Pointless ID needed, hospices not so much…

[Derek Hardballs]

Once upon a time there was a party called Labour who cared about the most vulnerable… 

“This is Trevor Fisher, an inpatient in @arthur_rank_hospice in Cambridgeshire, speaking to @channel4news this week.

I am a palliative care specialist and Trevor's interview has devastated me.
His hospice has just found out that in 6 months, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust will withdraw its £800k funding.

This means that 9 of the hospice's 16 beds will close, denying patients like Trevor the precious end-of-life care they need.

In total, 200 people a year in Cambridgeshire will now be forced to die in an overcrowded hospital instead of the hospice environment they so longed for. Some will doubtless end up dying on trolleys in corridors - we witness this far too often, these days & I can tell you, it is barbaric.
@cuh_nhs says it has made this "very difficult decision" following a "value for money assessment" - confirming what I have long known as a doctor, that too often, patients with terminal illnesses are treated as second class citizens whose lives simply don't matter as much as other people's.

Yet the real responsibility here lies not with the NHS trust but with the current government, who is forcing the NHS nationwide to cut clinical services in order to meet impossible "efficiency savings" (what weasel words those are).

These cuts were necessary, say @cuh_nhs, "in order to maintain core services within a reduced budget" - that is to say, the reduced budget they are now receiving from this government.

So this is on vou. @wesstreetina, and on you @uklabour. You've chosen to do this & now patients like Trevor must live - and die - with your choices.

The measure of a civilised country is how well it cares for its most vulnerable members. The difference between politicians and me is that I look the patients they are failing in the eye.

So I will put it to you directly, Mr Streeting. We are still a rich country capable of affording decent, humane palliative care for all. Do you really care so little for dying people that you are happy to fail them on your watch?”

Acorns are also having to beg the government to maintain the grant to keep certain facilities going, this is a hollow shell of a Labour government, meaningless, and bereft of decent principles, almost identical to the last Tory government.

[baggy1]

Take a look at this and explain to me who should have to take the cut, you’ve complained that pensioners had to resulting in a u-turn, you’ve complained that benefits should be tightened up on resulting in a u-turn, you’re now saying that hospices shouldn’t have to suffer.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/3151...-forecast/

The spending has gone up, the government is giving more and more but it is never enough. Here’s another report showing 1 million more people getting universal credit in a year, 380k getting PIP, nearly quarter of a million more pensioners.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics...ruary-2025

Nobody wants to see anyone suffer and we all want to make sure everyone lives their best life, but until you get in the real world it’s never going to happen. For every hospice space that is struggling for funding consider the pensioners getting WFA that they don’t need on top of their £500 increase, or, dare I say, those fraudulently claiming benefits.

[CarlosCorbewrong]

Take a look at this and explain to me who should have to take the cut, you’ve complained that pensioners had to resulting in a u-turn, you’ve complained that benefits should be tightened up on resulting in a u-turn, you’re now saying that hospices shouldn’t have to suffer.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/3151...-forecast/

The spending has gone up, the government is giving more and more but it is never enough. Here’s another report showing 1 million more people getting universal credit in a year, 380k getting PIP, nearly quarter of a million more pensioners.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics...ruary-2025

Nobody wants to see anyone suffer and we all want to make sure everyone lives their best life, but until you get in the real world it’s never going to happen. For every hospice space that is struggling for funding consider the pensioners getting WFA that they don’t need on top of their £500 increase, or, dare I say, those fraudulently claiming benefits.

I’m keen to understand who you think should pay more or suffer more. You want to play grown up politics and chastise others for not having an answer but just wondering who you’d target and how…

[baggy1]

It’s implied in the original email but I’ll be more explicit for you. I’d have removed the WFA from those that weren’t at the sharp end i.e. the ones on UC, I’d have followed through on the PIP reforms, I’d raise income tax by 1% and if anyone could come up with a workable wealth tax then I’d happily support it, but just saying the words wealth tax, wealth tax, wealth tax won’t make one appear. I wouldn’t whinge and moan every time a reasonable suggestion is put forward.

The point you seem to be ignoring is that the welfare bill has risen by 100Bn in just 10 years, that is a third of its total cost in the last decade - if you think that is right then you are not looking at the same world that I am seeing. People are taking the piss left right and centre. If you want the money spent in the right areas then you need to realise that abuse of the system is now endemic and needs to be tackled.

[Pontificator]

Once upon a time there was a party called Labour who cared about the most vulnerable… 

“This is Trevor Fisher, an inpatient in @arthur_rank_hospice in Cambridgeshire, speaking to @channel4news this week.

I am a palliative care specialist and Trevor's interview has devastated me.
His hospice has just found out that in 6 months, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust will withdraw its £800k funding.

This means that 9 of the hospice's 16 beds will close, denying patients like Trevor the precious end-of-life care they need.

In total, 200 people a year in Cambridgeshire will now be forced to die in an overcrowded hospital instead of the hospice environment they so longed for. Some will doubtless end up dying on trolleys in corridors - we witness this far too often, these days & I can tell you, it is barbaric.
@cuh_nhs says it has made this "very difficult decision" following a "value for money assessment" - confirming what I have long known as a doctor, that too often, patients with terminal illnesses are treated as second class citizens whose lives simply don't matter as much as other people's.

Yet the real responsibility here lies not with the NHS trust but with the current government, who is forcing the NHS nationwide to cut clinical services in order to meet impossible "efficiency savings" (what weasel words those are).

These cuts were necessary, say @cuh_nhs, "in order to maintain core services within a reduced budget" - that is to say, the reduced budget they are now receiving from this government.

So this is on vou. @wesstreetina, and on you @uklabour. You've chosen to do this & now patients like Trevor must live - and die - with your choices.

The measure of a civilised country is how well it cares for its most vulnerable members. The difference between politicians and me is that I look the patients they are failing in the eye.

So I will put it to you directly, Mr Streeting. We are still a rich country capable of affording decent, humane palliative care for all. Do you really care so little for dying people that you are happy to fail them on your watch?”

Acorns are also having to beg the government to maintain the grant to keep certain facilities going, this is a hollow shell of a Labour government, meaningless, and bereft of decent principles, almost identical to the last Tory government.

The idea that the Labour Party only exists for the most vulnerable is absurd. It is a party of government, it exists to be a party of government. It makes difficult choices on how to tax and how to spend. Should it provide money for hospice or should it provide mony for community healthcare which allows HCAs to support people dying at home? Should it just borrow hand over fist?

---

It’s implied in the original email but I’ll be more explicit for you. I’d have removed the WFA from those that weren’t at the sharp end i.e. the ones on UC, I’d have followed through on the PIP reforms, I’d raise income tax by 1% and if anyone could come up with a workable wealth tax then I’d happily support it, but just saying the words wealth tax, wealth tax, wealth tax won’t make one appear. I wouldn’t whinge and moan every time a reasonable suggestion is put forward.

The point you seem to be ignoring is that the welfare bill has risen by 100Bn in just 10 years, that is a third of its total cost in the last decade - if you think that is right then you are not looking at the same world that I am seeing. People are taking the piss left right and centre. If you want the money spent in the right areas then you need to realise that abuse of the system is now endemic and needs to be tackled.

all of that

[Derek Hardballs]

It’s implied in the original email but I’ll be more explicit for you. I’d have removed the WFA from those that weren’t at the sharp end i.e. the ones on UC, I’d have followed through on the PIP reforms, I’d raise income tax by 1% and if anyone could come up with a workable wealth tax then I’d happily support it, but just saying the words wealth tax, wealth tax, wealth tax won’t make one appear. I wouldn’t whinge and moan every time a reasonable suggestion is put forward.

The point you seem to be ignoring is that the welfare bill has risen by 100Bn in just 10 years, that is a third of its total cost in the last decade - if you think that is right then you are not looking at the same world that I am seeing. People are taking the piss left right and centre. If you want the money spent in the right areas then you need to realise that abuse of the system is now endemic and needs to be tackled.

They were not reforms ffs they were cuts written on the back of a fag packet by a chancellor who hobbled growth from the start and then had to find 5-8bn in cuts to make her own budget add up. The only person it seems in the country who thinks they were actual reforms is you, Ponty and a small band of Blue Labourites. 

You aren’t offering any proof about this widespread fraud, you want it to be true because it makes you look less like the spawn of Steve Stride. There will be some just like there is a lot of tax fraud. 

Take a step back from your support of Labour, you’re arguing ID cards/App is more important to waste money on than hospice support. That’s how far down the sycophantic support of Labour rabbit hole you’ve gone. 

You’re a Tory now embrace it

[baggy1]

How much will hospice funding cost Dekka?

[Pontificator]

https://frasernelson.substack.com/p/numb...-term-sick

[baggy1]

A scary article Ponty, an obvious area that needs to be looked into but gets pelters if anyone suggests it

[Pontificator]

A scary article Ponty, an obvious area that needs to be looked into but gets pelters if anyone suggests it

It cannot be put in the too difficult box any longer

https://archive.ph/mUvLY