If you live in the West Midlands and are going to fall ill, you better get on with it. Certainly, don’t leave it until 17 August because if you want an ambulance, you may not get one. That’s the apocalyptic prediction from a director of the West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS). Ambulance provision in the […]
Op-eds
The NHS is dying … it’s about the workforce
While everyone is focused on the very real and acute cost of living crisis and the war in Ukraine the NHS is quietly imploding, more staff leaving than joining and therefore services collapsing. It’s not simply a matter of throwing more money at it, we are way past that stage, and as we learned from […]
The importance of acknowledging mental health
In November 2020, I had a breakdown. I was a postgraduate student when the news broke that Covid-19 was worse than we thought, resulting in all classes going online. We all thought it would last a few weeks, have a few awkward Zoom interactions, then it would all be over and remembered as a strange […]
A whole systems approach to solving the health and social care crisis
The Health and Social Care Bill currently in the House of Lords is intended to: sort out the under-funding of social care; remove the need for people to sell their houses to pay for their care; promote joined-up service delivery; replace the competitive model with a collaborative one. Sadly, as I wrote here, it appears […]
Mandatory staff vaccines – No apology to sacked care home staff…
Embed from Getty Images Not even an apology! – And I’m not referring to Boris Johnson’s statement on Sue Gray’s Report. Boris did at least say the word “sorry”, even though it was an inadequate, half hearted “apology”. But Sajid Javid made no apology at all, when he made his statement in parliament announcing that […]
When catching up means losing out
Children and young people have spent the last two years trying to learn how to cope with isolation, loss and a world turned upside down. Why do we now need to harass them into making sure they’re at the same academic level as a hypothetical young person who hasn’t spent the last 2 years living […]
The damage caused by this Government now includes psychological harm – we need them gone
This morning I was looking on Twitter at the heartbreaking messages from people who had not been able to see their loved ones before they died in May 2020 due to the Covid rules in force at the time, or to attend family funerals or visit relatives in care homes. These are deeply hurtful and […]
Painting yourself into a yellow corner? The future Liberal response to Covid
The Lib Dems have a knack of swinging wildly on the side of public opinion (e.g., Iraq War) and back to the fringes (e.g., Revoke Policy). The latter is often buoyed by coming off the back successful elections, giving the party a false sense of confidence that such policies are far more popular than they […]
A Christmas Cracker of Covid Cheer? Perchance it is a dream…
Covid cases have been soaring across the UK and England just a few days ago been plummeting towards another lockdown or circuit breaker. We seemed destined to have a cracking Christmas followed by a New Year’s Eve singing Auld Lang Syne at a social distanced. Yesterday, though, there was better news. Separate analyses published by […]
The Christmas vaccine dilemma – what would you do?
Last night’s Radio 4 PM had a discussion with a mother and son who were dealing with an issue that many families will be trying to resolve this Christmas. This particular family had members who are particularly vulnerable to Covid and the son had chosen not to get vaccinated. The compromise they reached was that […]