Jeremy Hunt now in charge of health

In a cabinet reshuffle today, Jeremy Hunt was moved to become Health Secretary. I suppose it was not to be expected he would be sacked given his close relationship with Murdoch's lobbyists because his adviser took the blame for that. But it is such a surreal appointment that one must either laugh or cry.

Mr Hunt believes in homeopathy. Handy if what you intend is to dismantle the NHS and give money to charlatans. He is consistent in his view though: his defence of it is contained in a letter to a constituent who wrote to him pointing out that homeopathy does not work: he said


So: not evidenced based medicine then: give the patient what he wants, cos obviously as a "consumer" he is as well equipped to know what is good for him as a doctor who has trained for years, or a scientist who has done controlled trials.

There is this, though: magic water is cheap....

In other news Mr Hunt is on record as saying that the NHS was a 60 year old mistake. I seem to recall in the past the tories have invited us to believe that the NHS is "safe in our hands"

Yes it does. Homeopathy has this great advantage: it allow a lot more time to be spent with the patient. That is certainly a good thing, but we do not have to pretend that homeopathy works in order to achieve that. There are far preferable ways

There are a number of things which can lead to a doctor suggesting homeopathy. For example a GP has about 5 minutes to spend with each patient in the current course of things. The "worried well" are a nuisance and while they may respond well to time and relationship, the GP can't give that: so referring on to a homeopath is in the doctor's interest: it does not necessarily mean he thinks that homeopathy works, but waiting lists are far lower for that than for other professions offering time and attention, such as psychologists. So the GP gets rid of the patient at no cost and with no need to jeopardise a relationship which is important when that person does become genuinely ill

Similarly, with the best will in the world a doctor is not going to be comfortable telling a patient who is genuinely ill that there is nothing to be done: a referral to a homeopath is a "hope of last resort" and it has a value in that sense which, again, is nothing at all to do with medicine.

In a well funded health service such services could be provided more honestly: but we do not have a well funded health service, and it is being dismantled on grounds of cost. In these circumstances there is no justification whatsoever for continuing to fund this nonsense: and especially not by a person who is very active in the privatisation of care.

Jeremy Hunt is performing as predicted, given his aim to dismantle the health service. For those who do not know, he has engineered the first all out doctors' strike in England since the inception of the NHS.

Junior doctors in England are on total strike today and tomorrow. They have widespread public support, but Mr Hunt denies that. He also denies that he is in any way responsible for this unprecedented situation. Mr Hunt believes that this is his "miners moment" and it is clear that the government judges that the time for the ultimate showdown with our NHS is now. Mr Hunt is on record as believing the NHS should be privatised, though naturally he does not draw attention to this. Rather he pretends his aim is to improve the service. because they all talk hurrah words very loudly when taking despicable action.