Ecuador’s election wasn’t free — and its people will pay the price under President Noboa
The NHS is now the front line in May's war to make Britain a hostile place for migrants
But managers are beginning to point out the health service is breaking down, says JOHN LISTER
AS THE financial stranglehold on the NHS is tightened, there are signs that senior NHS managers are beginning to speak out about the damage done by seven years of frozen budgets alongside increasing cost pressures.
The pace has been set by NHS England’s chief executive Simon Stevens. He told the management union Managers in Partnership (MiP) that Jeremy Hunt’s insistence on staff pay rises being dependent upon improved productivity was “an own goal of the first magnitude.”
Stevens argued for an end to the pay cap and for the government to give the health service the extra money needed to cover the cost of whatever award is finally made — or admit that any pay increase would necessarily result in cutting staff numbers.
More from this author

Behind Starmer’s headline-grabbing abolition of NHS England lies a ruthless drive to centralise control so that cuts of £6.6 billion can be made — even if it means reducing cancer services and clinical staff, writes JOHN LISTER

Relatively recently the health service was at its peak — to reverse the incredible damage done by the Tories since 2010 we need billions going straight into state provision, writes JOHN LISTER

Labour’s 24-page manifesto for the health service carefully avoids explaining how any of it will be paid for and provided. This is more than worrying, writes JOHN LISTER

Higher funds are critical to prevent the growth of privatisation by allowing the NHS to expand capacity and reduce the vast 6-million-plus waiting list, writes JOHN LISTER