The NHS is 'about to run out of cash' - and faces a £30 billion funding gap by 2020, senior health service officials have warned. An official report will call for sweeping changes - which are likely to mean the closure of local hospitals - and say Britain's health services stand on the brink of financial crisis. The scale of the problems ahead was disclosed yesterday by Tim Kelsey, director for patients and information at NHS England, the central body in charge of the health service. He told an audience of technology entrepreneurs:

'We are about to run out of cash in a very serious fashion. Next week NHS England will be publishing a call to action. .. our analysis will disclose that by 2020 there will be a £30bn funding gap in the healthcare system.'

Last month, senior NHS doctors and managers said that up to 20 hospitals across the country may have to close, with services transferred into the community to save the health service from financial ruin.

The report by the Academy of Royal Colleges, the NHS Confederation and the patient group National Voices, said the health service would become unsustainable, with mounting waiting times in Accident and Emergency departments, and longer waiting lists for operations, without a re-organisation of England's hospitals.

Officials have said that 4,000 lives a year are lost because of poor care at weekends.

Last month, Sir David Nicholson, Chief Executive of NHS England, said there was a need for the health service to develop a longer term strategy.

A DoH Spokesperson said: 'The NHS is facing increasing demands - we agree that it needs to transform the way it does things in order to become more efficient.'

The above are extracts from an article in the Telegraph Newspaper on 05 Jul 2013 by Laura Donnelly, and Steven Swinford. The full article is here.  

The National Health Action Party has a 10-point plan to reinstate, protect and improve the NHS. See it here.

History was made in Marrakesh on the 27th of June with the UN World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) concluding a Treaty on copyright for the visual impaired and print disabled. This was the first intellectual property treaty benefitting the public interest rather than the interest of rights holders and closed nearly five years of hard negotiations by the WBU with the active support of the EBU team and in collaboration with other NGOs. Currently, copyright law is a national jurisdiction which has the effect of preventing blind organizations form sharing books with neighbouring countries, thus causing considerable unnecessary duplication of production of books in accessible formats. 

What does this mean for the visually impaired and other print disabled people? 

Currently only 5% of all published books in the developed countries and less than 1% in the developing countries are ever produced in the accessible formats - such us, braille, large print and audio – that VI and print disabled need. At the centre of this treaty is an article giving permission for VI organisations and libraries to share their collections of accessible titles with other same-language communities around the world. Examples of this include Spain and Argentina being able to share their combined collections of over 150.000 titles right across Latin America as soon as the government of each recipient country ratifies and implements the treaty. Similarly, French language collections, Arabic collections, Chinese collections, etc., can be shared around the world to diaspora communities who cannot legally borrow or buy an accessible title from their homeland as of now. 

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

I'm Martyn: a wheelchair using, travel loving blogger. I also co-edit Disability Horizons, an inspiring and informing online portal, run by and for our online community. Today I wanted to share with you a story of 4 crazy and adventurous days in Spain!

In June the Catalan Tourist Board invited a group of disability travel agencies to check out their accessibility for disabled tourists.

One of the agencies was Enable Holidays, who provide their customers with accessible hotels, adapted transfers, necessary equipment, and a great holiday - no matter what their needs are. They kindly invited me on the trip to test drive the facilities and share my thoughts back home. After receiving the invite I was excited and intrigued about what the trip would entail. After seeing the schedule, I was apprehensive how full-on it was and how lucky I was to do such activities.

The night before flying I drove my Motability car to a Gatwick hotel and my girlfriend and I awoke the next day for our early flight. After the usual worries of getting me and my wheelchair safely through the airport procedure, we had a great flight. We were greeted by smiling Silvia and can-do Diego in Barcelona airport, before meeting Lusia from Enable. Fully acquainted, we set off...

For the rest of the story contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.