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  Since Rachel Reeves axed the winter fuel payment in July, there has been much angst amongst pensioners not entitled to Pension Credit over her plans to remove other essential benefits they are currently entitled to, such as free prescriptions and the concessionary bus pass.  These additional restrictions would be likely to apply to the same cohort (i.e ca 10 million of the 11 million over the current state pension age of 66), and would include up to 2 million of the poorest in our society, many of whom live alone and have no relatives to provide assistance. Means testing using anything other than Pension Credit entitlement would be time-consuming and costly, since a new method would need to be defined, agreed  and implemented, then validated to ensure it didn't discriminate against specific groups on grounds of age, race, gender, etc., etc. The DWP database, which is already 'primed' with an 'entitlement list' for Pension Credit, already provides an easy option f...

The NHS is 75 years old, and one of our most prized institutions. As you'll see from the analysis below, it is now  sorely in need of medical assistance   itself . How can we save it from its terminal decline ? Editors note: This blog was first published in August 2022 - in view of the steady deterioration in the service since then, which has now reached crisis point, not least because of the ongoing industrial action, I've  updated it to reflect the changes. The Election result has finally introduced some real soul-searching amongst politicians as to why the current funding and organisational model of the NHS is failing...unfortunately this is likely to be a tough nut to crack without a radical change in its funding model - which any Labour government will find difficult to square with its ideology. We shouldn't therefore expect much progress in this direction, despite Labour's large majority. Nevertheless, I stand by the original recommendation of a radical funding mo...