Category: #VotingToryKills

#VotingToryKills

Chronically ill father hung himself after cruel DWP stopped his benefits, inquest told

From Welfare Weekly: A chronically ill father hung himself shortly after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) took the cruel decision to stop his lifeline benefit payments, an inquest has heard.

Kevin, from Leeds, who suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and mental health problems, was found dead by his daughter shortly before Christmas 2018.

An inquest into his death heard how the 48-year-old often struggled to breath because of his condition, but was still found “fit for work” following a medical assessment for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).

His daughter, Leanne Dooley, is convinced that the DWP’s decision to stop her father’s benefit payments “led to him taking his own life”, due to being left in financial distress and unable to pay bills.

[Read full article on Welfare Weekly…]

Austerity to blame for 130,000 ‘preventable’ UK deaths – report

From The Observer: More than 130,000 deaths in the UK since 2012 could have been prevented if improvements in public health policy had not stalled as a direct result of austerity cuts, according to a hard-hitting analysis to be published this week.

The study by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) thinktank finds that, after two decades in which preventable diseases were reduced as a result of spending on better education and prevention, there has been a seven-year “perfect storm” in which state provision has been pared back because of budget cuts, while harmful behaviours among people of all ages have increased.

Had progress been maintained at pre-2013 rates, around 131,000 lives could have been saved, the IPPR concludes. Despite promises made during the NHS’s 70th birthday celebrations last year to prioritise prevention, the UK is now only halfway up a table of OECD countries on its record for tackling preventable diseases.

[Read full article on Guardian website…]

Homeless people’s deaths ‘up 24%’ over five years

From BBC News: Almost 600 homeless people died in England and Wales last year, according to official figures published for the first time.

The figure represents a rise of 24% over five years, according to the Office for National Statistics.

These are the first official estimates of the number of deaths of homeless people, which show 84% of those who died were men.

Charities say the numbers confirm what they are seeing locally.

The ONS figures show that there were 482 deaths among homeless people in 2013, rising to 597 in 2017.

At The Wellspring charity for homeless and disadvantaged people in Stockport, chief executive Jonathan Billings said: “Almost certainly, over the five or six years, it has become much more prevalent that people we are working with are passing away.”

[Read full article on BBC News website…]

This government isn’t doing enough to prevent another Grenfell

From HuffPost UK: Karen Lee, Labour’s shadow fire minister, writes…

“The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government James Brokenshire announced on Thursday that the government will ban the use of combustible cladding on new buildings above 18 metres. This follows widespread concerns over revelations that a high number of buildings with combustible materials have still not being identified. It is appalling that we are now 17 months on from the Grenfell Tower fire and lessons still have not been learnt.

“New details of the Conservatives’ cladding ban, combined with industry projections of the number of at-risk buildings which have not been identified, mean that it is unlikely the government’s reforms will go far enough to prevent another Grenfell.

“This may look like a positive step, but the details of the ban barely begin to address the risk posed to many vulnerable communities across the UK. Not only is the ban restricted to specific building types, but also the ban will not be enforced retrospectively and will only apply to new buildings or refurbishments.

“Alongside refusing to address the threats posed by faulty fire regulations, the government has displayed a worrying lack of urgency in removing dangerous cladding. The Tories have repeatedly kicked the issue into the long grass.

[Read full column on HuffPost UK…]

Life expectancy set to drop for the poorest

From the Morning Star: Stagnating wages and government spending cuts have led to the gap in life expectancy between the richest and poorest in the England to widen, according to new research published yesterday.

Life expectancy for the country’s poorest women has fallen by three months since 2011, it says.

Researchers at Imperial College London analysed Office for National Statistics data on all 7.65 million deaths recorded in England between 2001 and 2016.

They found the life expectancy gap between people living in the most affluent and most deprived areas increased from 6.1 years to 7.9 years for women and from 9.0 to 9.8 years in men between 2001 and 2016.

Senior author Professor Majid Ezzati said: “We currently have a perfect storm of factors that can impact on health and that are leading to poor people dying younger.
“The funding squeeze for health and cuts to local government services since 2010 have also had a significant impact on the most deprived communities, leading to treatable diseases such as cancer being diagnosed too late or people dying sooner from conditions like dementia.”

[Read full article on Morning Star website…]

PM refuses to scrap work capability assessments despite link to suicides

From Welfare Weekly: Theresa May has refused to scrap her government’s controversial Work Capability Assessments, despite reports almost one in two women taking part in the assessments say they have attempted suicide before or after the process.

Ian Blackford, Commons leader of the SNP, congratulated the Prime Minister on her appointment of a Minister for Suicide Prevention, but said if the Prime Minister was serious about the issue, she would eradicate polices that lead people to believe suicide is their only option.

A series of secret internal inquiries into the deaths of people claiming social security revealed that UK government ministers were repeatedly warned of shortcomings of their social security policies.

Nearly one in every two women (47%) claiming incapacity benefits and undergoing the WCA have attempted suicide.

[Read full article on Welfare Weekly…]

Grenfell fire survivor says tenants were bullied over renovation

From The Guardian: One of the last people to escape Grenfell Tower has claimed residents were bullied by the Kensington & Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) during the refurbishment of the block which left gaps around windows that allowed his flat to fill with smoke.

Antonio Roncolato, who lived in flat 72 on the 10th floor for 27 years, was the first resident to give evidence to the public inquiry into the disaster, which claimed 72 lives. He described being trapped in the tower for more than six hours and said there was gaseous smoke, like “you’re going into a gas chamber”.

Roncolato, a hotel worker, told the inquiry that before the fire residents were unhappy about plans to relocate gas boilers in the building’s corridors and that some were bullied into accepting what they feared was a safety risk. He also said that as part of the same refurbishment the landlord removed a 24-hour concierge service in the tower because it would cost too much to continue.

He described how residents had meetings with the Tory-run council landlord but “the TMO was very resistant to coming to these and when they did, the meetings were often tense and residents would walk out”.

The TMO finally agreed to put some boilers in the flats, but “for those residents who did not speak up, they were bullied into having the new boiler installed in the hallway by the front door”.

[Read full article on Guardian website…]

‘Shocking’ rise in coroner warnings over NHS patient deaths, says Labour

From The Guardian: The number of legal warnings issued by coroners over patient deaths in England attributed to NHS resourcing issues has risen by 40% in three years.

There were 42 prevention of future death reports (PFDs) relating to issues such as lack of beds, staff shortages and insufficiently trained agency staff in 2016 compared with 30 in 2013.

Coroners have a statutory duty to make reports to a person, organisation, local authority or government department or agency where the coroner believes that action should be taken to prevent future deaths.

Labour, which compiled the figures, blamed the increase on the government’s austerity policies.

Read more

NHS privatisation is ‘killing people’: Unite slams Tory NHS treatment ahead of march

From Unite Live: Hundreds of thousands of NHS campaigners will converge in London on Saturday 3rd February to demand the Tories fix the embattled health service.

In response to the unprecedented and growing crisis afflicting the NHS, the People’s Assembly has called a mass protest against the government’s deliberate dismantling of the health service.

Unions, actors, musicians and politicians have thrown their support behind the protest as the indictments against the government’s shocking treatment of the NHS and the subsequent effects on patients and staff grow ever longer.

Two weeks ago it was revealed 20 people died over the Christmas period while waiting for ambulances from the critically “over stretched” East of England Ambulance Service Trust.

The revelation came after 68 senior doctors from England and Wales wrote to Theresa May to warn her that patients are “dying prematurely” because they are being treated in hospital corridors.

[Read full article on Unite Live…]

“The NHS is in crisis and it’s a matter of life and death”

Labour MP Laura Pidcock writes on HuffPost UK: Already this winter, 75,000 people patients have been stuck in the back of ambulances, waiting to be seen in Accident and Emergency Departments. During Christmas week, one in six ambulance patients waited 30 minutes or more before being admitted to hospital. County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust had to turn away patients on four separate occasions during that week.

Hospitals across the UK are on ‘black alert’ (operational pressures escalation level 4 – meaning a state in which trusts are unable to deliver comprehensive care).

[Read full column on HuffPost UK…]

Essex woman dies after waiting nearly four hours for ambulance

From The Guardian: An 81-year-old woman was found dead in her house after waiting almost four hours for an ambulance.

The pensioner, who lived in Clacton, Essex, called 999 on Tuesday complaining of chest pains, according to the GMB union. East of England (EEAST) ambulance service said a crew arrived three hours and 45 minutes after the initial call.

Ambulance services, like hospitals, have struggled to cope in the midst of the NHS’s winter crisis. Last week, EEAST raised its operational level to the highest possible, an indication that its ability to respond to potentially life-threatening incidents had been affected. In some cases, it used taxis to transport patients to hospital.

[Read full article on Guardian website…]

Former senior Met Police officer blames Theresa May for rising violent crime

Footage from Sky News: Former Met Police senior investigating officer Peter Kirkham tells it like it is about rising crime on Sky News…

The Tories Hate This Interview

This interview will never be shown on TV again___28 Aug 2018 – UPDATEWhen the Police Federation questioned Theresa May's policy of slashing police budgets and scrapping thousands of police jobs she furiously dismissed their expert concerns as "scaremongering" and "crying wolf".Last year's crime stats (England and Wales):Violent crime: ⬆️ up 20% in a single yearRobberies: ⬆️up 29% in a single yearRapes & sex offences: ⬆️ up 23% in a single yearStalking & harassment: ⬆️ Up 36% in a single yearKnife crime: ⬆️ up 21% in a single yearGun crime: ⬆️ up 20% in a single yearCrime in general: ⬆️ up 14% in a single year

Posted by BBC London Calling "Unofficial" on Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Read more

“Economic murder”: Tory NHS and social care cuts linked to 120,000 needless deaths, conclude top researchers

From Daily Mirror: Tory NHS and social care cuts are “economic murder” and already 120,000 Brits have died needlessly since 2010, claim researchers at three top universities.

[Read full article on Daily Mirror website…]

Zoe Williams: It’s true – Conservative governments really do kill people

Zoe Williams writes in the Guardian: “There was a splenetic exchange on BBC Question Time last week, between an audience member and my colleague, Aditya Chakrabortty, who had pointed out that disabled people had died as a result of cuts to social security. You’re like ‘Donald Trump’, said a guy in the audience: the parallel was, Aditya had made a statement that was stirring, powerful, emotive and trenchant – so I guess, if we leave aside the fact that it was also true, it was pretty Trumpian.

“Just as it’s verboten to call someone a liar in parliament, so there is a curious and ancient disapproval around pointing out that a state has been the direct cause of any deaths, whether of its own citizens or abroad. It is taken as hysterical overstatement (something that should only be levelled at an authoritarian regime, which takes its people out and shoots them) and pitiful naivety (a wilful misunderstanding of the business of government, to trace its policies crudely back to the lives of those who are affected by them). Read more

Mentally distressed man declared ‘fit for work’ by DWP found dead on beach days later

From Evolve Politics: A man declared ‘fit for work’ by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), despite suffering with extreme anxiety, stress and panic attacks for nine years, has been found dead on a beach after his sickness benefits were removed.

Following the removal of his benefits, 54-year-old David Metcalf was visited by police and a mental health practitioner after concerns for his wellbeing were raised. Just four days later he was found dead on a Durham beach. Read more

1 2