The private sector is being blamed in the Telegraph for wasting tax payers money – being paid for operations that didn’t take place. But shouldn’t the blame lie with those who negotiated the contracts and the managers who didn’t use the paid-for places?
Meanwhile in the Guardian, Cameron and Clegg are being blamed for continued uncertainty about the health Bill. We haven’t been given a public timetable for this process which doesn’t help but the real problem is that certain Lib Dems are holding Nick Clegg to ransom on this Bill for political, not health, reasons. They want to be seen to be the NHS saviours and have made it a leadership issue for Clegg.
Meanwhile the independent has picked up on the weekend story that many children are significantly weaker than they were 10 years ago due to their increased sedentary lifestyles. I know we live in tech driven times, but I see this as a dereliction of duty by parents and schools. Many children don’t get the recommended 5 hours of physical activity at school and many parents don’t insist on their children getting exercise, and make the time to enable this.
Obesity is in the news again, and the Lancet reviews the new NICE guidelines on preventing type 2 diabetes which is a high risk outcome of being fat. They conclude: “…but the involvement of commercial partners must not be used to shift responsibility away from providers of public health”. What about the responsibility of you and me not to overeat?!
I could go on, but you get my drift. While we go on thinking it’s someone else’s fault and taking our focus off the real problems there isn’t going to be any progress.
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