave wounded - Daily Telegraph article

Extract:

"Bristol teenager Jamie Cooper was aware of the dangers he might face in Iraq when he joined the Royal Green Jackets. He knew of the car-bombs and the snipers, the roadside mortar attacks and the bloody determination of the insurgents.

What he could not have been prepared for was the careless and entirely inhumane behaviour of bureaucrats back home in Britain, who would so mistreat him once he found himself in their hands after his own stomach was ripped open by enemy fire.

What could more clearly demonstrate the folly of Blair's nightmare campaign in Iraq - his Government's immoral incapacity to imagine the reality or the true consequences of war - than that a wounded Serviceman should be abandoned on a ward with an overflowing colostomy bag?

Or that that young man should then suffer the consequences of lying on a deflated mattress, developing pressure sores and later contracting MRSA?"

Tony Blair is called to account over mental health problems in troops returning from war.

Blair is called to account over abandoned troops

Extract:

"British soldiers returning from war are suffering unprecedented levels of mental health problems amid claims that the long-standing "military covenant" guaranteeing them proper care is in tatters.

More than 21,000 full-time servicemen and women who have served in Iraq, as well as army reservists, have developed anxiety and depression, an Independent on Sunday investigation can reveal today.

Official figures suggest two dozen military personnel have killed themselves since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 ­ a figure which includes 17 confirmed suicides and six where inquests are pending. Combat Stress, the charity for war veterans suffering from mental problems, has warned that it is seeing an annual rise of 26 per cent in its caseload; more than 1,000 former soldiers are homeless.

The figures prompted military experts, politicians and mental health charities to claim that Tony Blair is in breach of his duty of care for those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Politicians, leading figures in the arts and entertainment, and relatives of dead soldiers have put their names to a letter published in today's Independent on Sunday. Signatories include the playwright Harold Pinter, campaigner Bianca Jagger, Sir Menzies Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats, and MPs Peter Kilfoyle and Ben Wallace.

Their letter calls on the Prime Minister to give the young men and women who risk their lives for this country the just and fair treatment that they deserve. Readers are also invited to sign the letter, which will be handed to Mr Blair on 20 March, the fourth anniversary of the Iraq invasion. "

Tony Blair's latest wheeze - round-the-clock surgery - will not save the NHS

Round-the-clock surgery will not save the NHS

Extract:

"Even in the more efficient trusts, it is rare to find operating theatres in use on Friday afternoons, let alone at the weekends. There are some good, practical reasons for this. Operating theatres require deep cleaning on a regular basis if MRSA is not to become even more prevalent than at present. And staffing up for such round-the-clock surgery would add enormously to the NHS's already gargantuan wage bill.

On a more prosaic note, who among us would want to undergo a tricky surgical procedure at three in the morning, when even the most skilled surgeons may not be quite up to snuff?

Does Mr Blair spell out how this exciting new vision of round-the-clock surgery is to be delivered? Only by invoking his old friends "change and innovation" - the same change and innovation that were supposed to accompany the record levels of NHS spending under New Labour, but that have been palpably absent throughout."

Operations round the clock would not help the NHS for the reasons detailed in the article.

Improving the NHS should start with basics: instruct medical students clearly about drug side-effects and test them rigorously on these. - Instil in them that if they are not absolutely up to speed on a drug's side-effects when they are practising doctors, that it is unwise, immoral and downright dangerous to prescribe it. - That would be a good start to meaningful and inexpensive reform of the NHS.

Tony Blair has a cheek! (Referring to his recent speech, urging people to take personal responsibility for their health)

I must say Tony Blair has a cheek! - His government has only demonstrated concern about salt intake and, very importantly, the provision of information about sodium content on food labels in the last few years - at a guess, I'd say since about 2003. Both Labour and Tory administrations allowed the food companies free rein year after year to ladle more and more salt into their products, thus damaging irrevocably the health of innocent salt-sensitive purchasers.

I wonder again why The Chief Medical Officer in the early 90s apparently did nothing to implement an authoritative recommendation at that time of a maximum of 4g of salt a day, and apparently gave greater consideration to the desires of industry than to the health of the nation, and I wonder how many deaths and how much terrible suffering he was, therefore, personally responsible for? And I wonder why his successors in the post were so tardy in taking effective steps to give warnings about salt consumption? Political considerations? I consider the failure to put pressure on food manufacturers and caterers to reduce the sodium content of foods and meals until recent times to be a dereliction of duty of successive political administrations and health departments. - I remember buying McCance and Widdowson's 'Composition of Foods' in the late 90s, at considerable cost, in order to discover how much sodium there was in food. There was no way consumers could find it out from the pack. - The people of this country have been very ill-served in this matter yet Tony Blair seeks to blame the innocent victims!