Sajid Javid has been made the new Health Secretary. He was formerly Home Secretary and latterly Chancellor until he resigned after disagreements with Boris about his independence in the role following a stand-off with bully-boy Dom Cummings.
He was born 5 December 1969 in Rochdale, England with immigrant parents, had a comprehensive school education followed by provincial university and then a sparkling career in banking in New York and with Deutsche Bank, earning gzillions.
He’s a Sun Sagittarius with a confident and adventurous Jupiter in Libra (and Moon) trine Mars in Aquarius, sextiling onto Mercury in outspoken Sagittarius. His Mercury is also in an intense and determined square to Pluto. It’s a chart that really needs a birth time to pull it together.
His Sun will be in the line of fire from this coming December’s Solar Eclipse which will be challenging. But he does have a super-confident tr Pluto square his Jupiter from early 2022 till late 2023 which will help as he takes on the herculean task of overseeing the end of the pandemic and then catching up on the backlog of neglected health cases and overseeing reforms moving ahead. Where he looks less ebullient will be 2023/4.
His relationship with Boris isn’t great at the best of times and is sliding and slipping through 2021/2022. He’ll be jousting with Michael Gove for supremacy as well with a few clashes.
There’s positive and negative on his interface with the NHS as his Jupiter is trine the NHS Mercury, Uranus, Venus and Moon and his Mercury is conjunct the NHS Jupiter. But his Uranus is conjunct the NHS Neptune and square the NHS Cancer Sun and his Pluto is conjunct the NHS Mars and squares their Gemini planets – so there will be a fair amount of pushing and pulling, and resistance internally.
The NHS is in a swampy phase with tr Neptune opposition the Mars, now till early 2023, and opposition the Venus, Uranus, Mercury until Neptune moves out of Pisces in 2025; with major bumps on the road from tr Uranus square tr Saturn hitting on the Pluto Saturn in Leo.
Brexit hasn’t helped with curbs on foreign workers coming in on whom the NHS rely. And then there is the political hot potato which to date no one has dared to tackle – making people pay for at least part of their treatment. Most of Europe works on a basis of part state funded, part private insurance funded. Apart from anything else it would stop nuisance visits to GPs/A&E hospital units from time wasters.
@Aline: The UK had Dr. Shipman and Germany had Niels Hogel. Medical scandals are not the preserve of any one country. No health system can ever be perfect.We put our lives in the hands of professionals who we hope we can trust and that’s about as much as we can expect. Choosing to go abroad because you don’t have that faith does not make the risk any less IMO. But I am not going to debate this further.
@Aline
What you describe has not been my experience in the Netherlands. Referral has always been offered by my GPs. As I said, the system is not perfect but it is pretty efficient and certainly no worse than the UK in terms of treatment standards (medical mishaps occur everywhere). I live in the East of the country and the only people I know of who ‘go to Germany for treatment’ are those who want unproven alternative therapies (of which there are many in that country) that are not covered by their insurer in NL.
As an outsider who has lived in the Netherlands for more than 30 years one of the main things that has always struck me about the people of this country is that no matter how good they have it, they are always dissatisfied and comparing themselves with their neighbours accross the border. To the Dutch the grass is always greener even though as far as I can see it’s pretty lush and green here already.
@ suhu,
Glad for you that your experience is good. I am not dutch and
I have been living longer than you in the netherlands, not that it matters when personnal experience is involved.
And what i speak of is of either personnal experience of of people close to me.
There is something happening in the netherlands that is very wrong. I agree with you that mishaps happens everywhere. Yet, they are usually corrected.
Not in the Netherlands.
You have undoubtedly heard of medical scandals such as jansen-steur, neurologist and revealed by Germany( dpt justice and press) or the horror dentist revealed by france. ( Justice/press)
Both professionals could conduct criminal malpractices in the netherlands for decades without being hold to account Hundreds of complaints had been filed ; the dutch medical authorities knowing of those malpractices without intervening.
You may ask yourself why .
That kind of situation still goes on. That is why thousands of Dutch go abroad for treatment as it is sometime the only option to stay alive. Not for fancy treatment.
As for the privaten insurance companies, they have a legal obligation of medical assistance which is not respected. A dead patient beeing cheaper.
Profit. That is the only goal of private medical insurances.
Well one thing is for sure, the nhs has been struggling for years and let’s face it, it is used and abused and I do know for a fact that in some cases, payment for treatment for those not eligible is requested after they’ve left hospital not before treatment has commenced. It needs to stop becoming a world health service. Secondly, paying some towards treatment is a good thing and as Marjorie has said, might stop gp and a&e time wasters. However, in terms on how the uk has faired compared to other countries; not in relation to how many vaccines that have been administered but the backlog in people awaiting treatment/operations: So, if it is to be believed that there are millions on the waiting lists in the uk since the pandemic started, how do we fare compared to the other countries where some private payment is expected for health care. If these countries are doing better, than maybe it’s the way to go because one thing is for sure, the nhs is in trouble.
The trouble is Angie that those currently in charge are completely responsible for the NHS being “in trouble” and are the last people who are going to help it work best for everyone. They want rather to carve it up and give it to private operators who will stand to make huge profits. They created the problem and they will continue to make things worse not better.
Absolutely Carol. And all who voted for those in power are completely responsible for that.
I’m over 70, I’ve had a flu jab every year for the last 20yrs which has made a big difference, travelling on overcrowded trains and London underground. I didn’t have a problem booking an appointment last Autumn. Having other underlying health issues and needing regular medication I
found the pharmacies to be very efficient. The dedicated NHS doctors and nurses who have given unreservedly during the pandemic ended up with a pitiful pay increase! Boris said all along they would be rewarded!!! Hopefully the new health minister manages to give the NHS staff what they deserve. The money is there its just going to the wrong places.
He is a big fan of Ayn Rand apparently, which is really concerning re the NHS.
What her accolytes dont acknowledge is that at the end of her life, she ended up on the social security she railed against.
Marjorie,
It seems that either the current Chancellor of the Exchequer or his predecessor (the new health secretary) will likely be the first Asian Prime Minister of the UK.
In an astrological head-to-head, do you see who will likely eventually prevail?
There is zero chance of people having to pay to use the NHS. Tory voters in the south of England won’t countenance it, let alone Tories in the Red Wall. And Labour and LibDem voters are also opposed.
What the NHS will do instead is try to do more preventative medicine. The flu vaccine rollout in Oct 2020 was really successful with over 85% of those invited jabbed, and the result was that we had no flu season last year at all.
NHS is hoping to replicate that this autumn.
Also – am not convinced that the European systems are “better” because they cost more – they just seem to be more inefficient. Look at the way the French health system spent the first month of covid vaccinations pootling around doing about 516 vaccines a week while they snarled it all up in paperwork. Whereaas the NHS approached it military fashion with hundreds being jabbed per minute.
Number of patients in hospital with covid at the moment in the UK is just 1,284 people. Number of people in hospital in France with covid at the moment is 5,189. That difference is down to the lean mean military efficiency with which the NHS jabbed people.
In France the decision to hospitalise someone will be taken earlier than elsewhere. You should look at more realistic data, such as 19 per 100k infections in France last week, against 153 in the UK (source: Reuters). In spite of the vaccination “success” in the UK.
The cases in the UK are mainly asymptomatic 18-year-olds. And those should disappear as we approach herd immunity.
It’s hospitalisations and deaths that are the indicator as to whether the pandemic is over.
The UK has less people in hospital with covid than France, and less people in intensive care than France (238 in the UK compared to 1,345 in France).
And the daily 7 day average for deaths is 11 in the UK, compared to a 7-day average of 60 a day in France.
The total deaths in France are slowly closing in on the UK’s (which has basically stopped). I think it will exceed the UK total in Sept.
So I think the NHS has proved it’s worth despite spending about half what they do in France.
‘…… and the result was that we had no flu season last year at all.’
Really?? Is this really true in reality or just is so because Covid overwhelmed everything to the point that you couldn’t get a response for anything else except?
I am aware that many many people were/are complaining to pharmacies that they were not able to report anything else except Covid and can’t get a response to their GPs about anything else, so not sure about that statement. For example, I went to a pharmacy to fill a prescription and even pharmacists were concerned that nothing else was coming through, as if all other illnesses have disappeared overnight. This apparently is because reporting of data is so focused on Covid that nothing else is being considered right now, and everyone (general public and pharmacists) are all saying what has happened to all the other sicknesses, diseases, etc, so….. I am not convinced. (But that’s just me and what I am hearing out there…)
We genuinely had no flu season last year in the UK.
This was entirely a result of flu vaccinations.
Britain is a country that believes in vaccinations and believes in science and has always had a high flu vaccine take up. But in 2020 the flu vaccination rates broke all records, our highest ever rate.
And vaccines work!
Public Health England and Scotland diligently record all virus illnesses (and you can find their reports online). They found that flu rates collapsed after the exceptionally successful Oct 2020 flu vaccine drive.
Yes vaccines work, usually. But the lack of flu cases, plus dearth of common colds, must surely be partly due to the lockdowns, masks, and much better hygiene and hand washing etc. People were unable to go anywhere to catch a cold or flu, and this also reduced the numbers.
we had no flu season because everyone was at home, wearing masks, not mixing. Which is why now there’s an explosion of ailments among children because they didn’t get the usual round of coughs and cold from school in the winter. Adults too – I always get colds in the winter but this year not a single one.
Okay thanks, for me the explanations from Jane, Victoria and Marina make sense.
Its not just vaccine, we had no flu last year because we were all in lockdown, wearing masks and keeping distance.
Flu is much less contagious than covid.
So covid measures alone, plus far more handwashing etc would have reduced flu and colds massively.
Javid seems another on the Gemini / Sagittarius axis whom I was hoping we would see less of.
On French and Italian healthcare one benefit is that their pharmacies are very good and stand in for a lot of work that is done by GPs in the Uk.
Don’t we already pay through national insurance then ?
Yes but it’s a question of how much. France is reckoned to have the “best overall health care” in the world. And it comes top of the league table for spending which is why taxation and social charges (National Insurance) are so high. It covers 100% of long term or costly ailments and there is provision for those whose income doesn’t allow them to contribute to tax/insurance etc.
Overall on social welfare spending France is up at 30% of GDP, while the UK is 17 down the global list at 20% (that includes health and other welfare spending).
The Dutch system sounds similar to the French with basic GP care publically funded and specialist referral covered by private insurance (which is indeed mandatory with allowances provided through the tax system for students and those on low incomes,etc.) plus a mandatory own contribution. The healthcare infrastructure is much more modern than in the UK, well organised and generally pretty efficient. The system is by no means perfect and has indeed suffered from attempts to make insurers and healthcare providers ‘compete’ for users. Hospitals also challenge big pharma charging too much, sometimes by producing their own versions of certain drugs in house. Covid however revealed the need for greater cooperation between healthcare providers and we are starting see that being taken on board. I also think people should be made more responsible for their own healthcare, if only to encourage a more healthy lifestyle.
Health care in the netherlands is privatized sinds 2006. To contract a private health insurance is by law compulsory .
The GP are payed by the private health insurance every 3 months ( subscription system/ per patient: about 2000 patients registered per GP) That is why referals to medical specialists are sometime very difficult to obtain or are obtained very if not too late . Furthermore some GP as they are payed per patient/ annum 385 euros are not always working 5 days a week. It is becoming in certain areas of the netherlands a huge problem. Hospitals are under staffed and nurses just like everywhere in europe underpaid. But medical specialists are extremely well paid, the dutch medical corporation always taking very good care of its finances.
And many Dutch go either to Belgium or Germany for treatment, after Dutch medical mishaps or worse. Not a few, but yearly thousands of them Don t ask me why…..
Add on
The Dutch call the GPs, the watch dogs of the insurance companies. A rotten system detrimental to patients
I live in Germany and health insurance is compulsory and consequently people pay either out of a salary (the employer pays half) or out of earnings if self employed (when the full amount must be paid). There are public insurance companies and private insurance companies. If people are in a private insurance scheme they are fast-tracked to treatment and the hospital or clinic gets the money as quickly as possible. It is a two tier system in other words, with money being a deciding factor. I still think the NHS is better and think Britain should keep it the way it is in perpetuity. There are plenty of other ways to avoid and/or tackle nuisance or frivolous users.
Hello Carol, I have been both privately and publically insured in my 25-odd years in two phases of living in Germany. Privately the treatment involves 1/2/or 3 bed-rooms in hospitals, depending on the nature of the insurance and treatment and operations by senior surgeons. I owe my life to German hospital treatment. With the public insurance you still get good treatment. They still have doctors working in individual practice, perhaps fewer in countryside areas, but still in most villages or towns – This is much preferable to the medical centres here where you are never quite sure which doctor, if any, you are going to see. My experience of medical treatment in Germany was very good – both privately and with the public insurers. Waiting lists are minimal – I have never had to wait for more than two weeks for specialist treatment. The medical equipment available is also, in my experience, superior. Perhaps you can judge the efficiency of the German health system by looking at the difference in total deaths from Covid-19 between Germany and the UK, particularly considering the difference in population numbers, this in spite of the slower vaccine roll-out.. The French system is also considered to be good with foreign nationals usually paying half and the health system paying the other half. The slowness of vaccinations is down to the EU ordering on behalf of all EU countries – this EU government may well need reforming. Perhaps division into smaller groups as Angela Merkel suggested, believe it was named the tier-system here.
The better results re pandemic has less to do with the German health system and more to do with the greater sense of social responsibility the German culture of government still has, it is called a Social Market Economy, that first word is significant and sadly the social contract in Britain was torn to shreds from 1980 onwards. However, I presume your period of private health insurance was in your latter phase in Germany because once one goes private, there is no way back into being publicly insured here. And, yes the treatment is better. I’m not sure how long it is since you’ve been publicly insured but the waiting times to see specialists are definitely longer than two weeks. A month or more is the norm, sometimes three months depending on the specialism and although the hospitals are well equipped, the nursing staff are required to look after too many patients at a time than is good for them or the patients. All health systems have their flaws and we must not idealise.
Please don’t fall for the nonsense that the NHS would be ‘improved’ by bringing in the thin end of the wedge of private insurance. No healthcare should deliver profit, only infrastructure and decent wages for the providers. Not just morally, but economically. Health is an economic black hole that overwhelms all other economies if allowed into a free market.
The NHS is our greatest economic assert. It has repeatedly been shown to be the most efficient healthcare service in the world. American insurance and pharma loathe it because it suppresses their profits worldwide by being a powerful purchaser.
Please, please think about who exactly is behind endless sniping and subtle press attacks on NHS services: newspapers with owners massively invested in US big pharma/insurance.
And what would the implications be for the National Insurance contributions the whole population have to pay? No one talks about that or do I misunderstand?
Yes. agreed. Also, if NHS services were kept and run in the public sector rather than being shipped out to private companies as the Tories have done, then money could be reinvested in public health services, rather than going into the pockets of shareholders. It would be much more financially efficient. Public services and capitalism do not mix well.
Nonsense? Why is an opinion different from yours necessarily wrong? Just calm down. Most of Europe run private health insurance which covers a portion of the costs. And that doesn’t get it anywhere near the disastrous US system.
78% is state-funded in France mainly via a very high taxation rate (including social charges which are the equivalent of national insurance). Most hospital stays are covered 100%. And there are exceptions for the unemployed and below-poverty-line citizens. Everyone takes out insurance to cover the gap.
There are, I believe, though I’m no expert, fairly hefty restraints on big pharma to stop overcharging.
The French are hypochondriacs and fairly spoiled by their (used to be) excellent health service and expect armfuls of prescription and other drugs when they have the mildest sniffle. That could be cut back – though it would provoke howls of protest.
What sticks in mind about the UK set up is my stepmother who after a hip replacement had need of a physiotherapist. She had plenty of money and could have afforded to go privately but insisted on the NHS because ‘she had paid her taxes!’ That attitude irritates me. It drains a health service that can barely cope and cements a mindset that demands free health care as a right. The Brits really wouldn’t want to pay French levels of tax believe me.
Mental health is another of my bugbears – I did years and years of therapy and analysis, all private, and had to work like a trojan to pay for it.
Reforming the NHS isn’t all a great conspiracy by the illuminati to make money. Some of it would inculcate a sense of personal responsibility in people and make it less of a drain on taxpayers. All countries are finding health costs a strain and that was pre-Covid.
The mindset that free health care is a right is the correct one, for economic and moral reasons. Never forget why the NHS was founded: to make the UK an economic powerhouse by looking after the health of the workers, and their dependants. Worrying about ‘hypochodriacs’ is worrying about a very small ‘drain’ on the system. The real drains are the increasing cost of Big Pharma drugs and equipment. And the fact that NHS hospitals and other infrastructure is TAXED – how about that for robbing Peter to pay Paul! They even pay more business rates than some private hospitals…
Look at it this way: if someone kidnapped your loved one and threatened their health, you’d pay whatever they wanted, even if they bankrupted you. That’s the only limit on what a powerful health industry could demand. Ask any American.
The NHS is a world-wide brake on the prices demanded by pharma companies (remember Martin Shkreli? He was just the one who got caught). The dismantling began thirty years ago. Part of this dismantling come in the form of misdirection in certain parts of the media, the constant hint that it’s ‘health tourists’ or some other unworthy that’s causing a diminshed service caused by relentless cutbacks.
As for ‘people should be healthier’ – the NHS has always enshrined prevention and general healthiness in its structure, from efficient mass cancer testing to lifestyle campaigns. Universal healthcare will always default to this, for-profit health care will always have a vested interest in *not* doing this, no matter how much they protest.
“Reforming” the NHS is exactly a banal conspiracy by no ‘illuminati’ but a very visible and obvious number of people who see it as the new oil. They want a piece of the world’s fifth largest employer, and they also want its buying power tamed.
As someone who works like a trojan, but is forced to spend around 70% of my income on rent, and therefore has no savings or spare cash, I am terrified, every night, going to bed and lying there wide awake for hours, fearing for my future and the future of my relatives, but most of all for my country, because so many people aren’t seeing the end result. There is NOTHING more important than this, now and in the future. Having freedom from health destitution allows us to be creative, to do caring jobs, to bring up our children well, not to mention keep wages down.
Free healthcare should be the worldwide norm, for pragmatic reasons, dozens of pragmatic reasons, never mind the moral ones. Throwing this away because a tiny fraction misuse the system is the ultimate in ‘baby with the bath water’.
Well said Mari. Its underfunding and not the principle of the NHS that is at fault. However as a worker in the NHS for 35 years I would like to see National Insurance do what it says rather than go into a general taxation pot
Also so many private businesses are able to pay very low rates of NI contributions and higher rate taxpayers in fact pay LESS as a proportion of their income than lower paid workers . The system of funding does need reform
You don’t want to inflict anything like the horrors of the for-profit healthcare system the US suffers under. Yes, we have some of the best healthcare in the world, but only if you can pay for it. The indigent are shuffled off to substandard providers. And the cost of pharmaceuticals is obscene and growing ever-more expensive, protected by bought politicians who reject the notion of the government negotiating prices.
He’s a Tory. He will have to face the consequences of over a decade of underfunding of the NHS, the consequences of Brexit, and the disastrous Tory policy of privatising the NHS, bit by bit. I don’t like the look of those aspects with the NHS chart – they don’t bode well for the responsible management the NHS so desperately needs! Unfortunately it’s the people of the country who will suffer.
Nurses aren’t brilliantly paid in Germany either, but the worst thing for them is the quota of patients per nurse which rose before the pandemic struck. This trend is a terrible feature of the neoliberal model.
Thanks Marjorie