Lis

Please help if you can. A retweet if nothing else. Thank you 🙏🏼💚🐔💚

This week the NHS will undergo one of the most radical – and scandalous - changes in its history. From 1st April (the public are the fools in this), GPs will be contractually obliged to seek remote, electronic “advice and guidance” from hospital ‘clinicians’ (note, not necessarily doctors), making it even harder for patients to see a hospital specialist. Does this sound part of a plan to genuinely ‘fix’ the NHS, as Wes Streeting vowed he would do so effusively when taking up office - or more like a tactic to ration hospital care by overriding GPs in order to massage the waiting list figures? It is, of course, the latter, an extra layer of bureaucracy that at best will delay patients’ access to the specialist treatment they need, at worse sacrifice those patients on the altar of fake news about “falling” waiting lists. You don’t need me to point out the patient safety risks it potentially entails. We all know that time, in medicine, can be everything. The Royal College of GPs has been crystal clear: “The use of advice and guidance should not be mandated in any area… We have heard reports of risks of delays, with tests being required before any referral, lost messages and staff without appropriate senior clinical oversight handling requests.” The aim, says the Times, is to reduce the number of hospital outpatient appointments by 30 million annually. And the government, in a really quite breathtaking example of political spin, is presenting this as “good” for patients - as though all those people who’ve been waiting years months or even years for the first Rheumatology, Neurology or Orthopaedics appointment they so desperately need are just, you know, malingering. (I recently spoke to a patient with a new diagnosis of multiple sclerosis who’d been waiting over six months to see a neurologist for the first time – simply scandalous.) I believe this is a national health scandal from a government that apparently cares more about good spin than it does about good patient care. If you feel the same, please – please – write to your MP or the Secretary of State and tell them why. Please shout about this online, in the press, anywhere you can. Don’t let this slide. Thank you.

This is what the Conservative Party did to all of us! Never let it happen ever again!

Today's publication of the @covidinquiryuk report into Covid's impact on the NHS comes as bittersweet relief for those of us who worked in those often hellish times. Finally - thankfully - someone in authority has called out the incessant lies from @MattHancock & @BorisJohnson that the NHS “coped” during 2020/21 & “was not overwhelmed”. No, says Lady Hallet. Covid’s impact was “devastating”. Furthermore: “On a number of occasions, [the NHS] teetered on the brink of collapse and only coped thanks to the almost superhuman efforts of healthcare workers and all the staff who support them.” How those lies incensed us at the time. Disgusting, dangerous lies that encouraged the public to believe that ventilators were never rationed, that patients never died at home because there weren’t enough ambulances to reach them, that staff never collapsed and left the NHS for good, broken by the brutality of those Covid wards. “There was clearly overwhelm,” says Lady Hallet. “Whatever word one chooses, healthcare systems were placed under intolerable strain. Patients could not be admitted to hospital and, in particular, into intensive care units. This continued for wave after wave of the virus.” Shame on you, Johnson & Hancock, for spouting endless self-serving populist lies while decent NHS doctors and nurses did their level best for patients - as did so many other magnificent key workers. We owe them all a debt of gratitude.

Am I correct in thinking Peter Mandelson was a guest on Laura Kuensberg a few weeks ago? Was she not aware of his past?

@NathanielD93744 You are helping by highlighting the importance of this. Each day you raise our awareness, you are an inspiration

This does my heart good and reinforces that priority for music education comes right from the top! Let’s channel another PM whilst we’re here: without the arts, what are we fighting for? I just wish I could stay around a bit longer to help with all this.

Friedrich Merz, "To my personal great and lasting regret, the United Kingdom left the European Union" "The UK, France and Germany are moving closer in terms of security policy, migration policy, but also economic policy" "We also want to strengthen contacts between people.. Strengthen mobility between children, young people and students" "Brexit has been particularly painful here" "This makes visits by school classes possible without complications, without passports, and without visas"

Water firms across the country are announcing hosepipe bans. All while: - 3 billion litres of water are wasted daily through leaks. - Not a single major reservoir has been built since privatisation. Time for public ownership: actionnetwork.org/forms/water-be…

@sebastiansalek And yet we were reminded this weekend of the kindness of others in need 40 years ago with Band Aid and it makes me wonder where that compassion for those in need has gone?

The money is being spent on *unaccompanied children* who have lost their parents. They might have fled the Taliban or been at risk of becoming child soldiers. The key thing: they’re getting exactly the same support as similar British children.

There’s a VERY good reason asylum seekers get circus tickets and Amazon parcels. But the Mail on Sunday was never going to tell you that. Here’s the crucial detail they left out: 🧵

Who would love to see Zelenskyy get the Nobel Prize and watch the POS ‘s head explode!!! ????

Is there a media blackout on the #covidinquiry @BBCNews @SkyNews @itvnews @c4news ? If not why aren’t you reporting this?

Kemi Badenoch: "Beales couldn't survive this Labour government." but it turns out Beales couldn't survive the Tory government. BBC January 2020: "Department store Beales collapses into administration."

Today, the @covidinquiryuk heard how @BorisJohnson lied to the British public about the UK's ability to Test & Trace. Those in power knew that a lack of planning and underinvestment had left the country unprepared, and they tried to cover it up. Our loved ones paid the price.

UK must "do everything we can" to "rebuild" trade with EU, Governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey says bbc.in/4dfzayk

Turning the Cavendish Scarborough into a comfortable resting place in 18 months has been a labour of love ❤️

BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Democrats are planning to Force TRUMP to include Elon Musk in the Next Deportation Flights out of America Democrats say Elon Musk is eligible to be sent to El Salvador prison under the mass deportation plan Trump has.

🚨 BREAKING: U.S. Vice President JD Vance just CANCELED all public events in Greenland.

Given the scrutiny of Reeves & Sabrina Carpenter tickets, I was perusing the Members Register of Interests and wowzers, look at the amount Kemi Badenoch has declared ! That family ‘gift’ is nearly 24 times the value of the Carpenter tickets yet not a single comment from the media

BREAKING - Pete Buttigieg just now on the Yemen text leaks: "From an operational security perspective, this is the highest level of fuckup imaginable. These people cannot keep America safe."

Sometimes a small deed can make a big difference