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The government are trying to pass a law that'll mean they can shut down a hospital within 40 days without any consultation or appeal
Clause 119 if you wanna google it. More info here: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/08/jeremy-hunt-hospital-closure-clause-revolt-tory-rebels
Look how many of this country's MPs think this warrants turning out to debate it. PRETTY FULL IN THERE GUYS: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26485184
Anyhow, this is partly because after 2 appeals, Hunt's attempt to shut down Lewisham A&E was thrown out of court and deemed 'unlawful'. If that was unlawful, fuck knows what this will be.
Well it'll be lawful.
Because Hunt's response to being told he's doing something crooked is to get parliament to redefine crooked.
Obviously this clause wasn't deemed important enough for Hunt to be there today
I mean, if even members of your own party are wary of passing it and want to debate it with you, the best course of action is naturally to run away.
Pffft
Way too slow if there's a zombie apocalypse. This coalition needs to sort themselves out.
What's the rationale behind it?
C+P from BBC:
The clause in the Care Bill would extend the remit of an administrator brought in to manage a failing trust, so that he or she can make recommendations about other trusts in the local area.
Trust special administrators (TSAs) would be able to consider the wider healthcare system in their investigations, not just the trust in administration.
The argument for this is that no NHS trust operates in isolation - the failure of one trust will impact on others in the local area.
But opponents say it could allow administrators to override local views and impose unwanted hospital closures on successful trusts.
eg. If a hospital is profitable and running fine (see Lewisham)
then currently the government can't do anything about it. This clause allows them to overrule any facts and figures and just do what they like.
Remember when there used to be a tier of management in the NHS responsible
for high level strategy?
Supposedly to make the process independent of politics and politicians.
It all comes down to whether you think that having decisions taken by quangos answering to central government should be final, rather than them being able to be subject to scrutiny by local politicians and people.
They passed it
Shower of shit