Latest news with #AlanJohnson
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Just one in three back doctor strikes, poll shows as Streeting warned he ‘cannot afford to lose'
Just one in three people support plans by doctors to stage five days of walkouts later this month, a new poll has revealed as tens of thousands of patients across the country face operations and appointments being cancelled. Meanwhile nearly half of those polled (49 per cent) oppose the planned industrial action called by the British Medical Association, a YouGov survey has found. The figures showed a marked fall in support compared with previous industrial action. When doctors last went on strike, just before last year's general election, YouGov found the action was supported by 59 per cent of the public, and opposed by 36 per cent. It comes as a former Labour cabinet minister and union leader warned the BMA it had picked the wrong battle with the government, and told health secretary Wes Streeting it was a fight he had to win. Alan Johnson, who was health secretary for two years under Tony Blair and who used to lead a union himself, told the Independent: 'This has all the signs of the BMA leading their troops into a battle they can't win - nor should they, given that government has honoured the pay review recommendations in full having settled last year's dispute immediately on taking office. 'I doubt if there's anybody with any trade union experience who thinks the BMA have chosen the right terrain on which to go to war with government. This is a battle Wes Streeting has to win,' he added. Medical leaders also warned resident doctors, as junior doctors are now known, that they may "never recover" the trust of patients if they go on strike again. Mr Streeting has told junior doctors that after a 28.9 per cent pay rise last year when Labour entered government, the public would not understand why 'you would still walk out on strike, and neither do I.' But the new leader of the BMA has said that resident doctors' 29 per cent pay demand is 'non-negotiable' and warned strikes could go on for years. Dr Tom Dolphin also claimed the demand was both reasonable and easily affordable for the NHS. He said the union will not negotiate on or accept a figure lower than 29 per cent because that is the extent of the real-terms loss of earnings the BMA say doctors have seen since 2008 – a salary they want restored in full. Former Tory health minister Steve Brine warned the strikes had the potential to 'undo the good' that had been down on cutting NHS waiting lists. Up to 50,000 resident doctors are expected to join the walkout from 7am on July 25 to 7am on July 30. About 1.5 million operations and appointments had to be cancelled during the last wave of industrial action by junior doctors. Mr Streeting has urged the BMA to "listen to the public". He said: "Instead of rushing down this unreasonable path, the BMA need to pause and think about the real risk of people losing trust in doctors and the damage that would do to our NHS and the entire medical profession." Lord Darzi of Denham, a surgeon who led a damning review of the NHS last year, said: "Doctors have a special place in society. The public's trust in doctors is earned, not guaranteed. I fear it will never recover if the BMA go ahead with strikes that are plainly unjustifiable." Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England's national medical director, also said doctors must consider "how difficult it might be to recover public trust".
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Just one in three back doctor strikes, poll shows as Streeting warned he ‘cannot afford to lose'
Just one in three people support plans by doctors to stage five days of walkouts later this month, a new poll has revealed as tens of thousands of patients across the country face operations and appointments being cancelled. Meanwhile nearly half of those polled (49 per cent) oppose the planned industrial action called by the British Medical Association, a YouGov survey has found. The figures showed a marked fall in support compared with previous industrial action. When doctors last went on strike, just before last year's general election, YouGov found the action was supported by 59 per cent of the public, and opposed by 36 per cent. It comes as a former Labour cabinet minister and union leader warned the BMA it had picked the wrong battle with the government, and told health secretary Wes Streeting it was a fight he had to win. Alan Johnson, who was health secretary for two years under Tony Blair and who used to lead a union himself, told the Independent: 'This has all the signs of the BMA leading their troops into a battle they can't win - nor should they, given that government has honoured the pay review recommendations in full having settled last year's dispute immediately on taking office. 'I doubt if there's anybody with any trade union experience who thinks the BMA have chosen the right terrain on which to go to war with government. This is a battle Wes Streeting has to win,' he added. Medical leaders also warned resident doctors, as junior doctors are now known, that they may "never recover" the trust of patients if they go on strike again. Mr Streeting has told junior doctors that after a 28.9 per cent pay rise last year when Labour entered government, the public would not understand why 'you would still walk out on strike, and neither do I.' But the new leader of the BMA has said that resident doctors' 29 per cent pay demand is 'non-negotiable' and warned strikes could go on for years. Dr Tom Dolphin also claimed the demand was both reasonable and easily affordable for the NHS. He said the union will not negotiate on or accept a figure lower than 29 per cent because that is the extent of the real-terms loss of earnings the BMA say doctors have seen since 2008 – a salary they want restored in full. Former Tory health minister Steve Brine warned the strikes had the potential to 'undo the good' that had been down on cutting NHS waiting lists. Up to 50,000 resident doctors are expected to join the walkout from 7am on July 25 to 7am on July 30. About 1.5 million operations and appointments had to be cancelled during the last wave of industrial action by junior doctors. Mr Streeting has urged the BMA to "listen to the public". He said: "Instead of rushing down this unreasonable path, the BMA need to pause and think about the real risk of people losing trust in doctors and the damage that would do to our NHS and the entire medical profession." Lord Darzi of Denham, a surgeon who led a damning review of the NHS last year, said: "Doctors have a special place in society. The public's trust in doctors is earned, not guaranteed. I fear it will never recover if the BMA go ahead with strikes that are plainly unjustifiable." Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England's national medical director, also said doctors must consider "how difficult it might be to recover public trust".
The Independent
12-07-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Just one in three back doctor strikes, poll shows as Streeting warned he ‘cannot afford to lose'
Just one in three people support plans by doctors to stage five days of walkouts later this month, a new poll has revealed as tens of thousands of patients across the country face operations and appointments being cancelled. Meanwhile nearly half of those polled (49 per cent) oppose the planned industrial action called by the British Medical Association, a YouGov survey has found. The figures showed a marked fall in support compared with previous industrial action. When doctors last went on strike, just before last year's general election, YouGov found the action was supported by 59 per cent of the public, and opposed by 36 per cent. It comes as a former Labour cabinet minister and union leader warned the BMA it had picked the wrong battle with the government, and told health secretary Wes Streeting it was a fight he had to win. Alan Johnson, who was health secretary for two years under Tony Blair and who used to lead a union himself, told t he Independent: 'This has all the signs of the BMA leading their troops into a battle they can't win - nor should they, given that government has honoured the pay review recommendations in full having settled last year's dispute immediately on taking office. 'I doubt if there's anybody with any trade union experience who thinks the BMA have chosen the right terrain on which to go to war with government. This is a battle Wes Streeting has to win,' he added. Medical leaders also warned resident doctors, as junior doctors are now known, that they may "never recover" the trust of patients if they go on strike again. Mr Streeting has told junior doctors that after a 28.9 per cent pay rise last year when Labour entered government, the public would not understand why 'you would still walk out on strike, and neither do I.' But the new leader of the BMA has said that resident doctors' 29 per cent pay demand is 'non-negotiable' and warned strikes could go on for years. Dr Tom Dolphin also claimed the demand was both reasonable and easily affordable for the NHS. He said the union will not negotiate on or accept a figure lower than 29 per cent because that is the extent of the real-terms loss of earnings the BMA say doctors have seen since 2008 – a salary they want restored in full. Former Tory health minister Steve Brine warned the strikes had the potential to 'undo the good' that had been down on cutting NHS waiting lists. Up to 50,000 resident doctors are expected to join the walkout from 7am on July 25 to 7am on July 30. About 1.5 million operations and appointments had to be cancelled during the last wave of industrial action by junior doctors. Mr Streeting has urged the BMA to "listen to the public". He said: "Instead of rushing down this unreasonable path, the BMA need to pause and think about the real risk of people losing trust in doctors and the damage that would do to our NHS and the entire medical profession." Lord Darzi of Denham, a surgeon who led a damning review of the NHS last year, said: "Doctors have a special place in society. The public's trust in doctors is earned, not guaranteed. I fear it will never recover if the BMA go ahead with strikes that are plainly unjustifiable." Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England's national medical director, also said doctors must consider "how difficult it might be to recover public trust".
Spectator
03-07-2025
- Health
- Spectator
So much is still unanswered about NHS reform
Given we have known for a good while that Labour thinks the way to save the health service is to move care out of hospitals and into the community, you might have expected today's NHS ten-year plan to explain how the government is going to do that. The preventive agenda is not a new idea that needs explaining, it's been around for the entire 77-year history of the health service. The problem, therefore, is not the lack of an idea, it's that reform never actually happens. The important and urgent priorities of waiting lists and emergency units always end up dominating, and the neighbourhood health centres, walk-in clinics, polyclinics or the 'health centres' set out in Labour's original plan for the NHS under Nye Bevan, end up coming a distant second, if at all. We do not know how neighbourhood health centres are going to work with GPs, for instance, or how they will be incentivised to move into the centres. GPs are famously resistant to change, whether structural or more physical: Alan Johnson told me that the only way he could get them to move into modern premises was to threaten them with a polyclinic being built in their area, and then they would suddenly up sticks and modernise. It turns out that we are to be kept waiting a while longer for the details of how ministers expect the NHS to achieve the big changes set out today. The document we should apparently have all been excited about was the NHS Planning Guidance, which is being published earlier than usual this year in order to make implementation faster. A delivery plan in today's document would have, apparently, just been for show rather than anything more meaningful. There are serious changes in the operating models for NHS trusts, including incentives for high-performing providers. They will be able to reinvest surpluses, and given more control over a health budget for their local population which they must commit to shifting from hospital to community. Patients are to be given more power, and more than 200 bodies or entities are being scrapped. The rationale behind Healthwatch, for instance, being scrapped, is that listening to patients should be 'core business' rather than a niche enterprise. And the rationale behind abolishing so many parts of the NHS structure – including, of course, the end of NHS England as a separate organisation – is that the system is too centralised. The plan was much delayed: it was originally supposed to be published 'in the spring'. For once, it was not rows about funding that held it up: though both Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves repeatedly asserted that there would be 'no more money without reform', they also repeatedly announced more money without reform. Now, we have money and reform, but not enough evidence that the latter can actually happen, or that the former will make its way to the right places.
Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
New Nissan Leaf unveiled
Nissan has shown its new Leaf electric car that's set to roll off the production line in Sunderland - the UK's biggest car plant. It is the first model to be launched under Nissan's EV36Zero blueprint for the future of EV production and will be built in the North East by the plant's team of 6,000 people. Nissan says the new third generation Leaf has been engineered and fine-tuned to suit the needs of European customers at Nissan's UK research and development centre, NTCE, in Cranfield, UK. It will be powered by batteries from AESC which is situated next to the Nissan plant. The Sunderland plant will also build the next generation Nissan Qashqai e-POWER (which will arrive this year), followed next year by an all-new fully electric Juke. Alan Johnson, Senior Vice President of Manufacturing & Supply Chain Management at Nissan Motor Manufacturing, said: 'It's with immense pride that we unveil the third generation of our pioneering electric Leaf, twelve years after we brought EV and battery manufacturing to the UK. 'It's a testament to the skill of our world-class team that we can bring into mass production a vehicle with such advanced technology and aerodynamic design. We can't wait to see it on the roads.' The new Leaf will be able to travel up to 375 miles on a single charge and will be available for customers to order later this year. James Taylor, managing director of Nissan GB, said: 'We're really excited about the launch of the all-new Leaf later this year. It builds on the success of the previous two generations, which have found homes with more than 70,000 UK customers. 'Leaf is a pioneering electric vehicle that has encouraged thousands to make the switch to electric motoring – and best of all, it's built here in Britain.' A new fully-electric Micra, designed in London, will also go on sale later this year, and Nissan says it will also launch a smaller city car in 2026. "New Nissan Leaf unveiled" was originally created and published by Just Auto, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
