Not satisfied with the “see it from space” scale of the current NHS reorganisation, the Daily Telegraph warned another change of “seismic” proportions is heading the public sector’s way.
Writing in the paper on Monday, the prime minister pledged to bring about a complete “transformation” that would release public services from “the grip of state control”.
“It will put in place principles that will signal the decisive end of the old-fashioned, top-down, take-what-you’re-given model,” David Cameron wrote.
No news outlet was more excited than the Daily Telegraph.
It’s just a pity it was launched as HSJ reported the NHS policy on any willing provider seemed to be grinding to a halt.
Other papers went big on accusations that ministers were “too close” to the drinks industry, thus damaging efforts to curb binge drinking.
This was after three eminent academics, including Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, former president of the Royal College of Physicians, voiced concerns in the Lancet.
The Times highlighted fears that “budget cuts and rushed reforms could lead to an exodus of public health experts and the loss of funding for crucial programmes”.
Meanwhile hospital food was under fire yet again thanks to Channel 4’s Dispatches programme in which TV chef Loyd Grossman revealed why he walked out on an initiative designed to replace unappetising fare with restaurant quality meals.
“Someone at the top has got to take the issue of food seriously or else patients will continue to suffer unnecessarily,” he told the makers of The Truth About Hospital Food.
And he was not the only celebrity making headlines by critiquing health services.
TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp launched an attack on natural childbirth “zealots” via Twitter. “Not talking C-sections during a childbirth course is like not talking Shakespeare during an English literature course,” she said in a heated online exchange with National Childbirth Trust chief executive Belinda Phipps.
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