DrPhilHammond.com - Latest Comments

Re: Private Eye Special Report on PFI by Paul Foot, March 19, 2004

Daithi097 — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 04:54:04 -0000

The pdf has gone missing. Can you re add that please?

Re: Private Eye Column, Issue 1256, February 17, 2010

David Gerard — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 08:47:54 -0000

I always wondered - what stopped you from speaking up about this between 1998 and 2010?

Re: Why go into politics at the age of 56? and other questions…

maggie crowe — Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:44:37 -0000

as a constituent of JRM I would be delighted to support you in getting him out.

Re: Why go into politics at the age of 56? and other questions…

Jeremy Clapham — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 06:33:50 -0000

such a good paper and position to take. Thank you.

Re: Why go into politics at the age of 56? and other questions…

robertpalgrave — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 09:29:08 -0000

Thank you Dr Phil. We need more of you!

Re: Why go into politics at the age of 56? and other questions…

ChloeW — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:18:41 -0000

A lot of sense in what you write, I wish you all the very best in your endeavours and just wish there was someone with a similar outlook standing in my constituency.

There are a couple of things that I cannot abide in the modern, outsourced, lowest tender world that we now inhabit that your scientific approach would hopefully address.

One is the silo mentality to budgets and cost control whether inside an organisation or across public services. Two examples.

A company I used to work for had a 'travel' department. You needed a rail ticket and somewhere to stay? You rang them up, gave them the details and they sorted it out for you. You spent a couple of minutes on the phone and a relatively low paid clerk (for want of a better word) sorted everything out for you. Enter the bean counters for the HR department that ran this service. They could save x thousands of pounds by creating a portal where everyone would book their own travel arrangements. I'm sure the head of HR got a large bonus for reducing the costs to his department but every other department in the company suddenly found highly paid managers spending ridiculous amounts of time trying to find the right train ticket, the right hotel at the right budget and dealing with all the vagaries that such IT systems bring. There was no way to record the amount of time each individual spent on this but the volume and duration of the sighs emanating from around just my office suggested that most people were mired in the IT trap. Big saving for HR, big unidentifiable costs to every other department. Bravo.

Second example is one given recently that a local authority is to save thousands of pounds by only sending the gritting lorries out when the temperature is a degree or so lower than the current threshold. I couldn't provide the figures if you tortured me to do so but I'm pretty sure that they haven't compared those cost savings with the expense to the emergency services, the local health authority, the lost production and the inconvenience of the wider community if there is just one serious accident as a result of an ungritted road. Big thumbs up for the head off the gritting department for identifying a relatively small saving but potentially huge hidden costs for everyone else.

I feel sure that your scientific approach to even something like this would make sense of it.

The second thing that gets my goat is the race to the bottom by continual competitive tendering on the same contract. I understand the need to get value for money for a one off cost (building a hospital for example) but when cleaning that hospital once someone has bid the lowest bid (cheaper mops, flimsier buckets, less effective cleaning products, missing out the corners etc) why would anyone expect to maintain the quality by putting out to tender again when that contract ends? Or the next one? Only by getting ever cheaper, less effective mops and cleaning products, missing out larger corners and buying second hand buckets can the price be driven down again and again. Oh, and when you see increases in the rate of hospital infection you can reflect on point 1 above re siloed budgets! Gins all round at the building services department.

Anyway rant over, it's just that I am encouraged that you are a proponent of a way of thinking about things that could see the end of such nonsenses that I've highlighted. Sincerely, wishing you the very best of luck in your challenge!

Re: PRESS RELEASE FROM DR PHIL HAMMOND AFTER HIS DISMISSAL FROM THE BBC

Attrition47 — Mon, 27 Aug 2018 11:41:10 -0000

Apologies, I thought you were trying to insult me with that term. I used to look after people on the continuum and I get a bit protective. Regards

Re: PRESS RELEASE FROM DR PHIL HAMMOND AFTER HIS DISMISSAL FROM THE BBC

John Cresswell-Plant — Sat, 25 Aug 2018 09:47:30 -0000

I genuinely do have a rare form of #autism, so it wasn't obvious to me; while I have a working memory of 99.5% & an IQ of 125, I have a processing speed of 14%

Re: PRESS RELEASE FROM DR PHIL HAMMOND AFTER HIS DISMISSAL FROM THE BBC

Attrition47 — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 11:08:42 -0000

"Commercial", #bleeding obvious

Re: PRESS RELEASE FROM DR PHIL HAMMOND AFTER HIS DISMISSAL FROM THE BBC

Zoonie — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 07:27:17 -0000

Phil, good luck with chipping away at Mr Rees Mogg. If you were closer I'd come and help. This Beeb decision is ludicrous and sadly sympomatic of the confusion it now has in the face of trying to work out how to keep its pulse going whilst attempting to pay lipservice to the term 'unbiased'.

Re: PRESS RELEASE FROM DR PHIL HAMMOND AFTER HIS DISMISSAL FROM THE BBC

Son of Robespierre #CampaignAg — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 06:40:45 -0000

Check out TheAllianceParty.net If you want to chat get in touch - I live in Somerset

Re: PRESS RELEASE FROM DR PHIL HAMMOND AFTER HIS DISMISSAL FROM THE BBC

John Cresswell-Plant — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 12:30:55 -0000

"COMbbc"? #autism

Re: PRESS RELEASE FROM DR PHIL HAMMOND AFTER HIS DISMISSAL FROM THE BBC

Odit Moras — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 09:39:31 -0000

Because the BBC is publicly funded.

Re: PRESS RELEASE FROM DR PHIL HAMMOND AFTER HIS DISMISSAL FROM THE BBC

Paul Weir — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 06:04:34 -0000

If
it's not OK for a local radio presenter to stand for election, why is it OK for serial candidate Farage to have a national radio show on LBC?

Re: PRESS RELEASE FROM DR PHIL HAMMOND AFTER HIS DISMISSAL FROM THE BBC

Attrition47 — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 05:16:19 -0000

COMbbc is a state propaganda machine and a simulacrum of a public service broadcaster. COMbbc inhabits the corpse of TradBBC of the 70s where a little dissent from the state was allowed.

Re: PRESS RELEASE FROM DR PHIL HAMMOND AFTER HIS DISMISSAL FROM THE BBC

MisDMeanor — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 05:00:45 -0000

It certainly looks like the usual fear and bias I have come to associate with the BBC.

Re: PRESS RELEASE FROM DR PHIL HAMMOND AFTER HIS DISMISSAL FROM THE BBC

Sue Queenborough — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 04:44:06 -0000

Sad to hear this. Why BBC? Unfortunately I live next door in another Tory constituency - or you'd have my vote. Good luck.
Sue

Re: Staying Alive Tips

nicke williams — Mon, 07 May 2018 14:45:45 -0000

In my area there is one hospital with many empty wards. These wards could be refurbished and used by Social Services to form rehabilitative units to alleviate the stress placed on active wards by releasing patients who no longer require nursing care but are not of sufficient health to return to their community.

Re: Private Eye Medicine Balls 1449 July 28, 2017

Ray Hughes — Tue, 08 Aug 2017 08:17:51 -0000

Your comment regarding The belated announcement of a public inquiry into the thousands of haemophilia patients given blood contaminated by HIV and hepatitis C in the 1970s and 1980s shows how far the NHS is from this ideal is not entirely correct as this inquiry is also focusing on patients who were infected via blood transfusions this is what has happened to my wife. Following a RTA we had back in 1970, she had to undergo major surgery receiving 44units of blood in all. She only found out she had been infected in 2014 due to a needle stick injury the doctor had after treating my wife at that time. She has now got cirrhosis of the liver with all the associated side affects, to say her health has been ruined is an understatement. The Department of Health have had no excuse since 1995 to at the very least mount a nationwide campaign to advise people to have a blood test if they have had a blood transfusion before 1991. Instead they have quite deliberately choose not to do this for fear of the numbers of potentially infected people.

Re: Private Eye Medicine Balls 1442 April 18, 2017

Dr David Nicholl — Sat, 20 May 2017 07:06:41 -0000

I agree, my letter in The Times on how I changed my view recently https://twitter.com/djnicho...

Re: Private Eye Medicine Balls 1433 (Updated)

xlookup — Tue, 02 May 2017 18:16:43 -0000

Thanks for two brilliant articles giving an overview of the issues regarding this illness. One small addendum/update, regarding the PACE trial controversy: the journal PLoS One, which originally published a cost-effectiveness analysis based on the PACE trial, as now raised an 'Expression of Concern' over the data sharing arrangements that would allow other researchers to reanalyse the data. http://retractionwatch.com/...

In addition, there has been a series of papers in the Journal of Health Psychology reanalysing what data has been released under FOI, with some, er, 'strong debate' over whether the trial was fit-for-purpose.

Re: The junior doctors dispute explained simply but in detail…

Slithy — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 09:01:48 -0000

"It makes no sense for a government that wants to improve the NHS", but of course, the Tories don't want to IMPROVE the NHS, they want to PRIVATISE it!

Re: The junior doctors dispute explained simply but in detail…

Steve Powell — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 11:27:36 -0000

"It makes no sense for a government that wants to improve the NHS to go to war with the workforce."

This is very true; however, it makes perfect sense if the government's long-term aim is to cripple the NHS so as to be able to scrap it altogether. This looks very much like a campaign of "constructive dismissal" for the National Health Service. It reminds me of strategies currently being used in the State School system.

All that has to happen is that the NHS becomes ineffective and it will be deemed "unaffordable" to fix, so the only "sensible" alternative will be to "ask the private sector" to help. Mandatory health insurance policies will follow, with the weakest going to the wall and the profits going to the government's friends.

Re: The junior doctors dispute explained simply but in detail…

Libertê Harries — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 11:15:42 -0000

I've thought that.........

Re: Private Eye Medicine Balls 1414

kyalami — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 09:37:24 -0000

The first sentence is plain wrong. I've looked up the government budget for Health for each year since 1986, adjusted it for inflation and divided it to get a real amount per patient spent each year.

In 1986, the amount (in 2016 pounds) was £786 per person per year. In 1991 it was £883, 1996 £1,083. 2001 £1,298. 2006 £1,873. 2011 £2,114. 2016 £2,129.

We're spending almost three times as much per person today as we did 30 years ago. Whether or not this is justified (and I think there are many good reasons for the increase), it's clearly unsustainable.

What the BMA and the government are fighting about, however, is something different.