Let’s put our NHS worries in perspective – and celebrate what we have | Ann Robinson

The latest GP story to scare us witless says that a “record number of GP practices closed last year, forcing thousands of patients to find a new surgery”. Pulse, the GP website, highlighted NHS England data that shows nearly 100 practices closed in 2016 – a 114% increase on 2014 – and that more than a quarter of a million people have had to change practice. Cue claims that GPs aren’t coping with increased demand, the NHS needs more cash and staff – and that the whole system is teetering on the brink of collapse.

But what’s the true picture? Are you likely to find yourself without a GP any time soon? Is the service contracting? And is the closure of a GP practice always a bad thing?

People get understandably upset when a much loved, familiar, local service shuts down. It doesn’t matter if it’s a GP surgery, library, community centre or takeaway. I’ve been registered at the same GP practice for 30 years; I never go, but I was quite discombobulated when I got a letter saying that one of the long-serving doctors was retiring. If I had memory impairment and long-term health problems, I’d be upset and anxious if the whole practice closed down and I had to move somewhere unfamiliar.

But let’s keep this story in perspective; there are 7,674 GP practices in England, so the closure of 92 practices means that 98.8% remain open. Primary healthcare services are not necessarily contracting; in 2014 there were 5,729 more GPs and 1,688 more practice nurses employed by GPs than 10 years earlier. Admittedly, a lot of those GPs and nurses work part time, and there’s also more work done in primary care now. So no one’s saying that there’s not a case for more money, training and efficiencies. It’s just that it’s not fair to paint an apocalyptic vision of sick people roaming the streets of England, looking in vain for a doctor to treat them.

Every person with an NHS number has the right to be registered with a GP and get primary care services, and access to hospital-based services if needed. If you assault your GP and are removed from the practice, the local clinical commissioning group (CCG) will refer you to a specialist GP who takes on the role of caring for the violent, abusive or just unmanageable. If you kill someone and go to prison, you have access to a doctor. There is literally nothing you can do in the UK that means you forfeit the right to see a GP. If all your local GP practices are full, the CCG has an obligation to find you one. Asylum seekers and refugees are also entitled to NHS care while waiting for their application to be processed and are encouraged to register with a local GP surgery.

The overwhelming majority of us who live in the UK will be registered with a GP from the day we’re born to the day we die. And in an era where Obamacare is under attack in the US, it’s worth celebrating what we’ve got in this country. Sure, the system’s not perfect, but there’s no evidence that any one system works better across all parameters; and no one can argue with the fact that our system is equitable.

‘GPs are more inspected, regulated and scrutinised than ever before – and quite right too.’ Photograph: Alamy

There is a problem with the huge variation in quality between different GP practices. But inspections by the Care Quality Commission and the publication of its findings are helping to enforce high standards across the board. The CQC can demand an action plan when practices are found to be inadequate and shut down surgeries on the spot if they’re found to be unsafe. Every British GP has to undergo an annual appraisal, providing evidence that they meet professional standards. Any GP that fails to play ball can be denied the right to continue working. This is a completely different landscape to when I started working as a GP nearly 30 years ago. We are more inspected, regulated and scrutinised than ever – and quite right too.

But some GPs can’t hack it. There’s more work, more scrutiny and higher expectations now. Practices have to adapt, and many single-handed GPs find that hard. The climate nowadays favours larger group practices; there are economies of scale, a mix of skills among a range of GPs, less risk of professional isolation, and more chance of resisting the creeping penetration by large global healthcare organisations. Virgin Care already runs more then 400 NHS and social care services. Single-handed practices can’t fight the Goliaths who are sniffing round primary care.

So some GPs are taking early retirement, and fewer young medics are opting for general practice. And 1.2% of GP practices closed last year. Some of those practices will be a loss, some won’t. Many patients will be upset that they’ve had to move but no one will be left without a GP. And that’s the real story.

Let’s put our NHS worries in perspective – and celebrate what we have | Ann Robinson

Putting HO! HO! HO! In Its Proper Perspective

Gift giving during Christmas time has become a worrisome experience for many people. The day before “Black Friday,” practically everyone is trying to figure out what I should get so-and-so for Christmas? What will make him or her happy? Maybe a bicycle? A flat screen TV? A new shirt? A pen? Something. Some THING. People go to the mall, look at all the displays and wonder, “Gee, will that make him happy?

Some individuals can’t decide all the way up to the last minute. They don’t really know what can make someone happy, so they put off buying gifts until the last minute. Then, during the last two days before Christmas, they join this big rush in the department stores where they just end up buying whatever, rationalizing that this will make a person happy. “After all, I spent enough money on it, so it’s going to satisfy him because, after all, the more expensive it is, the more satisfying it is supposed to be to whoever gets it”.

So, in an attempt to satisfy people during Christmas, most people go off and try to get so many things without really knowing what is going to make an individual happy. Of course, this is not a wise thing to do. After all, the idea behind gift giving is to succeed in making the person happy. But to know what will make a person happy, we first have to find out who they are and what they are.

For instance, when you go off and try to buy a gift for someone, you think of the person first. “What would he like? What does the need? What does he do? What are his likes and dislikes?” If he is a basketball player, he might like a basketball. If he is a stamp collector, he might like some rare stamps. A woman might like a bracelet or a dress. Obviously, a guy wouldn’t want a dress unless he’s a transvestite.

You think of the person. You think of who he is and then you think of what you can get him. Certainly you don’t get a basketball player boxing gloves or a boxer a basketball. What you should do is to look deeper into a person’s identity. See that in reality, all these external identities that you might be thinking people are is not what they really are. We’re not really basketball players, boxers, men, women or transvestites. These are all temporary material identities. We are not the material body we are the eternal living beings within these temporary bodies.

Unfortunately, most people perceive only people as temporary material identities and therefore wrongly conclude that material things will make them truly happy.

Especially at Christmas, people give so many material gifts in the attempt to make others happy. During Christmas time, material things are put in boxes and made to look very special. These gifts are nicely covered up to cause people to wonder, “Oh, what are in those little boxes under the tree?” In this way, people anticipate and want to enjoy whatever is in the boxes.

Gift-wrapped emptiness means that actually the only content of those nicely wrapped packages is emptiness. There is nothing of real substance there. It is just dead matter — material particles coming together — which in the due course of time will eventually fall apart. So, this dead matter in these packages will not really make anyone truly happy. Why, because we are not dead matter, we are not material. Therefore, material things will not make us truly happy.

When I was a kid, I made a point of opening all the presents that I got on Christmas morning. But before I opened a package I would think, “this is the one that will make me happy”. After I opened it, I would feel so excited and say, “Wow, this is really nice”. But not more than 30 seconds later, I got the feeling, “is that it?” And I would put down the gift and go to another package hoping “maybe this one will make me happy”. But the same thing happened, and I’d have to go to the next package and the next to see what was in there to see if that would make be happy. Pretty soon, all the packages got opened and I’d have all these presents sitting around me and still I’m not happy, I’m not satisfied. And then I would think, “I should be happy because of all the things that I have right now”. But I’m not. Why isn’t there happiness in having all these little things?

In the Bible, in Corinthians, it is stated:

“Look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not
seen, for the things which are seen are temporary but the things which are not seen are eternal. Seek the things that are above, not the things that are on earth”.

We cannot be made truly happy by any material thing because we are not matter. We are not material; we are not the body; we are not the mind. We are the eternal spirit souls or living entities within these material bodies. We are the life force, not the body. Therefore, if we get material things, because we are not material, such material things cannot really satisfy us.

Now as soon as we can understand that we are actually sparks of God, children of God, then we will conclude that what will really make us happy, and therefore the best thing that a person can give us, is something that has to do with our spiritual nature.

For instance, if I can give you for Christmas or at any time, the gift of understanding that you are eternal – you are not temporary; that your body can die but you cannot die — then I’m giving you the gift of anxietylessness. In other words, I am making it so that you don’t need to be in anxiety about the death of the body.
If I give you the understanding that you are the eternal part and parcel of God, then this will make you actually happy. If I give you the gift of letting you know that God loves you unconditionally, that you can have Him as your Best Friend, and that He will actually give you protection – take good care of you – and that’s the greatest gift I can give you. If I can help you become attached to God, then that is actually the only thing I can give which will truly make you happy. Anything other than that will not make you truly happy.

People, basically feel obligated to go out and give other people material gifts. They feel they have to buy a person “things” in order to prove to them that they do love them. They are feeling that despite the fact that I cannot afford this, I’m going to buy it anyway because if I don’t then this person will think I don’t love him. And this is the mentality that exists.

And it’s all based on people thinking, “if so-and-so loves me, then this person will give me something which costs a lot of money, and this is the measure of their love”. What a perversion.

What is usually forgotten at Christmas time is the fact that it is a birthday. It is the birthday of the perfect example of someone who loves all of us unconditionally and who is giving us nothing material at all and yet loving us more than anyone else. So Jesus is the perfect example of someone who loves us unconditionally and giving us the greatest gift. He is teaching us that we should love God and emphasizing that this will make us happy. He is giving us perfect knowledge of our identity and our relationship with God.

Yet there are people out there that feel that unless God gives us something material then God doesn’t love me. These people are wrongly thinking towards God in the same way they are thinking towards other people. It’s the whole outlook in life in general, that material things will make me happy and therefore anyone who loves me will give me some sort of material enjoyment. Their friend is someone who makes it so they have some material gain and their enemy is someone who makes it so they have less material gain. And some of these people will even marry someone who will help them get more material gain and immediately leave that person when that person no longer gives them material enjoyment.

Let me clarify something. I don’t want to give people the impression that I’m against giving a gift to someone that I truly care about. There is nothing wrong with giving a gift as an expression of love. But the material gift is not the end in itself because it is material and therefore temporary. Yet, it tells the person that you care about them and would like to give them a token of that feeling.

The materialist’s symptoms of so-called happiness include alcoholism, drugs, suicide, cigarette chain-smoking, endless consumption and accumulation of more and more things without ever being satisfied.

Generally, the materialist experiences three fears: the fear of not having something; the fear of having it and being afraid they are going lose it; and the fear of if they lose it will they ever get it back. Another symptom of the materialist is false ownership. “This is my house; this is my car; this is my boat”. Never do they think of where the wood that built the house came from, where the metal that built the car came from, or where the products that built the boat came from. If they did they would realize but they were in a position of being caretakers, safeguarding someone else’s property – God’s.

If people thought like this there would never be wars because we would all realize that being brothers and sisters, all having the same Father, we are just caretaking His property. So if one part of the world was rich in oil and another part of the world was rich in grain, and each needed what the other had, wouldn’t we simply share our Fathers property with our distant brothers and sisters?

But what we have instead is conflict between countries. Each fighting for territories of influence and resources such as raw material and markets for goods. It is not an issue of ideology or freedom. Neither country is solely concerned with helping other people. Instead, each country is determined to build military strength. Military strength that enables them to go somewhere else and take what they do not have.

In America, People’s freedom is not really the simple interest of the United States government. Americans have their vested economic interests. And just as other countries are interested in dominating and exploiting, so are we. Nothing but big animals fighting over God’s property. And unless these governments can change their ways, God will eventually arrange these nations to cancel each other out with all their nuclear bombs.

It is clear why there is no peace in the world. People are simply not content with following the teachings of all the saintly persons. Sure, we all have different religious labels on our bodies but our consciousness is the same materialistic consciousness of dominating and exploiting what is God’s property — be it his children or the world.

The feeling is, “this is where we will get our happiness”. The goal then is to get as much sense gratification as we can. To do this we need more material objects; we need more control and more power in order to take hold of our property. Therefore, we conflict with other people who are trying to do the same thing.

People are fighting over God’s property because we all want to exploit it to enjoy our senses. Whether we look at it on an international level or an individual level, there is no peace because, practically speaking, we are against God. If we want peace and we want this world to be like the kingdom of God, we have to start being the servants of God – lovers of God – not the lovers of materialism and illusion.

People who love materialistic things are naturally selfish and cannot see this connection. Newspaper editorials state that the Christmas season is the time for joy in giving. Yet, why is there so much selfishness, corruption, crime, exploitation, etc., around? And yet, this same newspaper is always bursting with ads saying, “enjoy this and you’ll be happy”. And aren’t the selfish and corrupt citizens simply trying to follow the message of these ads?

So on one hand, people are encouraged to develop an increasingly materialistic, self-centered consciousness and on the other hand, they wonder why there is no peace in the valley. But it’s not really a big mystery. For the world to be peaceful, we have to be peaceful within ourselves. And we are not going to be satisfied or peaceful within as long as were acting as thieves acting against God. A thief can never be peaceful. He always knows he’s a criminal. Even if he’s not caught, he’s in anxiety that somehow he will be caught.

So, as long as we are trying to be false lords or enjoyers and as long as we see the world as a place for sensual exploitation, then we will be just like thieves who have stolen a pot of gold and are spending it here and there. We cannot be peaceful in this way. And as long as we are not peaceful, we cannot have a peaceful neighborhood, a peaceful society, or a peaceful world.

So on this Christmas Day and on every other Christmas day, see it for what it is – the birthday of the one person that genuinely and unconditionally tried to give us all love for God. And when you give a gift to a loved one, give it with a sense of sincere loving feelings for that person but realize it is your love that should make them happy and not some gift-wrapped emptiness.

Aloha!

To learn more about Hesh, listen to and read hundreds of health related radio shows and articles, and learn about how to stay healthy and reverse degenerative diseases through the use of organic sulfur crystals and the most incredible bee pollen ever, please visit www.healthtalkhawaii.com, or email me at heshgoldstein@gmail.com or call me at (808) 258-1177. Since going on the radio in 1981 these are the only products I began to sell because they work.
Oh yeah, going to www.asanediet.com will allow you to read various parts of my book – “A Sane Diet For An Insane World”, containing a wonderful comment by Mike Adams.
In Hawaii, the TV stations interview local authors about the books they write and the newspapers all do book reviews. Not one would touch “A Sane Diet For An Insane World”. Why? Because it goes against their advertising dollars.

Putting HO! HO! HO! In Its Proper Perspective

The cost of the NHS is a matter of perspective | Letters

The half-truth as you quote Tim Farron as saying about paying for the NHS is that the money has to come out of people’s pockets (Editorial, 21 September). This is not as difficult as it may sound at first if we work out the value to the community of the services provided by the NHS and compare it with the costs. The consistent increase in longevity since 1948 must owe a great deal to its existence, and the addition to the national income year by year must run into billions of pounds if we put a proper value on such things as enabling people to return to work after injury or illness after a shorter absence, or even at all. Reduction in pain and anxiety runs into many more billions, as well as the benefits from improved drugs, new and simpler methods of surgery, treating conditions in outpatients departments, or regular visits to GP surgeries (instead of hospitalisation).

If a monetary value were to be put on these and many other of the NHS’s activities, this would produce a “profit”, year by year. Part of this could then be ploughed back into the service in a similar way to part of commercial and industrial profits being used to finance expansion. It is time to stop nit-picking on the cost side of the NHS and get down to working out just how much we owe it.
Harvey Cole
Winchester, Hampshire

• Raising sufficient revenue to finance our currently strained NHS shouldn’t be a problem economically. When a private company employs more people to produce more goods or services that people clearly need and demand, an appropriate price has to be levied to pay wages and other costs, reimburse lenders and reward shareholders. A private insurance company has to levy premiums on its new customers. In no case is such pricing felt to be an undue imposition with adverse economic effects. Indeed, economists generally consider any such move to have positive multiplier effects on the rest of the economy, as the initial new workers increase demand for general consumer goods.

The same logic surely applies in the case of public services. Provided people really need and demand the services (obviously very much the case) and more service is indeed given (which should be the case if quality workers are employed), then raising revenue through tax or social insurance should have unambiguously good effects. And we can both safely expand essential services and employ good people in well-paid professional and semi-professional public jobs providing these services, more or less to the point that public need and demand is met. If so, this is a massively important (hitherto insufficiently recognised) point that all political parties need to take on board.
Bernard Cummings
Erith, Greater London

State pensioners should make NI contributions according to their ability to pay, writes Alan Baker. Photograph: Henrik Sorensen/Getty

• I stopped paying national insurance contributions when I reached the state pension age 12 years ago. Since then I have needed to make increasing use of the NHS. I have two suggestions for increasing funding for the NHS.

First, require state pensioners to make NI contributions according to their ability to pay. If abolition of the exemption were to be considered ill-advised by political parties fearful that such a measure would lose them votes, then NI contributions could instead be phased out and merged into the income tax system. This approach, less damaging politically, would enable pensioners to contribute to the funding of state pensions and benefits and the NHS fairly, according to their means.

Second, the public need to be better informed about the costs of the NHS, so that we might be more willing to pay for its services. The real cost of a “free” visit to a GP and of “free” common operations such as hip replacements, cataract removals and heart bypasses should be displayed boldly in surgeries and in pharmacies. More of us might then recognise that the NHS provides excellent value for our money – and needs more to meet its understandably rising costs.
Alan Baker
Cambridge

• The Labour leadership have not been as forthcoming as they might about their views on the NHS. Tim Farron sees them as supporting “renationalisation”, which means the current version of the NHS reinstatement bill awaiting its second reading in November. If it were passed into law, £10bn more annually would become available without any increase in taxation, because the current marketised system costs that much more in administration than did the public service model NHS which preceded it (admin costs are now over 14% of the NHS budget instead of the previous 5%).
Jeanne Warren
Oxford

• Your editorial suggests that Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign has failed to provide detail on how he would finance an expanded NHS. This omission is understandable. On the day of his innovative health policy launch in August, the media chose to focus on “traingate” (Report, 25 August). This ludicrous non-news story, which successfully blew away Corbyn’s attempt to publicise his excellent health policy details, involved Richard Branson, whose Virgin Healthcare has a strong commercial interest in eradicating the NHS. What a coincidence.
Catharine Sadler
Little Birch, Herefordshire

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

The cost of the NHS is a matter of perspective | Letters

Nintendo And The Future Of Kids" Video games: E3 From A Father"s Perspective

For these of you that are unfamiliar with E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo), all you require to know is that it is a giant bigger-than-existence video game convention. I didn’t attend the total point this year, but my nine year outdated son and I were visitors at Nintendo’s “Kid’s Corner” occasion.

This was the very first kid’s occasion that Nintendo has hosted at E3. They handled the complete expo in a different way this year, skipping the huge press conference exactly where they reveal all the new video games. They hosted a digital event rather, streaming announcements all more than the web. A lot of game critics complained. Erik Kain argued that this was the E3 strategy of the potential.

I agree with Kain, this was a sensible strategy for a quickly modifying world of marketing and advertising, PR, and journalism. Plus, as a dad, the Kid’s Corner occasion signals to me that Nintendo has an ongoing dedication to family gaming that the rest of the market appears to neglect.

At E3, the giant keep track of photos of military autos, guns, and explosions are sometimes stimulating and at other times disturbingly violent. Combine the violence with the offensive misogyny of the ubiquitous booth babes in miniskirts and it gets to be clear why folks beneath 17 are prohibited from entering.

Nintendo, of course, has some clout at E3. They can change the principles. And this year they did. They hosted a Kid’s Corner event the place 15 or so kids (chaperoned by their mothers and fathers) were invited to come hang out in the VIP areas of the Nintendo booth, trying out all the new video games.

My 9 year outdated son and I have been among individuals invited. Nintendo transported us to E3, organized a day total of gameplay, fed us lunch, and gave us grab bags complete of branded swag to take residence. I expected a day full of pitches from various PR agents, but alternatively, we got warm hospitality, VIP hands-on entry to all the new video games, and a usually enjoyable filled day.

The day began with a group game of Splatoon, the new multiplayer paintball game that impressed rather considerably everyone who played it. It is hardly surprising that Splatoon is so a lot fun. We all know Nintendo persistently produces wonderful video games.

What’s most amazing about Splatoon, even so, is that Nintendo tackles the third person shooter genre in a way that tends to make it loved ones pleasant. I can hardly get started to express my excitement about this game. Picture taking all the stuff that is exciting about shooting games and untangling it from the normal violent narrative structure. The aim is not even to hit other players with paint, but rather to cover as a lot of the landscape as possible with your team’s color. Think: paint ball shade wars.

This game is a breath of fresh air in a globe exactly where movie and television imagery is getting much more and much more graphic. I’m nonetheless making an attempt to comprehend how the James Bond motion pictures have eliminated all the sexual innuendo, extra much more violence, and somehow are now considered  more household pleasant. Some thing is out of joint when we shield our youngsters from adore-making but expose them to killing. But that is just my personal opinion.

Splatoon feels right to me. It maintains the exciting portion of multiplayer shooter mechanics, but employs a narrative framework that avoids killing. Plus, it attributes adorable characters and amusing animations. But again, Nintendo has done what they do best: Entertaining! Their video games really do not shock, they are not edgy, but they are always a blast.

Right after Splatoon, we played Mario Maker (due to be released in the very first half of 2015). Allow me clarify: we did not just play Mario Maker, we played Mario Maker with Shigeru Miyamoto (the legendary creator of Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, and much more). He explained that Mario Maker is a scaled down edition the very same computer software that is truly employed to design and style Mario ranges these days.

Mario Maker enables players to layout their own programs, inserting Koopa Troopas, green pipes, mushroom electrical power-ups, coins, and more, wherever they see fit. Mr. Miyamoto showed us how to navigate the interface, flipping back and forth the eight-bit nostalgic SNES search and the HD WiiU styling, and then he played through the amounts that my son developed. My head almost exploded–a legend of game design constructing game levels side-by-side with a nine-year outdated. Mr. Miyamoto was enthusiastic and cheery, hunting genuinely excited to see the way all the youngsters interacted with Mario Maker.

I enjoy the idea of little ones currently being in a position to style their very own game amounts. I’ve written lately about the positive aspects of game layout for youngsters. In my games, studying, and schooling series for Mindshift KQED, I argue that we ought to include far more game layout into K-12 training.

With game layout college students get metacognition to the subsequent degree, finding out that concepts are constructed. They realize that information is usually framed from a specific standpoint, with a particular variety of intention. The positive aspects of this variety of reflexive consideration are intellectual, social, and emotional.

Even though there are already several fantastic child pleasant game creating platforms — I’m notably fond of Gamestar Mechanic for younger youngsters — Nintendo’s Mario Maker is an exciting addition to the space.

Mario Maker wasn’t the only new game they showed off that demanded creativity from kids. Pokemon Art Academy is a 3DS game due in October that not only permits onscreen art making, it also uses game-like interactivity to educate drawing. “Through ever-evolving lessons, players are taught the fundamentals of artwork, from straightforward shapes and coloring, to more complicated strategies like shading and blending.” Tsunekazu Ishihara, president and CEO of The Pokémon Business, showed the youngsters how he could draw Pikachu on a Nintendo 3DS using Pokemon Artwork Academy and then informed them all about what they could expect in the subsequent iterations of the Pokemon game series.

Not almost everything was a winner. For instance, I wasn’t specifically fond of the new Kirby supplying and neither was my son. While the claymation-like graphics had been really cool, the wow element ended there. I usually like the Kirby games. Kriby Triple Deluxe on the 3DS has been entertaining our household given that it came out. But the touch display manage in the new Kirby and the Rainbow Curse was type of irritating. I guess I could picture that youthful gamers that can’t really perform the d-pad would uncover it enjoyable. Consider of it like an introduction to console gaming for the youngest of players.

Yoshi’s Woolly World, is one more new game really much like the earlier Yoshi’s Island games (I really like Yoshi’s New Island). Takashi Tezuka, the creator of Yoshi games, was there to demo it for us. This upcoming iteration adds a cool yarn design that matches the fibrous imagination of the great Kirby’s Epic Yarn from the Wii console. Anybody who likes Yoshi games will enjoy this new iteration.

My son and I both considered Captain Toad Treasure Tracker was intriguing. I like the idea of a Toad game. Particularly now that all of the Mario games have coop mode, little ones get utilized to taking part in as Toad. It is good to see Toad in a foremost function for a adjust. The game takes the neat three dimensional mechanics of Super Mario 3D Planet and modifies them with a variety of labyrinth variety puzzler. The downside, my son exclaimed, is that there’s no multiplayer mode. He needs to play with his younger brother. I guess we’ll see how that goes quickly, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker is due out this coming vacation season.

Total, Nintendo impressed me at E3. I can’t wait until finally my little ones are developing Mario programs for me to perform. I can’t wait for family members rounds of Splatoon. With slower than anticipated Wii U product sales, Nintendo at times seems to be like they’re struggling. But it doesn’t seem that way to me. It seems to be to me like they’ve after the next generation of gamers. They recognize that gamers have children. Gamers will buy video games for their youngsters and that games which are fun for parents and children to play with each other is the essential to extended phrase sustainability in the two console and game income.

I’m quite certain in a couple of years, Nintendo will seem prophetic. Their determination to concentrate on the family members console will permit them to stay related for many years to come as each new generation of teens askews their parents’ console in favor of something newer, edgier, and hipper.

Jordan Shapiro is writer of FREEPLAY: A Video Game Guide to Greatest Euphoric Bliss, and MindShift’s Guide To Video games And Learning For info on Jordan’s approaching books and events click right here.

Nintendo And The Future Of Kids" Video games: E3 From A Father"s Perspective

Can Simon Stevens save the NHS? A GP"s perspective

Has primary care has located a champion in Simon Stevens? Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

“Will he, won’t he?” ponder NHS pundits plucking the petals of the privatisation daisy, as they consider the position of Simon Stevens, the incoming chief executive of NHS England, outgoing president of the global overall health division of the American United Well being Group and former wellness adviser to Tony Blair.

In the red corner, “quit privatisation of the NHS” is shouted by hospital consultants on the moonlight run to their personal clinics, shop stewards fearing redundancies for their members, and a crew of managers who suspect the new boss would demand productivity for their £100,000 plus salaries.

In the blue corner, personal bidders and hopefuls of all sorts vying for a seat at Stevens’ table.

Watching the kerfuffle from the gallery are individuals who know that the bulk of the NHS is already firmly in private hands.

Back in 2005, then wellness minister Lord Hutton explained: “90% of all patient journeys begin and end in our main care method with our family GPs. They are all privately run organizations. They are tiny organizations and individuals GPs – fairly rightly so – make a profit from their work with the NHS.”

The fact is that primary care – the portion of the NHS that most folks have contact with most of the time – is already in private sector hands.

Personal businesses are offering everything from maternity to end-of-daily life care. Ambulance contracts are up for grabs and entire NHS hospitals are becoming turned more than to private firms.

Alternatively of debating the tangential issue of privatisation, folks must ask: is Simon Stevens capable of delivering a high quality wellness service? I feel he is. He knows that the NHS was built to supply a initial class healthcare method for all, not to safeguard employment for managers, medical professionals and nurses.

He also realises that the NHS has never been a nationalised business and neither can it survive in its existing state – not with a quick developing multi-million pound deficit.

The private sector isn’t the ideal medicine for the NHS, but it is an inexorable part of the remedy. Nevertheless, independent providers solely motivated by profit will be disappointed. Stevens has won the best job simply because he is very best outfitted to weed out the undesirable or disreputable traders of healthcare.

His earlier job in hospitals taught him there are two varieties of independent provider. People with an unquenchable thirst for profit and these who do not let market interactions to erode moral values.

A harmonious partnership also calls for some brain energy on the part of commissioners, and who far better to fulfil this function than Stevens? His ten many years on the board of United Wellness, which spends $ 150bn purchasing healthcare for its members, has produced him an accomplished commissioner.

I have no doubt that he will lead from the front and that his prime priority will be to disseminate his knowledge and knowledge to all commissioners, not just clinical commissioning groups.

I think he will create a commissioning model that is not limited to public and private sectors but also consists of the community and voluntary sectors, the values of which he learned as a councillor in south London.

He will, thanks to the Well being and Social Care Act, ensure the voice of the voluntary sector is heard by the health and wellbeing boards. Bed-blocking alone charges the NHS about £200m a 12 months and it transpires when assistance from social care is not accessible in the community for vulnerable individuals.

The important problem for boards is how to get care in the property appropriate and how to utilise large third-sector organisations as well as the GP primarily based army of volunteers – the patient participation groups.

I am convinced that Stevens has a great opportunity of delivering a leading-top quality, minimal-price health support and, as a GP and CCG commissioner, I am delighted that principal care has identified a champion at the head of NHS England.

Dr Kosta Manis is cardiology lead for Bexley clinical commissioning group

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Can Simon Stevens save the NHS? A GP"s perspective