Posted on Facebook:
Dear Journalists,
As an A&E consultant I am writing to ask for your help.
Up and down the country our A&E departments are in meltdown, our staff are at breaking point and we need your help.
Patients are being left in corridors because there are no ward beds for them to go to, staff are leaving shifts demoralised and exhausted and most importantly our patients are not getting the care they deserve.
We need the public to know about this, not to scaremonger, but for the truth to be out there – as the only way to get politicans to change – is by voters knowing the reality and prioritising the NHS at the ballot box.
But without the public understanding what is going on, we will continue to have this crisis year after year after year. This is where we need your help. We need you to report the reality and not peddle the propaganda from our politicians.
The crisis is much worse than what you report. We all talk about the 4 hour target and that we get around 90%. But that includes all the patients who don’t need admission. But for the ones who need admission, the % who get admitted within 4 hours is so so so much lower than that. And for those patients, it is crucial for their well being, that they get admitted within four hours.
Why are you not asking for these figures? That would help reveal the truth.
Then you report 12 hour breaches. But in England (but not the rest of the UK) the clock starts ticking when a specialist senior has seen them. So they can be in A&E for 18 hours and not be a 12 hour breach.
Why are you not asking for the figures of patients who stay in A&E for more than 12 hours? That would help reveal the truth
And what about asking how many patients are spending time in corridors?
Because if you did reveal these figures – you would soon see the real extent of the crisis. And it is a crisis. One which will lead to a breaking point soon unless something changes.
The fault does not lie with the patients. Yes a few inappropriately attend – but they are not the problem; they can be quickly turned around and discharged. The fault is not with the staff. They are working tirelessly and doing an amazing job despite the conditions they are working in.The fault does not lie wth managers and hospital executives. They are working relentlessly to make things work as well as they can. And despite what the governmnet peddle it certainly is not the fault of the GPs. Although there is falling numbers of GP surgeries, they are doing an amazing job at reducing the number of A&E attendances. Most importantly, the fault does not lie with the ‘system’ of the NHS – a model of care which utilities its resources to maximal effect.
The fault lies with the government. Years of failed austerity depriving NHS and councils of vital monies and investment is taking its toll. A&Es are struggling because of the frail elderly who need a ward bed but cant get one. They can’t get one because there are not enough beds within our hospitals (we have one of the smallest numbers of bed per capita in the whole of Europe) and because those that need to get out of hospital can’t because of a lack of social care. In addition some money which has been spent on the NHS had been wasted on pointless reorganisations designed to start the process of NHS privatisation.
Please start reporting that. Please start reporting the truth. Please start reporting how close we are to melt down and please help get the public worked up about what is going on.
Because sadly our government don’t seem that bothered. They and their friends can afford private health care and therefore don’t rely on it. Even worse many would be happy to see our NHS privatised.
But for everyone else we need the NHS. The staff will battle on (and it is a battle at the moment). We will continue to do everything we can. We will continue to adapt, modernise and reform. We will continue to provide the most amazing possible care despite the conditions. But there is only so much our staff can take. And if we lose our staff we lose the NHS.
Journalists -we need your help. Please help.
And if you are not a journalist reading this, please share (publicly), or tweet it or send onto your friends in the hope that journalists will pick this up and start reporting the truth.
Rob Galloway
A&E Consultant
Pride's Purge 
Reblogged this on michaelsnaith.
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I don’t know what anyone else is doing but I’m posting this, everywhere I can think of on social media.
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I am British, have been in practice and teaching around the world including 20 years in Hong Kong. I have been married to a Thai lady (who is also a British citizen and has been since the 1980s) but we moved to Thailand several years ago so that she could be with her mother for the last days of her life. We are now unable to return because our pensions have been frozen and if we did return we could not use the NHS because we have been disenfranchised despite having contributed to NI. Our fellow Brits here in Thailand have been committing suicide for the reasons I have outlined above. It is tragic. In my opinion, the collapse of the NHS and the pensions policies (the most stingy in the western developed world, b.t.w.) is really a manifestation of state sponsored murder as they know damned well the consequentcies of what they are doing. Please, please spread the word. We must get rid of these wretched people and their fake austerity and privatisation policies.
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Reblogged this on sdbast.
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The elephant in the room is that sadly everybody already knows this is what’s happening in the NHS in England, Wales and NI (Scotland less so) and that it was caused by NHS privatisation by the last Labour and now Tory governments.
The question is what can be done about it? We must look to Scotland, where the NHS is in a much better state because both the SNP and Scottish Labour oppose privatisation and are committed to investment. The new Scottish progressive income tax system is proof of a different mentality north of the border, and I find it astonishing that nobody within English Labour, not even Corbyn, has seen fit to applaud it loudly and clearly.
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Horse – see The Nuffield Trust’s Research Report, July 2017, “Learning from Scotland’s NHS”, which echoes the King’s Fund Report in 2013. Both reports encouraged NHS England to look at Scotland’s success and see how it is being done in Scotland. This is almost entirely due to the SNP Govt over the last 10 years.
As far as I know, this has not been done, perhaps because Hunt would see it as an humiliating admission.
ps both reports still available online.
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Journalists don’t have the balls to ask the occurred questions, they are quite happy to toe the tory party line and for them to follow whatever Hunt silent c tells them.
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Scotland has gone down a very different path to England, since 2003. It has undone the costly market bureacracy purchaser provider split ( see ‘The billions of NHS wasted cash no one wants to mention’ on openDemocracy , below ) ; it didn’t introduce Foundation Hospital (profit basis ) status ; put ordinary citizens on the local Health Area Boards (so democratic public control of health, rather than the ‘customer focussed’ ‘patient choice’ agenda ); made elderly social care non means testable; . In England meanwhile, we’re moving towards the Accountable Care Organisation (ACO) model, under the Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) of Simon Stevens, ex CEO of US firm UnitedHealth . Stevens formerly worked for Alan Milburn , New Labour . The agenda behind the nice sounding ‘local integrated care’ of ACOs is regional , for profit , insurance based systems, whose apparently preventative agenda is ‘more profit, through reduced medical care’ as witnessed in Michael Moore’s film ‘Sicko’. A leading ACO is Keiser Permanente, and some NHS workers have received training on the Keiser Permanente model. Jeremy Hunt admitted that ACOs / Keiser Permanente model was what they’re aiming for last year. See ‘Jeremy Hunt drops a clanger by KOSHH’ below . References :
1) ‘The Plot Against the NHS’ by Colin Leys and Stewart Player ; Brilliant book, while others are fake books.
2) https://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/caroline-molloy/billions-of-wasted-nhs-cash-noone-wants-to-mention
3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HyL-riKqqc
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Well done Rob. I like someone who tells it how it is. I was a mental health nurse and Christmas was an horrendous time. To be honest I’m glad to be out of it but, I still admire the doctors and nurses at this time of year.
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If any Somerset based clinician or administrator wants to give a similar account regarding Somerset hospitals – then get in touch. We’re interested but need evidence.
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Really wish I could help but because I am not in UK, I can’t report on this. However, I would recomend you to contact Al Jazeera.
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