Dean Hochlaf
@dhochlaf.bsky.social
750 followers 550 following 190 posts
Economic Analysis and Policy Support Team Lead for the BMA. Interested in how better health can support a better economy. Views my own, and not of some defunct economist.
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dhochlaf.bsky.social
The online hospital idea seems to make big and highly questionable assumptions about the effectiveness of online consultations, spare capacity of GP surgeries, and the extent to which it might induce demand and deny people access to their local service
dhochlaf.bsky.social
Extending the number of years just seems stupid, not taking a penny in benefits ignores the actual function of the welfare system, and compulsory volunteering isn't just unethical, but also greatly overestimates the capacity of the voluntary sector to absorb so much extra labour
paulbrand.bsky.social
Mahmood says she will introduce new conditions for indefinite leave to remain:

Lived here 10 years not 5
Being in work
Not taking a penny in benefits
No criminal record
Giving back to community eg volunteering
dhochlaf.bsky.social
Have to say, embedding the world's most rapacious firms into the UK economy at the expense of digital sovereignty and homegrown tech firms, to chase the world's biggest bubble has really eased any concerns I might have had
dhochlaf.bsky.social
Ramping up rhetoric against an international institution for allegedly preventing a harsher approach to immigration, is probably the least "unthinkable" thing a UK home secretary could do
hleehurley.com
"Another party insider said “nothing is off the table” for Mahmood. They said she was likely to want to reform the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and would be far more radical than her predecessor. The source added she would “start with the unthinkable and work backwards”."
Reposted by Dean Hochlaf
tomdolphin.bsky.social
The BMA and many others warned that this was coming, and now it is here. The UK government must act immediately to prevent widespread death in Gaza from hunger. This is entirely man-made and is intolerable.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/ck...
dhochlaf.bsky.social
Telling the NHS that it can't keep asking for more money, but also, it should turn to costly private finance models to fund brand new and untested healthcare facilities, while making an accurate assessment of the risks is comical stuff

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Labour preparing to use public-private funding model for NHS in England
Decision on neighbourhood health centres expected in autumn but approach divides policy experts
www.theguardian.com
dhochlaf.bsky.social
0.7% per capita growth on the year, bit better than recent times, but still well below historical averages, even during the austerity years

Increasingly clear, the government strategy of hoping growth will fuel public service/infrastructure investment is not going to happen any time soon
Reposted by Dean Hochlaf
davidwearing.bsky.social
Human beings have a moral language for a reason. The word "evil" is an alarm bell which it's necessary to ring in a time of genocide. The level of sadistic, calculated cruelty we're witnessing in Gaza is the definition of evil. We're obliged to say it, and to keep saying it.
mehdirhasan.bsky.social
Piers Morgan: "Do you think the [GHF] is a force for good in Gaza?"

Me: "No, it is a force for evil. That is not a word I use lightly. But what we have seen is evil...people coming for food, starved by Israel & they are then shot at, killed. 100s of them. It is the most evil thing I have seen..."
dhochlaf.bsky.social
Not sure you can call something a "long term plan" if it doesn't even remotely consider the costs of what you're trying to do...
dhochlaf.bsky.social
Interest rates falling because the economic growth outlook is a bit gloomy and we are beginning to accept persistently higher levels of inflation feels like a weird thing to celebrate as evidence the economic plan is working
Reposted by Dean Hochlaf
bma.org.uk
The BMA @bma.org.uk · Aug 6
Yesterday resident doctors met with Wes Streeting MP

We have agreed a window for negotiations and are working to ensure strike action does not need to be repeated.

A credible offer to restore pay and value can end this dispute.
www.bma.org.uk/bma-media-ce... #PayRestoration
Resident doctors meet with Wes Streeting to agree window for negotiations  - BMA media centre - BMA
Press release from the BMA
www.bma.org.uk
dhochlaf.bsky.social
Really worrying that this government thinks exercising your legal and democratic right to strike, to demand better pay and conditions in a vital sector that is already falling behind the rest of the world, is tantamount to a declaration of war...
dhochlaf.bsky.social
The man has never found a position he unequivocally supported that he did not later equivocate on
Reposted by Dean Hochlaf
financialtimes.com
The FT View: The longer it has continued, the more it has borne the hallmarks of a vengeful assault by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government to destroy the very fabric of Palestinian society. https://on.ft.com/3UBv3Us
dhochlaf.bsky.social
If the NHS is under threat it's because years of underinvestment has damaged capacity and failing to address the decline in real wages of vital staff ignores the real failure to provide an adequate funding settlement
dhochlaf.bsky.social
Our political class has largely disengaged from the reality that the UK has too few resources to meet demand

Instead of addressing the issue, they instead try to stifle collective action in the hope diminished working conditions will be enough to overcome deliberate, persistent underinvestmnet
politlcsuk.bsky.social
🚨 NEW: Kemi Badenoch has pledged the Tories will ban doctors from taking strike action
dhochlaf.bsky.social
Worth remembering that the NHS 10-year "plan" makes absurd productivity assumptions, and wants to deliver a major transformation in healthcare with Thatcher-era spending increases

But the reality is you can't build a modern universal health service with an underpaid workforce
dhochlaf.bsky.social
The catastrophic failure of humanity in Gaza should haunt us all and there is still time time for us to demand action and end our complicity in this travesty
dhochlaf.bsky.social
The biggest threat to healthcare in the UK is that we deplete the real resources necessary to deliver care by failing to improve pay and working conditions, and instead bet the house on unproven technologies and fantasies of reform in a country with an ageing population and intense inequalities
Reposted by Dean Hochlaf
bma.org.uk
The BMA @bma.org.uk · Jul 22
Today resident doctors have voted to go ahead with strike action.

At last week's meeting with @rthonwesstreeting.bsky.social the committee were open to finding solutions to restore pay and improve conditions.

Today, they still do not have a credible offer on the table.

youtu.be/YkpaLxs-UY8?...
Resident doctor strikes to go ahead
YouTube video by BMAtv
youtu.be
dhochlaf.bsky.social
Trying to take £5 billion out of the pockets of people with health conditions at a time when your economy is beginning to contract and unemployment is creeping upwards is morally hideous and economically stupid and it is good that MPs helped avert such a disastrous policy
dhochlaf.bsky.social
The NHS has made very small gains tackling the consequences of 15 years of underinvestment thanks to the hard work of doctors and staff, and what threatens "recovery" is refusing to acknowledge you need to invest in wages in a pivotal, labour intensive sector
dhochlaf.bsky.social
Osborne also attempted to curtail welfare spending through draconian cuts

Instead, it led to worse health outcomes and more poverty, creating the conditions that the welfare system has to deal with

Sad to see Labour doubling down on this failed approach to make minor savings at a major cost
francesryan.bsky.social
And the Universal Credit bill has passed. Some of the sickest people in the country will suffer needlessly more now. There is no justification, no excuse. Just ugly, cruel choices by ministers too cowardly to tax the wealthy rather than cut the poor. A shameful day for Starmer’s Labour.