SelenaPenrose

The paper on ED 'consultant' practitioners/nurses is absolutely fascinating. 🧵 The authors acknowledge 2 things: 1. That there is a national framework for 'consultant' practice. 2. That there is a nationally agreed role/function #b0005" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">sciencedirect.com/science/articl… 1/

Advanced practitioners should not & must not replace doctors on rotas. They lack the training & education to do so; they shd practise within the limits of their training & competence. This is a patient safety issue, with patients placed at unnecessary & wholly inappropriate risk.

We have uncovered a haphazard approach to the use of Advanced Practitioner (AP) roles by NHS trusts. Our investigation has revealed almost half of hospital trusts are using non-doctors to fill doctor rota gaps.   APs can play an important and valued role in patient care. But they should not be asked to substitute for doctors to address staffing gaps.   Patients shouldn’t have to worry about whether NHS managers have asked non-doctors to deliver care that only doctors can safely deliver. Read the full story: bma.org.uk/news-and-opini…

➡️ @UKLabour must immediately rule out the threat of limiting the right to strike for resident doctors. #NHS and other workers went towards danger in Covid, while the rich and powerful were receiving parcels at home by the hour. Do the right thing by workers now. @TheBMA #ResidentDoctors #BMA

Government propaganda The jobs were never there were they? The deal is not the same and is now worse so no. He can afford to put ACPs through their masters and pay them to do it but cant afford 1k extra doctor jobs this year. Whats the costs in comparison. #DoctorReplacement

@ox_anna29 The government last year called doctors “juvenile delinquents”, “moaning Minnies” and “reckless” Then negotiated and at the last minute reduced the offer, refused to reinstate it and then withdrew 1000 training places harming patients. It’s not the BMA who are the bullies

It's now been 3 hours since our supposed "ally" Donald Trump threatened genocide on a country of 93 million people. We've had absolutely nothing from the UK government. This doesn't come in a vacuum either - every day the US & Israel have been murdering innocent people.

Many civil service workers are never paid as much as day-one Member of Parliament. Surely @wesstreeting realises how daft this comparison sounds, right? Right?! telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/0…

Absolute horror. Al Jazeera confirms the Trump administration's near total fuel blockade on Cuba is causing infant mortality to surge. Doctors are literally operating blind in the dark as life saving machines shut off. This is a deliberate crime against humanity.

Blackrock. Palantir. JP Morgan. The NHS is being sold off to the highest bidder and privatised by stealth. Billions for private investment schemes. But somehow not enough to pay frontline staff properly. The government will always prioritise big business over NHS workers.

Interesting reading this morning. 📝 BBC article: “[the BMA] refused to call off a six-day strike next week.” “the BMA ended the talks” 👉 My letter <24hrs ago: “we are willing to postpone industrial action should a genuinely credible offer be provided.” “We are willing to talk before, during and after any industrial action.” If govt give us a time and a place, me and my team will be there to talk through any credible offer. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

#TrialByJury The leader of the North Eastern Circuit, Caroline Goodwin KC, has just given the Justice Minister a reality check on Labour’s plans to limit jury trials to deal with the court backlog. You don’t solve a backlog by removing one of the oldest safeguards of liberty in this country. Trial by jury is not an administrative inconvenience. It is a protection against the power of the state. Create the chaos to present the solution. Labour is exacerbating the issue and then presenting the solution, and the solution always seems to involve less liberty, more state power, and fewer protections for the individual. Limit jury trials, and what you move towards are Diplock-style courts, trials decided by a single judge without a jury. We have been down that road before, and it was never meant to be normal justice. This country fought for jury trials. They are not a bureaucratic problem to be managed away. Be very careful when governments start talking about “efficiency” in the justice system. Efficiency for the state often means fewer rights for the people.

Tonight, @Keir_Starmer and @wesstreeting have decided to cut the number of offered specialist training jobs for doctors. Doctors need these jobs to train to become the specialist Consultants and GPs of the future that the NHS so desperately needs. Instead, this Government has decided to make it harder for you to see a specialist and is effectively holding doctors’ jobs hostage. We are already an under-doctored country compared to other OECD countries. In 2025, around 40,000 doctors applied for just 10,000 speciality training jobs. That means tens of thousands of qualified doctors ready to train, ready to work, and ready to treat patients are being turned away every year. The Government can train more specialist doctors when they want to. They are simply choosing not to. Remember this the next time you can’t get an appointment or your surgery is delayed.

#The heroic doctor Hossam Abu Safiya is among the prisoners scheduled for execution 💔

Israel has passed the death penalty solely for Palestinians, enforced through military courts with a 96% conviction rate. Israeli Minister Ben Gvir popped champagne. The Israeli government is raising a toast to genocidal apartheid. The UK government is arming and funding it.

The Labour Prime Minister @Keir_Starmer and Health Secretary @wesstreeting are now talking about cutting the number of offered NHS doctor speciality training jobs, and this should concern the public, not just doctors. Doctors don’t become Consultants, GPs or Surgeons straight after medical school. After graduating, they have to enter speciality training, to train to become these specialists. If you reduce the number of training posts, you reduce the number of specialist doctors available to treat patients. The UK is already an under-doctored country compared to many European nations, and we already have long waiting lists across the NHS. At the same time, thousands of qualified doctors are being turned away from speciality training every year because there simply are not enough training posts. There were 40,000 doctors applying for 10,000 speciality training jobs in 2025 alone. Cutting training posts will not reduce waiting lists or improve patient care. It will do the opposite, because fewer training posts means fewer specialists available to see patients, perform operations, and run services. So when people are waiting months to see a specialist or years for surgery, it is important to understand that a major reason of this is because the number of training posts is capped, and those caps are a political decision as the number of available jobs is set by the Government. Instead, we have a Labour Government directly threatening to cut the number of offered doctors jobs. When you have to wait years for your surgery or months to see a specialist, ask yourself why.

Members of the public should remember this next time they'e unable to see a doctor in a timely fashion. The government think it's acceptable to use training drs as a bargaining chip.

"Britain has decided that the girl who fought the Taliban’s agenda, who learned English in secret, who turned down a forced marriage, who won her place, is an asylum risk. Her name is Bahar. She is 18 years old. She did everything we asked of her."

@KatPaton13 Good luck!

Unbelievably nervous for interview tomorrow. No matter how many times I've practiced, my mind goes blank and my answers come out as an unstructured mess

He didn’t speak English. He could barely see. The poles he had were to help him walk He is asking for God’s help & telling officers he’s going to the store. They tase him, tackle him & arrest him. A disabled blind refugee who was just looking for safety. Now he’s dead.