Expressing what is unique about our generation is really difficult.  It is something that has recently become a bit of an obsession of mine.  We grow up in different cultures, different economies and under different political situations.  So when I asked 9 young people from different countries to videoblog about their passion for climate activism, I got a multitude of ideas and creativity, but there was a common feeling.  There was an elastic band binding these people together, though they had never met.

Why? What is this feeling I have that we share something?  I think if I try to answer this question all I will produce is a rectangle of text which will sit losing water, passively evaporating.  But if I gave people the space to share their thoughts, and connected them in an international conversation, what would they say?  They might just leave behind a few residues that could react.

A spark.

That’s why I’m going to start work on a new video series.  Because I want to find my voice, and I want to make sense of the multitude of voices and shared experience that forms our generation.

I’m looking for people.  If you’re passionate and have something to say, get in touch.

Young people express their sense of being connected at the UN Climate Talks in Cancun.

• Ensuring the NHS hospitals have enough patients before letting the private health firms get their hands on the rest
• Restricting the amount of money the NHS pays for certain operations (e.g. varicose vein surgery) in order to make more money available for other operations (e.g. specialist cancer operations)
• Reducing the amount the NHS is paying for private services that aren’t even being done
• Seeking economic opinions from the experts who have the best overview of healthcare in their area.
• Ensuring that unprofitable areas of the NHS remain open, including essential life-saving care such as A&E.

So why does the article take such a negative view of this?  Why does it paint this as unfair?This article begs the question “who wrote the press release?”  I think we can safely assume it was the private health firms complaining about their profits.  I’m afraid this is lousy drivel by BBC journalist Nick Triggle.

So is this how the future looks? Private health firms launching legal cases against the NHS?

Loud complaints in the media that NHS hospitals should close because it undermines private profits?
“Unfair!” they will shout, “IT’S NOT FAIR!” as they throw themselves to the ground in a toddler tantrum.  Meanwhile, the Health Minister will act like an arrogant teenager,scoffing at respected medical journal the Lancet in favour of his own ideology.

BigSocietyNHS thinks we need to stop this unruly behaviour before it gets worse, here’s some tips for how to deal with the complaining private health firms:

As you can see, I’m not the most comfortable person in front of the camera- but I wanted to ask this because I don’t believe these issues have been properly addressed yet.  The NHS reforms are being sold to us at the moment based on misleading figures, with no evidence that another restructure will make thing better, and to top it off it’s being done without popular support.

1) Misleading Figures

The NHS reforms are currently being justified by comparing UK health outcomes on heart attacks and cancer, with France.  These arguments are totally misleading.  From 1980 to 2006, the UK has had the largest fall in heart attack death rates than any other European Country- meaning that we’ll actually have fewer deaths from heart attack than France by next year.  As for Cancer, the studies often quoted by newspapers and the Coalition, to try to show that the UK health system is failing are from selective studies: specifically the Eurocare study, which takes 100% of the deaths from Cancer in the UK and compares them to just 10-15%of selected centres in France.  That’s hardly a fair comparison…The NHS is actually doing very well!

2) No Evidence

The Coalition Government is misleading us on the current state of the NHS.  But what about their reforms?  Surely there must be data supporting the dramatic restructuring they are proposing?  Well, no.  The closest thing we have is the historical lessons from GP fundholding in the 1990s.  But we don’t have those lessons because the expensive experiment was never properly evaluated before being abandoned.  If there is no evidence then the usual thing to do is run a pilot study: putting reforms into place on a small scale and comparing it’s outcomes to the current situation.  The Coalition have decided to do this using “GP Pathfinders”, which at the last count covered 12.8 million people in the UK…  12.8 million people is not a pilot study.  Further to that, if it goes wrong it is too big to be reversible.

3) Unpopular

The last point I have tried to make in my short question is that the people that are meant to be enthusiastically taking the most responsibility under these reforms, the GPs, don’t like it.  A recent survey of over 1,800 GPs found that 70% thought that opening up the NHS to “Any Willing Provider” (i.e. private companies) would not lead to better health outcomes.

This is something that is unjustified, has no evidence and is unpopular amongst GPs…So why David Cameron, are you pressing ahead with this?

David Cameron will be answering questions at 7:30pm tonight