Transparency and tours of inspection, not 'King's New Clothes Statements', please Mr Green

Blogger and Honorary KUWG Member Kate Belgrave says regarding supply of support to vulnerable disabled benefit claimants made more vulnerable by lack of real support and far too much 'conditionality' plus sanctions plus council rent arrears pursuers breathing down their necks:

.... It is my experience that commitments made by ministers and the DWP don’t always exactly match the reality of the everyday journey on the ground. Let’s add that to the list of issues to explore. I’m keen for Mr Green [the new Work & Pensions Secretary] to open jobcentre doors at all times to journalists, claimant representatives and anybody else who wants to forensically examine the facts of the DWP’s support for sick or disabled benefit claimants.....(1)

Link address

1. http://www.katebelgrave.com/2016/07/video-jobcentre-adviser-says-disability-support-is-wrecked-fix-this-mr-green/

UK's new SATs scores and the impacts of 'austerity measures'

The BBC reports Almost half of primary schools miss new SATs [Standardised Assessment Tests] standards.(1)

Wembley Matters blogger Martin Francis is a retired head teacher who keeps up to date with classroom experience of teachers and learners. He reports on the new SATs scores as lived experience of teachers, learners and headteachers:

"On top of the stress children and teachers suffered in the Gradgrind weeks before the tests and the stress of the tests themselves which saw many children reduced to tears, I now hear of children feeling deeply distressed and despondent because they 'haven't reached the required level' — some have gone weeping to their headteachers seeking comfort...."(2)

I dread to think what added damage the SATs scores of Boundary House youngsters — whose stressful living conditions have been reported by Kate Belgrave — would be!(3)

Further, Revd Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty has long argued that the low levels of UK social security payments are detrimental to nutrition and brain development. (4)

In the words of the Euripides play 'The Trojan Women' adapted by Jean-Paul Sartre: "Those who give the order seldom see the mess it makes." In line with 'Underclass Theory' they would probably blame the genetics of the victims rather than their policies of excessive stress and not nearly enough support.(5) 

If those who set the impossible 'targets' cannot change their world view, we certainly require a change of government!  

Link addresses

1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-36712029
2. http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/sats-plunge-is-not-childrens-or.html
3. http://www.katebelgrave.com/2016/07/the-future-will-be-wrecked-for-generations-while-women-and-little-kids-live-like-this/
4. https://welfaretales.wordpress.com/tag/paul-nicholson/ — no 'h' in the spelling of his name, but follow the link address all the same!
5. http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-care-experts-blog/2009/02/the-new-claiming-classes-its-t/

   

Why the UK's junior doctors dispute is highly relevent to the UK's EU referendum

By Alan Wheatley

In the run-up to the UK's EU referendum, we are getting loads of 'prognoses' on what would happen to the UK economy if British citizens collectively chose to opt-out of EU membership altogether. A great many of those 'prognoses' feature the world 'could', yet here I just wish to briefly introduce the matter of fall-out from successive UK governments 'opting out' of NHS involvement in the Working Time Directive (WTD).

(The word 'prognosis' comes from the Greek meaning 'fore-knowing', and is generally used in the field of medicine. In the context of the UK' EU Referendum discussion and a little known fact I intend to raise here, it is pivotal.)

In 2006, before a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition ousted a Labour Government, London Green Party MEP Jean Lambert produced a report on the Working Time Directive entitled: 'I Must Work Harder?' and sub-titled'Britain and the Working Time Directive'.(1)

Given the report’s findings, Jean makes the point that removing the opt-out from the Working Time Directive not only reduces the costs to society and the economy – it also makes good business sense! - See more at: http://www.jeanlambertmep.org.uk/2006/02/01/must-work-harder-britain-working-time-directive/#sthash.jaANi4dG.dpuf

Given the report’s findings, Jean [made] the point that removing the opt-out from the Working Time Directive not only reduces the costs to society and the economy – it also makes good business sense!(2)

In a 2013 report for the Centre for European Research entitled The Working Time Directive: What's All the Fuss About?, Katinka Barysch noted:

[The] WTD rules have proven hard for the NHS to cope with — harder perhaps than for most other European health systems. There may be a number of reasons for this but the most important one is that the NHS — almost uniquely among western health services — has always relied on trainee doctors (called junio doctors in the UK) to do much of the actual work in hospitals. In most other European countries, trainee doctors are only found in big-city teaching hospitals, while fully trained senior doctors (called consultants in the UK) look after patients in all other hospitals. To put it crudely: most trainee doctors in Europe are there to learn on the job while British ones are expected to do the job. The heavy reliance on junior doctors to provide care combined with a long-standing shortage of doctors, meant that young British doctors routinely ended up working 100-hour working weeks.(3)

Working a 100-hour working week can obviously be very stressful, whether that 100-hour week involves making 'life or death decisions' or not; but consider the outcomes of decisions involved from such a 100-hour working week involving trainees who by definition lack experience!

Given that matter, what does the Health Secretary make of the situation? What is Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt's prognosis on the matter of such "heavy reliance on junior doctors to provide care combined with a along-standing shortage of doctors" resulting in 100-hour working weeks for trainees?

Well, in February 2015 the Telegraph announced:

NHS sets aside quarter of its budget for medical negligence claims

The health service has set aside £26bn to cover medical negligence claims against NHS hospitals, it has emerged.(4)

Vote Leave has argued spuriously that opting out wholesale from the EU would leave our NHS better off.(5) Would not greater adoption by the UK of the EU's Social Charter as a whole be better not only for the UK economy but for our national health as a whole? The Working Time Directive is just a part of the Social Charter, and perhaps proper implementation of the Social Charter would bar the sorts of degrading treatment of jobseekers that Kate Belgrave repeatedly witnesses in her blog Kate Belgrave | Talking with people dealing with public service cuts.(6)

What do you think?

Links

1. http://www.jeanlambertmep.org.uk/2006/02/01/must-work-harder-britain-working-time-directive/
2. ibid.
3. http://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/attachments/pdf/2013/pb_workingtimedir_kb_26april13_bl-7268.pdf
4. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11402075/NHS-sets-aside-quarter-of-its-budget-for-medical-negligence-claims.html
5. http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/
6. http://www.katebelgrave.com/

Problem debts cost UK £8.3bn/yr — from Z2K blog

Problem debts cost the UK £8.3 billion

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Sam Ashton

Debt advice charity StepChange has published a new report that has found problem debt had a staggering social cost of £8.3 billion in 2013.
The social costs of problem debt are various and include such costs as that to the NHS of dealing with health problems created or exacerbated by the stress of dealing with debt.

The biggest costs however come from housing and employment issues, where debts can lead to lost jobs and reduced productivity or debtors being evicted and forced to move homes.

Rather than recognise this enormous cost of problem debt it seems the Government’s policies are instead taking an active role of pushing more people into debt. For example 60% of tenants affected by the ‘Bedroom Tax’ are now in debt to their landlords as they were unable to pay their rent shortfall.

On top of this government research has shown that 26% of those affected have had to borrow money to pay the rent, 6% of whom have used either a credit card of payday loans. These claimants are unlikely to be able to pay back these debts anytime soon and high interest rates combined with other costs will undoubtedly lead to them spiralling into problem debts.....

Continue reading on Z2K website....