British people don’t trust Palantir – it’s not too late to reverse the NHS’s dependence on it | Ben Coleman

We can’t allow our health data to be locked into the control of a US tech firm. It won’t be easy, but next spring the job of clawing it back must begin, says MP Ben Coleman

theguardian.com

How a damaging cycle is getting in the way of developing the NHS we need - The Lowdown

Many of our NHS trusts are weighed down with year-on-year financial pressures. To investigate, we conducted an in-depth survey in one region, analysing a year’s worth of public board papers from all 3...

lowdownnhs.info

Finding where resistance has succeeded as Trump faces mid-term blues - The Lowdown

A new edition of my book Wealth versus Health – Trump’s Global war on Health and Science, now available as paperback and ebook, has given me much more than an opportunity to update the list of the Tru...

lowdownnhs.info

NHS leaders sound a premature retreat on maternity care - The Lowdown

NHS leaders, faced with the challenge of sustaining smaller, local maternity services across large rural areas, have announced a clear, if controversial, policy. Close the local units, and make expect...

lowdownnhs.info

How the cuts are made: money tightens, the workforce pays - The Lowdown

The pressures facing the NHS are national, but the evidence is local. To investigate, we read a year of public board papers from every NHS trust in one region, the North West: 31 trusts and the three ...

lowdownnhs.info

Budget set to cut NHS capital funds, as repair bill tops 17 billion - The Lowdown

The budget is set to officially cut funding for NHS buildings and equipment to help pay for defence, as inflation erodes budgets and the Treasury refuses to fund a promised pay reform for nurses.  The...

lowdownnhs.info

Calls to cut links with Palantir, as benefits shrink and costs rise. - The Lowdown

Despite the blocking of a motion at Labour conference calling on ministers to cancel Palantir’s NHS contract over the company’s links to the Israeli military, the government is still under increasing ...

lowdownnhs.info

Burnham and Healey extinguish NHS funding hopes - The Lowdown

According to the Times, a joint letter from the Prime Minister and his Chancellor to Health Secretary Yvette Cooper confirms there will be little relief from the current funding crisis, even as waiting times for elective and emergency care increase. While the voluntary exit of Wes Streeting seemed to promise the possibility of a change

lowdownnhs.info

Health Bill threatens to derail Burnham's drive for public control - The Lowdown

By Guy Collis – UNISON Policy Officer The government’s Health Bill resumes its Parliamentary journey in the House of Lords on 13 October. As the first major piece of NHS-related legislation since the ...

lowdownnhs.info

Private healthcare boom? The figures tell a flatter story - The Lowdown

The desperate hunt for some good news to cheer up private health bosses continues, with the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) getting rather over-excited at the industry’s most recent quar...

lowdownnhs.info

Inflated claims as Pharmacy First expands - The Lowdown

You couldn’t make it up: an NHS England press release on September 10 really did say “people will be able to walk into their participating high street pharmacy and get on-the-spot treatment for acne.”...

lowdownnhs.info

Unions and public left in the dark about ICBs cutbacks - The Lowdown

In August the Unite branch at East London Foundation Trust (ELFT) heard that Mark Dunne, one of their leading reps, who had been included in a list of posts to be made redundant, had been effectively ...

lowdownnhs.info

Local battles show communities will fight to defend services - The Lowdown

Bridlington, Barnstaple and Canterbury, and more? … One reason it has become so hard to find detailed information on planned cuts to local NHS services is that, as soon as any such information becomes...

lowdownnhs.info

Tracking the rise of private equity in health and social care - The Lowdown

GP records put private equity ownership in the spotlight The acquisition of Optum UK, the owner of EMIS, a major supplier of GP IT systems, for a reported $400 million (£293.5 million) by the US priva...

lowdownnhs.info

Should Burnham scrap Streeting’s Health Bill? - The Lowdown

One of the bits of business for the reconvened Commons left-over from the shambolic Starmer period of government is the Health Bill (aka NHS Modernisation Bill 2026). Lowdown readers can be excused fo...

lowdownnhs.info

Policy ideas: It’s déjà vu over community health - The Lowdown

The call to shift services out of hospitals and build new centres in the community is not new: it dates back at least 34 years. JOHN LISTER has been looking back at the archives of earlier campaigns. ...

lowdownnhs.info

Neighbourhood Health Centres: a more rational approach - The Lowdown

The press releases and planning guidance from the government on establishing Neighbourhood Health Centres (NHCs) make it seem that the new centres are a solution in search of a problem. The claim that...

lowdownnhs.info

Why the community care challenge is so hard for Burnham to solve - The Lowdown

Andy Burnham has made it clear in his first couple of weeks in office that his main focus is not on fixing the problems in the NHS created by 16 years of underfunding and underinvestment, but on the r...

lowdownnhs.info

Yvette Cooper took almost £500 000 from a donor with commercial ties to the NHS

Over the past decade new health secretary Yvette Cooper has taken almost half a million pounds from a donor linked to healthcare recruitment, or from companies ultimately owned and controlled by him, ...

bmj.com

Unite fights mental health job cuts and victimisation - The Lowdown

They are at it again. Almost two years after The Lowdown reported East London Foundation Trust (ELFT), one of the capital’s largest and wealthiest mental health trusts, was attempting to cut spending ...

lowdownnhs.info

A new priority list for action on the NHS, don't make the same mistakes. - The Lowdown

How can Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper make a difference to the NHS in their first few months?

lowdownnhs.info

Burnham says he won’t “flinch” on social care - The Lowdown

lowdownnhs.info

8 out of 20: Burnham inherits a health plan built on private sector delivery - The Lowdown

lowdownnhs.info

Unite fights mental health job cuts and victimisation - The Lowdown

They are at it again. Almost two years after The Lowdown reported East London Foundation Trust (ELFT), one of the capital’s largest and wealthiest mental health trusts, was attempting to cut spending ...

lowdownnhs.info

Much ado about not very much? - The Lowdown

John Lister looks at the concrete proposals in Labour’s 10-year Capital Plan for the NHS After two years’ consideration, the reality of the Labour plan to deal with crumbling buildings and the growing...

lowdownnhs.info

A priority list for action on the NHS - The Lowdown

As the Parliamentary Labour Party’s choice of Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, and whoever he appoints as Health and Social Care Secretary, face a stiff challenge if they want Labour to regain any of the...

lowdownnhs.info

Burnham says he won’t “flinch” on social care - The Lowdown

lowdownnhs.info