LANDMARK STUDY LINKS TORY AUSTERITY TO 120,000 DEATHS

GOVERNMENT IS ACCUSED OF 'ECONOMIC MURDER'

The Conservatives have been accused of “economic murder” for austerity policies which a new study suggests have caused 120,000 deaths.

The paper found that there were 45,000 more deaths in the first four years of Tory-led efficiencies than would have been expected if funding had stayed at pre-election levels.

On this trajectory that could rise to nearly 200,000 excess deaths by the end of 2020, even with the extra funding that has been earmarked for public sector services this year.

Real terms funding for health and social care fell under the Conservative-led Coalition Government in 2010, and the researchers conclude this “may have produced” the substantial increase in deaths.

The paper identified that mortality rates in the UK had declined steadily from 2001 to 2010, but this reversed sharply with the death rate growing again after austerity came in.

From this reversal the authors identified that 45,368 extra deaths occurred between 2010 and 2014, than would have been expected, although it stops short of calling them "avoidable".

Based on those trends it predicted the next five years - from 2015 to 2020 - would account for 152,141 deaths - 100 a day - findings which one of the authors likened to “economic murder”.

The Government began relaxing austerity measures this year announcing the end of its cap on public sector pay rises and announcing an extra £1.3bn for social care in the Spring Budget.

Over three years the additional funding for social care is expected to reach £2bn, which Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said was “patching up a small part of the damage” wrought by £4.6bn cuts.

The study, published in BMJ Open today, estimated that to return death rates to their pre-2010 levels spending would need to increase by £25.3bn.

The Department of Health said “firm conclusions” cannot be drawn from this work, and independent academics warned the funding figures were “speculative”.

However local councils who have been struggling to fund care with slashed budgets urged the Government to consider the research seriously.

Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the Government must match Labour's spending pledges in the Autumn Budget.

Per capita public health spending between 2001 and 2010 increased by 3.8 per cent a year, but in the first four years of the Coalition, increases were just 0.41 per cent, researchers from University College London found.

In social care the annual budget increase collapsed from 2.20 per cent annually, to a decrease of 1.57 per cent.

The researchers found this coincided with death rates which had decreased by around 0.77 per cent a year to 2010, beginning to increase again by 0.87 per cent a year.

And the majority of those were people reliant on social care, the paper says: “This is most likely because social care experienced greater relative spending constraints than healthcare."

It also notes that a drop in nurse numbers may have accounted for 10 per cent of deaths, concluding: "We have found that spending constraints since 2010, especially public expenditure on social care, may have produced a substantial mortality gap in England.”

The papers’ senior author and a researcher at UCL, Dr Ben Maruthappu, said that while the paper “can’t prove cause and effect” it shows an association.

And he added this trend is seen elsewhere. “When you look at Portugal and other countries that have gone through austerity measures, they have found that health care provision gets worse and health care outcomes get worse,” he told The Independent.

One of his co-author’s, Professor Lawrence King of the Applied Health Research Unit at Cambridge University, said it showed the damage caused by austerity

"It is now very clear that austerity does not promote growth or reduce deficits - it is bad economics, but good class politics," he said. "This study shows it is also a public health disaster. It is not an exaggeration to call it economic murder.”

The Department of Health stressed that no such conclusion could be drawn. A spokesperson said: “As the researchers themselves note, this study cannot be used to draw any firm conclusions about the cause of excess deaths.

“The NHS is treating more people than ever before and funding is at record levels with an £8bn increase by 2020-21. We’ve also backed adult social care with £2bn investment and have 12,700 more doctors and 10,600 more nurses on our wards since May 2010.”

And independent academics added that it is hard to prove cause and effect with this kind of study even if the underlying assumptions may be correct.

Professor Martin Roland Emeritus Professor of Health Services Research, University of Cambridge said: “This study suggests that a change happened to cause deaths to stop declining around 2014. This is likely to be a correct finding. However, the link to health and social care spending is speculative as observational studies of this type can never prove cause and effect."

Cllr Izzi Seccombe, chairman of the Local Government Association’s community wellbeing board, said: “We would urge government to review the evidence behind this analysis. If correct, it would clearly reinforce the desperate and urgent need to properly fund social care

Mr Ashworth, responding to the study, said: “This shocking mortality gap is a damning indictment of the dire impact which sustained Tory cuts to our NHS and social care services have had on health outcomes across the nation.

“Ahead of the Budget, this appalling news must serve as an urgent wake up call to the Prime Minister. She must match Labour’s pledge to deliver an extra £6 billion for our NHS across the next financial year to ensure the best possible quality of care is sustained for years to come.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/tory-austerity-deaths-study-report-people-die-social-care-government-policy-a8057306.html


Those who haven't had their head stuck up their bums for the last 7 years realised this a long time ago. It's why will never give up fighting this murderous Government. Quite literally, lives are at stake.

It's the immigration sassy

I proved that immigration was the primary cause for the housing crisis

Immigration will be the primary cause for all infrastructure issues

Considering that Britain's population is over 66 million, I reckon the authors of that report are being rather kind on those heartless Tories...

More likely there will be a couple of million extra deaths by the time this Tory governments' "austerity" campaigns have run their course..

That's the RW 'laissez faire' Free Market/"Trickle down" economic rationalist policy at work  --  if you can't rob them, exploit them or enslave them, then you might as well kill them off.

Bastard fucking Tories  Cameron, Osborne, Khunt, Gove, Doris and May should be arrested. They KNEW austerity would have a cost in lives.
Legally, they should be charged with corporate manslaughter.

Angry Andy wrote:Bastard fucking Tories  Cameron, Osborne, Khunt, Gove, Doris and May should be arrested. They KNEW austerity would have a cost in lives.
Legally, they should be charged with corporate manslaughter.

Bastard fucking Labour, left us in the shit and rubbed it in with a note, THERE'S NO MONEY LEFT..

nicko wrote:Bastard fucking Labour, left us in the shit and rubbed it in with a note,   THERE'S NO MONEY LEFT..

Exactly nicko

What these Lefty vermin don't understand is that the tories wouldn't need to implement austerity if Labour hadn't bankrupted us all

And Gordon Brown sold our gold reserves at firesale prices.

This is a legacy of death complements of labour

I'd have to know what people are dying of in order to comment. Figures by themselves mean very little. For example, it could be an increase in pollution which is affecting people's health.

Raggamuffin wrote:I'd have to know what people are dying of in order to comment. Figures by themselves mean very little. For example, it could be an increase in pollution which is affecting people's health.

Totally agree with that as it seems like a fair comment really. I have to say though, Tories don't give a fuck about the poor so I'm betting the figures will be to do with dire healthcare and poverty.

eddie wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:I'd have to know what people are dying of in order to comment. Figures by themselves mean very little. For example, it could be an increase in pollution which is affecting people's health.

Totally agree with that as it seems like a fair comment really.  I have to say though,  Tories don't give a fuck about the poor so I'm betting the figures will be to do with dire healthcare and poverty.  

And you think labour give a fuck about the poor??

eddie wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:I'd have to know what people are dying of in order to comment. Figures by themselves mean very little. For example, it could be an increase in pollution which is affecting people's health.

Totally agree with that as it seems like a fair comment really.  I have to say though,  Tories don't give a fuck about the poor so I'm betting the figures will be to do with dire healthcare and poverty.  

Absolutely.

So actual deaths have not gone up at all and have continued to decrease.

Its based on a forecast, which is a real lottery when it comes to the many factors that can cause deaths each year. Or even the fact the down trend is simple leveling out due to higher population increase. Most of these deaths are at home or in care with the elderly, yet there is a decrease in the number of deaths in hospital it admits, based on the forecast. So how is that decreasing due to austerity?

Maybe if its more with the elderly at home or in care, is it simple down to human error with carers, not being properly trained to understand critical health problems? It could be now again with the increase in population, that they have to wait longer to see a GP. That will be down to the vast increase in population over the last 15 years..What is needed is far more data, not a view based off a trend over time on a forecast. When as seen the number of deaths have still continued to decrease.

Its a big stretch of the imagination to claim more deaths occured due to austerity, when the actual numbers of deaths has not increased year on year. Even more when the population has continued to grow also at a massive rate. Which maybe the cause that there is not enough hospital beds, and thus a strain on the NHS with the increased birth rate year on year and obviously immigration.

eddie wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:I'd have to know what people are dying of in order to comment. Figures by themselves mean very little. For example, it could be an increase in pollution which is affecting people's health.

Totally agree with that as it seems like a fair comment really.  I have to say though,  Tories don't give a fuck about the poor so I'm betting the figures will be to do with dire healthcare and poverty.  

Would add, this was the bit that got me the most:


The paper identified that mortality rates in the UK had declined steadily from 2001 to 2010, but this reversed sharply with the death rate growing again after austerity came in.

From this reversal the authors identified that 45,368 extra deaths occurred between 2010 and 2014, than would have been expected, although it stops short of calling them "avoidable".

Never reversed at all

Read your own report, which even admits it never even looked at any other mediating factors

Again they are basing this off a trend in how mortality rates have decreased over a time period, to produce a forecast out of thin air. As if this should always remain consistant in decreasing.

Why?

What would be very relevanat is to place this in context with European nations that have high elderly populations and see if they have leveled out also on mortlities figures in the last few years.

Why are people so dumb they simple just read the media article and not the actual report itself



http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/11/e017722#DC3

I mean lets take France under Socialism and anti-austerity policies, in this same period

Date Value Change, %
2015 9.0 5.88 %
2014 8.5 -2.30 %
2013 8.7 0.00 %
2012 8.7 3.57 %
2011 8.4 -1.18 %
2010 8.5 0.00 %
2009 8.5 0.00 %
2008 8.5 2.41 %
2007 8.3 0.00 %
2006 8.3 -2.35 %
2005 8.5 2.41 %
2004 8.3

https://knoema.com/atlas/France/Death-rate

Did not François Hollande suspend Austertity?

How do you explain these mortality rates, that did actually increase over his term?

As seen there will be many causes on death rates increases and decreases. Where no doubt it will flucuate based on the high number of elderly people within France.

Taking a downward trend expecting this to constantly continue is clearly not taking into account the fact we do have an every increasing elderly population. The more people within an elderly age bracket, (by 2050 a quarter of the population will be over 65) means the likelihood of mortality rates is going to flucuate  over the coming decades. That the population has increased vastly.

This report was nothing more than engineered to find a view to blame austerity and when seen in other countries at the same time, that austerity is stopped, we see an actual increase in mortality rates elsewhere. Showing that this report was based off a falsehood and was politically biased and motivated.

smelly-bandit wrote:

nicko wrote:Bastard fucking Labour, left us in the shit and rubbed it in with a note,   THERE'S NO MONEY LEFT..

Exactly nicko

What these Lefty vermin don't understand is that the tories wouldn't need to implement austerity if Labour hadn't bankrupted us all

And Gordon Brown sold our gold reserves at firesale prices.

This is a legacy of death complements of labour

More Corporatist lies and bluster..

The only reason for Britain's "Austerity measures" is to finance the Tories' millionaire tax cuts, and your 'establishment' child stealing and sex abuse coverups..

"Follow the money trail !"

eddie wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:I'd have to know what people are dying of in order to comment. Figures by themselves mean very little. For example, it could be an increase in pollution which is affecting people's health.

Totally agree with that as it seems like a fair comment really.  I have to say though,  Tories don't give a fuck about the poor so I'm betting the figures will be to do with dire healthcare and poverty.  

Conservative political parties also "don't give a fuck" about increasing pollution, environmental degradation, or contaminated food as a result; nor workplace safety either...

So,  even factoring in increasing mortality from those extra causes, death rates are still likely to increase under any political party who puts big business and bankers ahead of the welfare of the wider community.

Didge wrote:I mean lets take France under Socialism and anti-austerity policies, in this same period

Date Value Change, %
2015 9.0 5.88 %
2014 8.5 -2.30 %
2013 8.7 0.00 %
2012 8.7 3.57 %
2011 8.4 -1.18 %
2010 8.5 0.00 %
2009 8.5 0.00 %
2008 8.5 2.41 %
2007 8.3 0.00 %
2006 8.3 -2.35 %
2005 8.5 2.41 %
2004 8.3

https://knoema.com/atlas/France/Death-rate

Did not François Hollande suspend Austertity?

How do you explain these mortality rates, that did actually increase over his term?

As seen there will be many causes on death rates increases and decreases. Where no doubt it will flucuate based on the high number of elderly people within France.

Taking a downward trend expecting this to constantly continue is clearly not taking into account the fact we do have an every increasing elderly population. The more people within an elderly age bracket, (by 2050 a quarter of the population will be over 65) means the likelihood of mortality rates is going to flucuate  over the coming decades. That the population has increased vastly.

This report was nothing more than engineered to find a view to blame austerity and when seen in other countries at the same time, that austerity is stopped, we see an actual increase in mortality rates elsewhere. Showing that this report was based off a falsehood and was politically biased and motivated.

Being France, it could also be interesting to see how those figures correlate with their national consumption of wine, cheese, red meat, white bread, and cigarettes over the last couple of decades...

How much of that increase might have been due to cirrhosis of the liver, colo-rectal cancers, and lung, brain and oral cancers ???

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

eddie wrote:
Totally agree with that as it seems like a fair comment really.  I have to say though,  Tories don't give a fuck about the poor so I'm betting the figures will be to do with dire healthcare and poverty.  

Conservative political parties also "don't give a fuck" about increasing pollution, environmental degradation, or contaminated food as a result; nor workplace safety either...

So,  even factoring in increasing mortality from those extra causes, death rates are still likely to increase under any political party who puts big business and bankers ahead of the welfare of the wider community.

I suppose you think lefties care about how many cars are on the roads.

What about increasing bad health from obesity/laziness? That's hardly likely to be caused by austerity is it? I'm not convinced that people die of such things, but I've heard that they do.

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

Didge wrote:I mean lets take France under Socialism and anti-austerity policies, in this same period

Date Value Change, %
2015 9.0 5.88 %
2014 8.5 -2.30 %
2013 8.7 0.00 %
2012 8.7 3.57 %
2011 8.4 -1.18 %
2010 8.5 0.00 %
2009 8.5 0.00 %
2008 8.5 2.41 %
2007 8.3 0.00 %
2006 8.3 -2.35 %
2005 8.5 2.41 %
2004 8.3

https://knoema.com/atlas/France/Death-rate

Did not François Hollande suspend Austertity?

How do you explain these mortality rates, that did actually increase over his term?

As seen there will be many causes on death rates increases and decreases. Where no doubt it will flucuate based on the high number of elderly people within France.

Taking a downward trend expecting this to constantly continue is clearly not taking into account the fact we do have an every increasing elderly population. The more people within an elderly age bracket, (by 2050 a quarter of the population will be over 65) means the likelihood of mortality rates is going to flucuate  over the coming decades. That the population has increased vastly.

This report was nothing more than engineered to find a view to blame austerity and when seen in other countries at the same time, that austerity is stopped, we see an actual increase in mortality rates elsewhere. Showing that this report was based off a falsehood and was politically biased and motivated.

Being France,  it could also be interesting to see how those figures correlate with their national consumption of wine, cheese, red meat, white bread, and cigarettes over the last couple of decades...

How much of that increase might have been due to cirrhosis of the liver, colo-rectal cancers, and lung, brain and oral cancers ???

The French paradox is the observation of low coronary heart disease (CHD) death rates despite high intake of dietary cholesterol and saturated fat.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1768013/

Must be their love of red wine

The health "trade offs" with higher red wine consumption ==

While France and Italy both have lower rates of heart disease and strokes, in line with their higher consumption of wines, fruit and vege's, when compared with similar western and first-world/developed countries;

They both also have higher than average rates of related cancers and liver disease..

And, in both those countries, more people tend to walk more often in preference to driving when 'commuting', when compared to places like the USA, Australia and Canada,  even their neighbours in Britain and Germany.

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

The health "trade offs" with higher red wine consumption ==

While France and Italy both have lower rates of heart disease and strokes, in line with their higher consumption of wines, fruit and vege's, when compared with similar western and first-world/developed countries;

They both also have higher than average rates of related cancers and liver disease..

And, in both those countries, more people tend to walk more often in preference to driving when 'commuting', when compared to places like the USA, Australia and Canada,  even their neighbours in Britain and Germany.

I think the fish diet in parts of Italy plays a part and clearly red wine in moderation certainly helps