Section: Health

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Physician associates – letter to the editor

Editor-in-chief

Dear Editor Re: Physician Associates I am writing to give my perspective on the role of physician associates( PAs).  I am a recently retired Consultant Physician who was  involved in the initiation of a PA programme in Devon over 10 years ago. Workforce planning in the NHS is notoriously difficult and an issue that central […]

Without migrants, we wouldn’t have the NHS

Jon Danzig

Our NHS would collapse without migrants. Almost 20 per cent of the staff in NHS England are from overseas. Out of 1.5 million NHS staff in England, around 265,000 reported a non-British nationality as of June 2023. That’s 45,000 more than the previous year. What’s more, since Brexit, data indicates that the proportion of EU citizens working for the […]

Johnson’s Covid Inquiry evidence: what to look out for

Dr Dan Goyal

Before Johnson gives his evidence we should consider a few things: 1. Just how bad was the UK pandemic response?2. How much could Johnson have affected this?3. What was Johnson’s intent?4. Was there any overt maleficence? 1. How did the UK perform?Badly. For many in the wider public, it will be quite obvious that the UK did very badly indeed. […]

Save Seaton Hospital!

Editor-in-chief

Why this petition matters The petition was started by Seaton resident, Martin Shaw, who explains why it’s needed: The Seaton area community paid half of the cost of building the Hospital in the 1980s. The NHS agreed to own and run it with NHS services for the local community. In 1991, a new wing was […]

LOVE 20 road safety campaign begins in Winton

Cycling Rebellion

Local activists from Cycling Rebellion have launched the LOVE 20 campaign at Winton Banks in Bournemouth, calling for a 20mph speed limit on Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) roads where citizens live, work, shop and play. Heart shaped spoof 20 miles per hour (mph) speed limit signs were displayed along the road, chalk art brought […]

The problem with the NHS? Capacity!

Dr Dan Goyal

The problem with the NHS is very simple: there isn’t enough capacity. There aren’t enough GPs, hospital doctors, nurses, physios, OTs, lab techs, radiographers, etc. We currently have less hospital bed capacity than Mexico. We have the second lowest in Europe.  On all metrics, the UK is way behind comparative nations and no where near […]

What the change to cancer targets means

Dr Dan Goyal

The change to cancer targets is a big deal! The issue is the 28-day to diagnosis versus the 2-week wait target. That is, if your GP suspects cancer, from the point of referral, 75 per cent of patients should be diagnosed or given the all clear in 28 days. Currently, if your GP suspects cancer […]

Saving the UK’s social contract – starting with the NHS

Mark E Thomas

Even on the 75th anniversary of its foundation, the NHS came under assault from the far-right. This article tackles the claims of its detractors and shows how a team of volunteers has taken the argument to Parliament to defend the NHS – and the UK economy. The assault on the NHS When the NHS was […]

The Covid inquiry raises bigger questions about criminality

Dr Dan Goyal

Monday was another damning day for the government at the Covid Inquiry. It is becoming clearer what the recommendations from the Inquiry are likely to be… But there is also a bigger question raised about criminality… TUC union, the BMA, the Health Foundation, and The British Red Cross gave evidence. Many of the government defence […]

NHS ‘pen-pushers’ are doing a great job

Emma Monk

In the week when the NHS celebrated its 75th birthday, there was an article in The Telegraph  headlined ‘NHS to slash bureaucracy by recruiting doctors and nurses over pen-pushers’. This, of course, led to all the usual clichés about the NHS being full of managers. I thought I’d take a look at what the evidence […]

Has the NHS been value for money?

Dr Dan Goyal

No doubt we are at a tipping point for the future of healthcare in the UK You will hear a lot of misinformation, disinformation, and barefaced lies over the next 18 months – a £200bn/yr industry is on the table. So here are the facts… Has the NHS been value for money?  Here is the […]

Is it really true that no healthy under 50s died from Covid-19 in Israel?

Emma Monk

At the end of May 2023, I came across multiple, well-known, anti-vaccine Twitter accounts claiming that new Israeli data showed that there had been “No Known Covid Deaths in Healthy People Under 50.” We know from ONS data that in England and Wales there were 4976 deaths involving Covid-19 in the under-50s since 2020, so […]

Somerset local councillor offers FREE air monitors to local businesses

Editor-in-chief

A Somerset County Councillor is on a clean air mission. “I’m keen to learn the lessons of the pandemic” says Councillor Oliver Patrick, “and one of those lessons is that airborne diseases like Covid spread easily between people indoors where ventilation is poor.” Oliver’s clean air campaign began in September when he started raising money […]

Are you turning up the heat on plastic?

Plastic Free Axminster -

The UK consumes 79 million ready meals every single day with a market value of nearly £4bn. In the UK, 86 per cent of adults eat ready meals, and 3 in 10 eat ready meals at least once a week. If you have surveyed the range of ready meals in the freezers or in the […]

Open the windows to shut the door on Covid-19

Oliver Patrick
one window open in an office block

Oliver Patrick, Somerset County Councillor (Coker Division) explains why clean air, indoors and out, should be a priority for legislators. This week I built my 20th Corsi-Rosenthal Box (below) using the funds donated through my GoFundMe. Fifteen of these DIY air filters have gone into schools and Early Year Foundation Stage settings in the Yeovil […]

Just one day in the misinformation world of Andrew Bridgen

Emma Monk

Andrew Bridgen may have apologised for breaching lobbying rules and breaking the MPs’ code of conduct, but he’s not letting up on his anti-vax campaign. Emma Monk analyses just one day of misinformation. In the process of writing an article about former Conservative MP, Andrew Bridgen, having the whip removed for comparing the vaccine roll-out […]

Medical crisis and moral injury – the state of the NHS in Somerset

Mick Fletcher

Although government seems to be in denial, it is clear that the NHS is in crisis – a consequence, in large part, of a decade of underfunding.  The impact on the service nationally has been logged in detail, with the Financial Times offering a series of particularly thorough analyses.   We wanted to find out […]