{"id":17774,"date":"2019-04-05T15:14:25","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T14:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=17774"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:56:52","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:56:52","slug":"libel-law-used-against-nhs-trust-to-silence-dissent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=17774","title":{"rendered":"Bosses sue after fears for cancer scans expressed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The privatisation of the scanning service was opposed by doctors, MPs from all parties and patients, however in a letter to the trust lawyers for NHS England said its concerns were defamatory \u00e2\u20ac\u201c thought to be the first time libel law has been used against an NHS trust to silence dissent.<\/p>\n

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Although a massive public outcry forced NHS England to keep PET-CT scans within OUH\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Churchill hospital, the decision to hand the service to private provider InHealth is still going ahead.<\/p>\n

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University of Oxford professor of medical oncology, Adrian Harris, said patients in Milton Keynes and Swindon will have poorer quality scans compared to those in Oxford because InHealth is setting up mobile units in those areas.<\/p>\n

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In a letter to local MPs, Harris said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bPatients will have a two-tier system, one in hospital car parks with poor access machines \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the Oxford patients (will have better scans) at the Churchill. The new scanners at Oxford are 10 times more sensitive than mobile ones.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

‘Pernicious trend to privatise’<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

Unite regional officer Jesika Parmar said the move was part of a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bpernicious and ever accelerating trend to privatise NHS services\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe see no merit in private healthcare companies making profits out of people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ill-health. That principle stands true whether it is the (Churchill Hospital) in Oxford or any other NHS services,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Parmar.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe fact that NHS England said this week that it was taking back in-house the administration of the cervical cancer screening services from Capita<\/a> in June demonstrates that the flawed outsourcing model does not work.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis was after it was revealed that more than 40,000 women had not received the appropriate smear test information from the outsourcing giant.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Palmar said that if privatisation in the NHS is not stopped the next step will be patients having \u00e2\u20ac\u015bto dig into their savings, if there are any, for treatment that was once free\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She added, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bSuch a development would be an anathema to the British public who really value the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098free at the point of delivery\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 service that the NHS has offered over the last 70 years.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NHS bosses tried to sue one of the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most prestigious hospitals for libel after it raised concerns that privatising a vital part of cancer treatment could risk the health of patients. In highly unusual and worrying move, NHS England attempted to force the Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) trust from contending its decision to let a private medical company take responsibility for conducing cancer scans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[1145,316,29],"wps_subtitle":"Libel law used against NHS trust to silence dissent ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17774"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17774"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25375,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17774\/revisions\/25375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}