#GPnews: Boris wants to use EU cash to ‘build hospitals’

15:00 Leaflets produced by the Vote Leave campaign warning of the ‘supposed dangers of the EU to the NHS’ have been found on wards at Guy’s hospital in central London, despite being banned by officials and being the subject of potential legal action, the Guardian reports.

However, it is not known who distributed the leaflets – while the Vote Leave campaign said it had not arranged the leafleting.

A spokeswoman from the hospital’s NHS Foundation Trust said: ‘We do not allow external organisations to hand out or leave flyers on site without permission’, adding that the NHS trust is conscious of the need to remain politically impartial.

14:27 It has become the ‘Brexit’ campaign’s turn to kick the NHS political football.

London mayor and Tory MP Boris Johnson, who is campaigning for the UK to leave the EU, is arguing that EU contributions should be spent on the NHS instead.

Mr Johnson is today kicking off the Vote Leave campaign, co-led by former education secretary Michael Gove, with a claim that money going to the EU means less money going to a cash-strapped NHS, where it could be used for ‘building hospitals’, the Telegraph reports.

But the Labour Party urged voters not to ‘trust a word Boris Johnson says on the NHS’, labelling his claims ‘misleading and simplistic’.

Shadow health secretary Heidi Alexander said: ‘The NHS funding crisis has nothing to do with our membership of the European Union, and everything to do with years of underfunding by the Tory Government supported by Michael Gove and Boris Johnson.

‘A range of experts, including the IMF, have warned that leaving the EU would damage our economy and risk plunging our NHS into an even deeper financial crisis, ultimately damaging patient care.’

12:00 Women are being pressured into ‘natural’ childbirth because of the cost of ceasareans to the NHS, a charity has warned.

This comes as a C-section costs the NHS £1,700 compared to £750 for a vaginal birth, reports the Daily Mail.

Rebecca Schiller, chief executive of the charity Birthrights, says that ‘women are feeling they have to beg for an elective caesarean’.

She adds: ‘This is particularly if they have had a previous traumatic birth, and they know the impact it had on them. They feel their reasons are not being taken seriously by doctors and midwives.

‘All too often they are coerced into making decisions they later regret. Given access to unbiased information, evidence and support, women can interpret and choose risks for themselves and their babies.’

10:51 Elsewhere this morning, a leading paediatrician has warned that the care of sick children in the NHS is at risk of becoming unsafe because the onging junior doctors’ row over the imposition of the new contract is driving away many medics from entering the specialty. 

According to the Guardian, Professor Neena Modi said there are worrying signs of an exodus of trainee doctors from children’s medicine that ‘will exacerbate an already serious shortage of staff.’ 

9:45 This morning we are leading on a legal case where a trainee’s ‘written reflections’ on an incident in their training development portfolio was used against them at a hearing – a move which GP leaders said highlights the medico-legal ‘minefield’ that GPs are having to operate in.

Dr Peter Holden, a former GPC negotiator and a GP in Derbyshire, told Pulse: ‘I do think some of our colleagues are a little naïve and should be taking legal advice before they do things. And the problem is there’s a whole generation of doctors whose training is incomplete, they’ve not been given enough medico-legal training to at least recognise a medico-legal minefield when they see it.’

Read Pulse’s full coverage here

9:35 Good morning and welcome to the live blog – make sure you stay up to date with the latest health news relevant to GPs.