186 days. Not far off half a year. That’s how long it’s been since I first had Covid symptoms. We had tried very hard to avoid it for 26 months, but our son going to a Marina and Diamonds concert in Dublin at the end of May was always going to be a high risk […]
NHS workers will strike to protect patients not harm them
LDV editor Charley Hasted writes in a personal capacity on the reasons that dedicated NHS workers have voted to strike and the pressures that have led them to vote for industrial action. Tuesday brought the news that Unison Members in North East, North West, London, Yorkshire and South West Ambulance Service Trusts have voted for […]
Does your hospital have dedicated baby loss facilities?
Imagine you have just heard the news that every parent to be dreads – that you are losing your much wanted baby. Then, you have to give birth, or support your partner giving birth on the labour ward in your hospital. You can hear the sounds of newborn babies crying and the associated sounds of […]
19-20 November 2022 – the weekend’s press release
Barclay interview: Jumble of jargon can’t hide Conservative failures Responding to Health Secretary Steve Barclay’s interview on the Laura Kuenssberg show this morning, Liberal Democrat Health spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said: This Conservative Government cannot continue to blame the coronavirus pandemic for years of neglect and mismanagement of our NHS. Patients are being failed as […]
9-10 November 2022 – the press releases…
Apologies, press release fans, as I got rather caught up in the drama of the US midterms yesterday. So, without further ado… Gavin Williamson anti-bullying video exposes ‘rank hypocrisy’ of Conservative Government Lib Dems: Strip Gavin Williamson of his knighthood if found guilty of bullying Sunak failing the next generation as he refuses to protect […]
Ed Davey calls for legal right to see GP within 7 days
Getting a doctor’s appointment is becoming more and more of a challenge. Whether it means explaining in detail to a non-qualified receptionist who triages requests, or having to grapple with an inflexible online booking system, or having to join a phone queue at 8am exactly, or even filling in an online form just to be […]
Why aren’t we talking about Nursing?
It’s difficult to imagine our healthcare system without Nurses, particularly after the past few years of the COVID-19 pandemic. We all stood on our doorsteps back in 2020 and clapped for the NHS staff on the frontline, putting health and care first, yet so quickly ‘the clap turned to a slap’ and consciousness of the […]
26 October 2022 – today’s press releases
Apologies for the lateness of the hour – I was trawling through my ballot paper for the Party’s internal elections… Braverman appointment: Lib Dems call for Cabinet Office inquiry Cancer diagnosis postcode lottery revealed as over 60,000 wait more than two weeks in August alone Fiscal plan delay leaves families in a cloud of uncertainty […]
20 October 2022 – today’s press releases
You don’t expect press releases to become obsolete quite so quickly but the past forty-eight hours have been historic (or hysterical, depending upon your perspective), so these, published in chronological order, perhaps sum up the events of the day… Trevelyan refuses to back Truss: Conservatives way past their sell by date NHS waiting list in […]
The Conservatives fail because they think they know best.
One of the characteristics of this awful government is that they manage to present even ideas with a modicum of sense in a way which ensures they will be unpopular. Yesterday we had a classic example in the news that the new Health Secretary, Thérèse Coffey as part of her ‘Plan for Patients’ is planning […]