Why is the NHS past breaking point? I wish I could bring you good news. I wish I could tell you as the peak of Omicron passesđ¤we are regaining the capacity to treat the millions waiting for urgent and routine care. But, honestly, it has never been as bad as this. Why? There are streams […]
When the Omicron variant emerged in early December, there was a big split in the consensus between three views: âOmicron is mildâ, âOmicron is just as bad as Deltaâ and âletâs wait and see what the data tell us over the coming weeksâ Unfortunately, while the sensible scientists and commentators were erring on the side […]
As you may already be aware, we have been reporting on the abysmal treatment of the clinically (extremely) vulnerable (CEV/CV), especially since so-called ‘Freedom Day’. Now Johnson has declared a premature end to Covid mitigations in what is clearly a political move to shore up his rapidly-vanishing support. There is no basis for such a […]
Starstruck? Itâs not often that I derive inspiration from the front page of the Daily Star, but there we have it: this front page synthesised and articulated my feelings about the sheer bare-faced exploitation which has all too often characterised so much of the âeconomic activityâ surrounding the management of the coronavirus pandemic in the […]
Matt Hicks, a senior nurse, shares his personal views. Thereâs a lot of social media chatter about mandatory vaccines, especially in the light of the governmentâs U-turn on the Covid-19 vaccine for healthcare workers. My original position up until recently was that mandatory vaccines had always been accepted as being a legal requirement in healthcare and […]
This is going to be a no-holds-barred piece…and it needs to be, because something appalling is happening that, frankly, tops all the very many appalling things that have and are still happening under Boris Johnson’s reign of horror. Covid is killing and harming kids. Lots of them. It’s not mild. It’s not benign. It’s not […]
In my very first West Country Voices article I debunked the claim that âThere have only been 388 Covid-19 deaths among the under-60s in the UK,â reported in various newspapers back in December 2020. Last week, a similar claim started doing the rounds. People were tweeting figures such as âonly 17,000 people have died of […]
As government continues to shift the burden for services (and the blame for their shortcomings) onto councils, whilst cutting their budgets, Julian Andrews explains the impact on Devon’s budget and inhabitants. âThe age of irresponsibility is giving way to the age of austerityâ, said David Cameron in 2009. Shortly afterwards, then-Chancellor George Osborne announced cuts […]
Dear West Country Voices, I couldnât believe my ears this week when the Government announcement came about the withdrawal of the measures to help protect the public against the dangers of Covid, by 27Â January. In reality, rather than an announcement, it was in fact the complete disownment of the English people by the cowboys calling […]
This man will say and do anything…and we mean ANYTHING… to save himself. In case you have not seen it, take a look at this: That’s appalling, right? But it is as nothing compared with abandoning all Covid mitigations and thereby throwing the most vulnerable under the bus to save his political skin. Please write […]
When I got Long Covid in March 2020. I was 38 and healthy. If you are anything like I was then, it is hard to understand how bad Long Covid is. I think that we all have an instinct to just⌠look away. But, please, it is important that you look. My own low-points: early […]
âThrown under the busâ has turned out to be one of the most-needed, most-overused phrases of the last two years. Fishers, farmers, touring musicians, small businesses and our young have all been chucked under the Brexit bus. The NHS has been subject to a sustained crushing from the bus which carries the greedy ambitions of […]
Dear Sheryll Yet another lockdown party at Downing Street has been exposed. I have written to you several times in the past and I have never really got any satisfactory kind of answer as to what your feelings are about the rule-breaking parties that took place at Number 10 last year whilst millions of us […]
Dear Editor, Iâm exhausted by the Covid pandemic. I think we all are. The ongoing worry that every little sniffle I get might be Delta or Omicron and that I might pass it on to my household and elderly relatives; the constant mental weighing up of how many people I should safely meet while cases […]
Words matter. Every second around 6,000 tweets are sent worldwide, equating to 500m a day – thatâs 200bn tweets of 280 characters every year â you can watch it happening in real time at Internet Live Stats. Itâs a lorra words. And 2021 was full of them. 2021 was the year of what was said […]
As a former banker is put in charge of NHS England, Sunak meets US healthcare giants in California, the health and social care bill opens the gates wide for private providers to grab more business and the poor staff are brought to their knees by the mismanagement of Covid, the NHS is under attack like […]
Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi has asked former teachers to return to schools hit by the Omicron wave. Cornwall-based Jane Stevenson explains why sheâs not answering this call from a government that has shown no concern for the health and wellbeing of school staff or the children they teach. I am a qualified science teacher who […]
This would be a powerful piece on any day of publication but coinciding as it does with the anniversary of that law-breaking party in Downing Street and the very day that author Dr Pam Jarvis’s brother died it has additional heft and poignancy. My mother, who died in February, was born into a generation raised […]
Dear West Country Voices, All morning Iâve been reading posts by healthcare professionals who have been working long shifts and going the extra mile for months now. Metaphorically-speaking, they are physically and mentally on their knees, and now in a state of astonishment at learning prime minister Boris Johnsonâs new plans at the same time […]
Dear West Country Voices, On June 10, 2016, Central Devon Tory MP Mel Stride wrote to a local newspaper and said about the ÂŁ350m a week which Boris Johnson had promised the NHS after Brexit: ‘It’s a lie’. Enjoy the animated pigs flying over this misleading whopper’. Now he, all other Tory MPs and in […]
Matt wrote to us because he is profoundly angry over #partygate. He wondered whether he should take a deep breath and temper his outrage. We don’t think he should. He’s at the sharp end. We need to hear his voice. Johnson needs to hear his voice. We are sure you’ll agree. Ed There’s something that […]
Iâm sorry to distract you from the kerfuffle over Downing St Christmas parties, and who paid for the redecoration of Boris Johnsonâs flat etc, but there is something else which should concern us all. There is a massive crisis in social care in this country. We should all be aware of the possible implications for […]
Most people seem to think that Dido Hardingâs test and trace programme (NHST&T but nothing to do with the NHS) is a disaster. I wonât go into the reasons why; you can read some of it in the House of Commons committee report. Instead, letâs just look at the costs. The government allocated a budget […]
This government has a history of bad timing. During Anti-Bullying Week in 2020, news broke that prime minister Boris Johnson had decided to ignore that his home secretary Priti Patel had been found to bully her staff, and not to sack her. Then during Parliament Week in November 2021 he tried to undermine the very […]
Last Christmas, I kept you apartBut the very next day, I partied awayThis year, to save donors from tearsI’ll give them all something special Once bitten and twice shyThat what they say, but it doesnât applySleaze and corruption, so many storiesBut still you will keep on voting for Tories “Forgive me, forgive me” you all […]
Emma Monk takes a look at the ease with which Covid misinformation is created and spread and at the cognitive dissonance on display. Within days of scientists discovering a new Covid-19 variant, now called âOmicronâ, the usual anti-science/anti-vax culprits were trying to find ways to cast doubt over it on social media. I made a […]
Social care may well prove to be Alexander Boris de Pfeffelâs Johnsonâs Waterloo, and deservedly so. Out of the blue, less than a week before parliament was to vote on the matter, Number 10 tabled a new proposal (New Clause 49 to the Health and Care Bill) on the social care cap. It significantly watered […]
Dear Tobias I am now retired, but I worked in the NHS (as a nurse, then a health visitor) for 28 years, then for a further 20 years in an NHS-funded post in a university, in teaching and research. I have, therefore, seen and worked through very many changes and reorganisations in the NHS: often […]
Right then. The Health and Care Bill. You know about it right? It’s in the Commons on Monday and Tuesday. And it stinks. There is no assault on our country quite like an assault on the NHS. An NHS already on its knees. But thatâs what this outrageous government wants to do with its Health […]
As NHS watchers are only too aware, there’s constant wrangling over NHS finances: itâs a bottomless pit; itâs mismanaged; itâs a huge amount; itâs not enough; will never be enough….Where to start with all of this? Letâs take a look… Does the UK spend on healthcare match that of comparable countries? Well, no. Neither as […]