Dramoor

@Shrink_at_Large Of course poor mental health does not mean a person is necessarily mentally ill in a clinical sense. We must take care not to pathologize normal unpleasant states of mind into illnesses that must be treated.

A new 2026 OECD analysis found that 28% of Britons suffer from mental health disorders—such as depression, anxiety, or addiction—the highest rate among 44 wealthy nations. This figures exceeds other countries like France (23%) and Germany (19%). Something is wrong but what is it?

@hfp91 @Shrink_at_Large oecd.org/en/publication…

@Shrink_at_Large Can you post link ? Thank you Interesting term - mental health disorders rather than mental disorders ?

@ArturNadol7566 @NHSEngland I have seen this myself. I suspect many people would find it very instructive to sit in on a Continuing Care panel assessment. However I'm not sure they would be pleased with what they saw.

NHS ENGLAND RIGGED ITS OWN CARE PANELS Michelle Cox was a Continuing Healthcare manager at NHS England (@NHSEngland) North West. Her job involved deciding whether elderly and vulnerable patients received NHS-funded care or had to pay for it themselves. In 2019 she spotted something that should have set off alarm bells across the organisation. NHS England was placing its own staff onto so-called Independent Review Panels that were supposed to make impartial funding decisions for patients. That is not independence. That is a conflict of interest baked into the system. She raised it with her line manager Gill Paxton. Paxton dismissed it. Claimed she had cleared it with the legal department. The employment tribunal later found no evidence that she had. What followed was years of targeted harassment. Cox was excluded from team away days, blocked from recruitment processes she was supposed to lead, and had her confidential health information shared without consent. The tribunal found Paxton had acted with the purpose and effect of unlawful harassment and that she would not have treated a white employee this way. In January 2023 the tribunal ruled unanimously. NHS England was guilty of racial harassment and whistleblower detriment. Every single claim upheld. The line manager who was found to have harassed Cox has since been promoted. So has the original investigator. NHS England's own internal investigations were described by the tribunal as woefully inadequate. Dr Minh Alexander (@alexander_minh) wrote to former NHS England CEO Amanda Pritchard (@AmandaPritchard) in February 2023 asking whether the organisation would conduct a lessons-learned review. No response was ever received. Nobody knows how many patients received unfair funding decisions from those unlawfully constituted panels. Nobody in charge has been held accountable. And the woman who flagged all of it may never work as a nurse again. That is what NHS England does to the people who try to protect patients. Source: Employment Tribunal, Cox v NHS Commissioning Board, Case 2415350/2020 | Dr Minh Alexander (@alexander_minh) | Health Service Journal (@HSJnews),

@bbcnickrobinson @Keir_Starmer @BBCr4today It would be so much more useful if the BBC Sounds app allowed links which took you to a specific program and a specific time in it.

"There are moments in history that will define a generation. And I think we're in one of those moments” @Keir_Starmer tells me on @BBCr4today comparing the crisis caused by the Iran war with the 08 crash, Brexit & COVID. He argues that we cannot go back to the status quo & must get closer to the EU economically & to Europe more broadly to bolster our defence. He says the economy will needs to change so that it works for young people wherever they live in the country. This feels like a leader who knows renewed calls on him to quit are just days away trying to answer the clamour for him to set out his vision of the future. Listen in full from 8 am on @BBCRadio4 & @BBCSounds

@bmj_latest Dentistry is one of the more concerning areas of the NHS. It really does seem to be in trouble and the public are not getting a service.

The overcommercialisation of dentistry has had detrimental consequences for health outcomes. Universal free access to dental healthcare in England is needed to combat the overcommercialisation of dentistry that is affecting vulnerable people the most bmj.com/content/393/bm…

@SheriffNottz @nottspolice TWO HUNDRED ghoulish rubberneckers within the police force! Plus the ones they don't know about. This suggests a serious cultural and disciplinary problem within the force. Are Nottinghamshire police fit for purpose?

Almost 200 Nottinghamshire Police staff looked at files related to the attacks @nottspolice It's almost unfathomable that this many staff of Nottingham Police would want to - and then did - look at these files Hang your heads in shame - disgraceful nottinghampost.com/news/nottingha…

Your GP says you should see a hospital specialist for your condition Labour’s new Single Point of Access now decides whether that GP referral goes through They have a target to "redirect" 25% of referrals I wanted to know: who is making that decision? I asked the Minister 👇

@NeuroAdvisor Surely these interventions would help for those with vascular dementia?

#Exercise and intensive vascular risk reduction did not improve cognitive function over 24 months in older adults at increased risk for #dementia, suggesting these interventions may not confer short-term cognitive benefits. bit.ly/4sJ3pDW

@trentconsultant @cpeedell @wesstreeting How is the £18 and £94 calculated?

Yep, I trained for 19 years, I have an additional 21 years of consultant experience. I’m on the top of the consultant pay scale. Seeing me with complex cancer, stone or fertility issue costs the taxpayer £18 before tax. A cardiology consultant saving your life at 3am £94. Bargain.

I’m afraid @wesstreeting has forgotten what the “social contract” means. He thinks Drs get a good deal from #NHS. The opposite is the truth. Very few professions train for 15+yrs in order to practice fully independently. Our hourly rate is an unbelievable bargain for taxpayers

@ItsnotrightUK @DHSCgovuk @wesstreeting @BBCNews I'm getting fatigue listening to these arguments. If NHS junior doctors are so badly paid then why don't they go and work in jobs they consider better paid? Their preoccupation with pay suggests they're not in medicine as a vocation.

@DHSCgovuk @wesstreeting @BBCNews 28.9% was over many years and we had huge inflation during that time. Doctors are still paid less than PA and ACPs

Resident doctors have already had a 28.9% pay rise. We're offering 4.9% more on average for this year. “I want to talk to the whole committee. Because these are the people who rejected the deal on the table.” 🎥 @WesStreeting on @BBCNews

@AliJaneMoore It's unusual for someone to refuse a (presumably generous) settlement package in preference to being sacked without one.

The chief executive of troubled East Kent Hospitals has been away from her post since November on "unplanned leave." Here's what was really going on.

@LuluPoodleToy @carolbinks Even if you turn out to be right, Dr Google could put off a lot of doctors.

@carolbinks It's because you sound like someone who diagnosed themselves via Dr. Google.

This happened when I asked a GP about SIBO. He said I couldn’t possibly have it, as it’s rare (I suspect just rarely diagnosed). I asked a more switched-on GP to refer me to an NHS SIBO specialist who then took jejunal aspirate during a gastroscopy. Guess what! I have SIBO. #MCAS

@BBCNottingham No wonder Nottingham has some of the highest council tax in England. Until recently, the city council was run by government commissioners because the local council was financially incompetent.

Plans for 150-pupil SEND school submitted - tap the pic to read more bbc.in/4tLu7ww

@Chuffin_ell @GeorgeJulian @sarasiobhan Isn't this a matter of safety? Local authorities are responsible for the safety of residents in their area. In some cases deprivation of healthcare and neglect may turn out to be abuse. Not just a slow NHS. It might be the same department as the safeguarding you mentioned.

What can families do when hospitals fail people with learning disabilities & they deteriorate? Ombudsman, PALS, safeguarding, MPs, councillors, nothing changes. Why must we wait for inquests for answers? Where do we get that help before it’s too late? @GeorgeJulian @sarasiobhan

@FndNope @KenV54 Assuming you are right about that origin, doesn't it nevertheless explain a potential mechanism of FND?

@Dramoor2 @KenV54 A lot of possibilities here, e.g. functional signs could very well be related to predictive processing faults (see Bayesian brain model), where presentation is effectively "programmatic scars" lurking in the CNS from prior/past organic events.

Is FND truly not a diagnosis of exclusion? Officially, DSM-5 says no — it has positive "rule-in" signs. In practice? The criteria are so loose they nearly double (or triple) the number of cases. I ran a Monte Carlo simulation on a 68M population (UK-style). The results are eye-opening. fndnope.org/posts?postId=62

@KH118118 @KenV54 @NHSEngland Presumably the neurologist workup found positive signs of FND ... rather identifying typical (but nevertheless ambiguous) signs.

@KenV54 @NHSEngland It would be expected that a neurologist has already carried out an appropriate workup before making a diagnosis. Having been associated with thousands of people with FND over the last 12 years, I’m capable of recognising presentations consistent with it. Specialist tiers 👇

Met a young man this week with clear signs of Functional Neurological Disorder, including severe gait, speech issues and seizures. He’s been told it’s a 2yr wait for specialist care. A 2yr wait for this level of disability is a tragic failure of the system @NHSEngland #FND

@KenV54 @FndNope My own hunch is that channelopathies will account for a large chunk of what is being wrongly diagnosed as FND.

Thanks, I know what you mean, but I like my job, taking care of patients with difficult problems, both to diagnose and to treat. That’s the challenge of a clinical practice. The whole area of “functional” disorders is under review now, especially with respect to ME/CFS and the historical classification of these conditions as psychological or “hysterical.” We now have tools like T7 MRI scans and neurochemical testing that are going to show that many of these conditions are organic or biological.

@mariecurieuk Don't terminally ill people get fast-tracked through PIP?

The rise in State Pension age will mean thousands more terminally ill people a year will die without ever receiving a penny of their State Pension. 💔 This isn’t fair. Especially as many terminally ill people face hardship and poverty in the last year of their life. We’re urgently calling on the UK Government to make sure working age people in their final months of life have enough money to live comfortably, at the same level as someone getting the State Pension.

@RoyLilley I liked the proposals in your recent newsletter about ending the junior doctor strike. They seemed well thought through.

figuring out how to run a hospital with people standing outside the hospital, on a picket line, instead of being on the inside, helping to run the hospital… … which is where they way they want to be… … if that makes any sense. myemail.constantcontact.com/Worse.html?soi…