After a week of NHS 75th Birthday ‘celebrations’, I am dedicating this week’s blog to the National Health Service (NHS). The NHS was born 75 years ago, but now it feels dead. The events from last week certainly felt more funereal than celebratory.
Did you participate in any of the parties and celebrations for the 75th birthday of the NHS? Why MP’s decided to do a ‘fun run’ in honour of the NHS, I have no idea, but they did. I hope they took great care because apparently too much exercise isn’t good for you anymore!
Stephen Barclay, the solicitor turned UK Health Secretary, wasn’t greeted with a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ this week when out and about promoting the NHS — instead, he was heckled mercilessly. I can’t think of a more deserving cause than Steve. For those who have the stomach to endure his remarks in interviews, you may like to note his insistence that the NHS was to become a ‘preventative’ service as opposed to a ‘treatment’ service. In lay terms that means; feed people with pharmaceuticals to keep well people well. Prevention is better than cure, as long as it requires chemicals. Do you see the logic? Me neither.
In a week where the public are commanded to bow down and worship the NHS with grateful thanks, most don’t realise that in reality the NHS is a monster of an institution that actually enslaves them from conception. Ironically, in a week when we are meant to be celebrating the birth of social reform, we are actually mourning its death. It has been a slow and painful lesson to learn. When are the British going to rise up and tell the world that they are living in a barren desert when it comes to ‘sickness care’ and there is no oasis in sight? I am no longer able to say ‘health’ service, because it only seems to operate on sickness.
As a caveat, before I start to critique the NHS, I would like to add that the NHS safely delivered all five of my children and saved the lives of two of them. The NHS gave me what I still believe to be one of the finest nurse trainings in the world, and I will be forever grateful for the knowledge I acquired all those years ago. In my training days, it was a privilege, not an automatic right, to be employed in the NHS. We fought for our place at nurse training school. The NHS was there when I needed them in the past, but in 2023, it appears to have gone absent without leave. Were we duped right from the start or has something gone horribly wrong in the last couple of decades?
Do the British public really revere the NHS so much they will do anything to ‘save’ it, even sacrifice their own lives and those of their loved ones for it? Seemingly so. It appears to me as if it has become a ‘religion’ to worship, admire and praise. We are told by the mainstream media, the Government and politicians that we MUST love our NHS, after all, it is the only healthcare system in the world that is free at the point of contact. However, the NHS is not free, it costs each and every one of us in more ways than one. Why must we pay homage to the NHS? Is it a condition of being British?
Have we Brits (and yes, I am a fully paid up member of the British public, born and raised) romanticised a vision of Nightingale wards, nurses in uniforms and doctors in pristine white coats quietly fixing broken people? The NHS, far from being a ‘saviour’ in our midst, appears to have grown into a parasitic monster, clinging onto every one of us and feeding off us. It is no longer the NHS that looks after us, it is us that have to look after the NHS. Without it, the UK Government are doomed and their global life science superpower ambition is blown out of the water in a millisecond. The NHS is the UK’s unique selling point, unique in that the model has never been copied by any other country, perhaps because it doesn’t work. However, 75 years of data is very valuable, and the Government know it. In whose interest is it to keep the NHS: ours or the Government’s?
Are the British public allowed to say that the NHS is not fit for purpose? Can we call out our GP’s, hospital consultants and nurses for not providing a safe, honest and efficient service, or for not providing the correct information from which to make an informed decision about a medical procedure? It appears that anyone finding flaws or faults with the NHS is frowned upon or branded a troublemaker.
Only people who are sick need a sickness service. Healthy people don’t need health advice. Can you imagine how 'big pharma' and the 'life science' industry would survive without sick people? The simplest and quickest way for their industries to grow is to make healthy people sick in the first place and then offer ‘ground breaking’ novel therapies in a vain attempt to make them better. How can the NHS, that has already died, save us? A corpse cannot save anyone, and it is clear to me that help from the NHS has become nothing more than a lucky dip or a post code lottery.
This week I had the pleasure of speaking to Dr David Cartland GP (our most recent interview will be available soon). Dr Cartland is a highly qualified and experienced young doctor with a family. He had a very bright career ahead of him until the emergence of Covid–19, and then the lights went out on that career. Why? Because his conscience, moral compass and faith would not allow him to carry on working in a system that was promoting a narrative that he did not feel was considered safe or in the best interests of his patients who he served and cared about. Dr Cartland is not alone; highly qualified senior nurses like Fran Adamson RGN have had to quit their jobs in the NHS because they couldn’t sleep at night knowing their mantra “Do No Harm’ had been abandoned and meant nothing.
If those working within the NHS are not allowed to speak out, then who is? Currently anyone speaking out against the NHS narrative is shut down, threatened or squeezed out. Whistle blowers are not being listened to and, from anecdotal reports to the UK Column, they are being threatened. It has become evident that when someone speaks out about the NHS and refuses to be silenced, a witch hunt is then launched. Will it become a crime to speak out about the National Health Service? Perhaps it will be classified as ‘hate speech’ and draconian punitive measures will be taken.
For readers living overseas, I cannot emphasise more strongly how those who reside in the UK are locked into a system that we can never escape. Unlike other countries, the UK is the only country to have a State run ‘health service’. This ‘service’ does not offer UK citizens the best treatment because ‘they’ care. No, this has been a 75 year exercise to groom us into becoming dependent upon a system that was built to metaphorically bleed us dry. Even if we choose to pay for care, we are still at the mercy of the NHS. Private providers offering accident and emergency care are like hen’s teeth in the UK, so whichever way we choose to go, we are all still entrapped. We no longer have a National HEALTH Service, it is now the National SURVEILLANCE service — where security trumps health every time.
There is no such thing in life as a free lunch, my granny always told me that. Never a truer word spoken. For 75 years the NHS has had its arms outstretched welcoming us into its care, and in return we allow it to store and own all our data — and we give our data willingly, no questions asked. Is that where we have gone wrong? Should we have been asking more questions sooner? Clearly, the love affair was nothing more than an illusion.
The NHS is a transactional and conditional institution. Many patients feel so grateful to the person sitting behind a desk, they are too shy or embarrassed to ask questions. No one looks a gift horse in the mouth and complains. Imagine going to A&E and asking for help, then demanding every bit of original paperwork associated with your visit, together with a demand to hit delete on any information stored on computers before you left the hospital or department. It wouldn’t happen. Imagine if you were to visit A&E and demand upfront that none of your data be kept with the NHS and that it is handed over to you when you leave the building. If you did that, what kind of reception do you think you’d get? Conditional healthcare at the point of contact is just that, conditional. You agree to give your bodily fluids, tissues, blood, dna, information and images to the NHS, and then you get treatment of some kind. Time to own up my fellow British friends. Time to tell the Government to stick their NHS where the sun don’t shine. There are three choices as far as I can see:
- More money is thrown to tweak and fine tune an already dead system
- Change the model entirely and start from scratch – Chambers model perhaps?
- Offer an opt out alternative for those not wishing to use the NHS, and also allow others to set up an alternative
If I had to choose, I would go for option 3, and the alternative would be a throwback to the past with a modern twist. Fundamental principles; unconditional healthcare, back to basics nursing, safety first and plenty of smiles. Throw in some vases of flowers, wards with big windows that actually open wide and you have the makings of a proper hospital. Looking after staff is just as important as looking after the patients seeking our help. Happy and safe staff make for happy and safe patients. I don’t think I’m being too over simplistic — we did it then, so we can do it again. UK Column recently interviewed Dr Duncan White who has designed a new model, ‘The Chambers Model’, where patients come first and staff are cared for.
To the dissenters who believe the population increase in the UK has contributed to the demise of the NHS, I would remind them that hospital beds in England have halved in the last 30 years. Hospital estate has been sold off and many local hospitals have been closed. Primary care has been neglected for more years than I care to remember. Who remembers the many coastal convalescence homes where vulnerable or recovering patients used to go for a couple of weeks prior to returning home? In my opinion the deliberate dismantling of the NHS has been taking place over the last few decades. Can the NHS be resuscitated back to what we had before? The short and simple answer is, no. Do you like the new model coming down the line? I certainly don’t. The next question is, what are we going to do about it? Has the love affair with the NHS come to an abrupt and violent end, or has it simply passed away quietly without anyone noticing?
Who is working in the NHS? Whose hands is your life in? Whose hands hold your heart? Is your cardiac surgeon a nurse or a doctor? Are we to expect to see a ‘Noctor’ (officially known as an 'associate physician') as opposed to a fully qualified Doctor? A GP practice in North London, according to a report in Pulse, has already made the decision to stop employing ‘associate physicians’ after “an incident of ‘poor quality’ care contributed to the death of a patient”. Without name badges and uniforms to identify staff, we could be being seen to by a volunteer or even a school leaver. We are receiving reports from patients who have been cared for by foreign staff who have very little, if any, command of the English language. Who is looking after you? Is the nurse qualified or have they entered the United Kingdom with fraudulent qualifications, or has your nurse come from a World Health Organisation ‘red list’ country?
I am getting more and more correspondence from people who are having bad experiences in the NHS and they don’t know what to do. That said, I am also receiving a few letters and emails from people who have had good experiences. But what should people do to mitigate the risk when entering the NHS? My advice, from personal experience, is to ask measured questions of your Consultant or senior doctor in a cool and calm manner, and don’t be afraid to do so. A relative recently had to go into hospital and informed everyone of who I was (a trained nurse) and my grave concerns over what was going on in the NHS. My relative asked if there was a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ notice on their medical records, what was their ‘clinical frailty score’ and what medications would be administered whilst admitted. Interestingly, the staff appeared more concerned about how I was than how my relative was, but why? Perhaps it was because I was watching them, and they knew it. Committing a crime is always more successful if no one is watching; why burgle a house with an alarm and CCTV when others in the same road have no security? The same applies for the NHS; if no one is watching and something goes wrong, no one notices. Similarly, others have told staff that their close relatives are lawyers or paralegals, and as a result, more care appears to be taken. You could also look into making a living will in which your wishes can be spelled out to your GP and family. Do you consent to receiving a blood transfusion or infusion of blood products from a donor who may have been vaccinated? Are you willing to take a PCR test prior to treatment? If that PCR test is positive, do you consent to being given a novel Covid–19 injection?
Privatisation is here already; a two tiered system, one for those with the financial means to leapfrog over the waiting lists and another for those that can’t. Consider this, if you pay for a service, you feel as though you have the right to question and challenge that service if you are not happy with it, right? Without payment, you take what you can get. When something is free but not what we’d hoped for, we often put up and shut up. Who wants to complain when they are feeling scared, vulnerable and unwell? Most are too grateful to get any help, let alone the best help. If complaints do need to be made, most will wait until their loved ones are no longer in hospital or the care system, but often by then, the damage has already been done.
No time to grieve or mourn a system that has never had our best interests at heart. The NHS, the ‘jewel in our crown’, no longer exists. The thorn in our side, however, does exist and needs to be pulled out quickly and the wound allowed to heal. If we leave it in, it will likely become embedded into our sides forever. The longer we leave it, the worse the outcome will be.
It’s time to invest in common sense, prudence, goodwill, honesty, kindness and a new system. Build it and they will come. Currently, the United Kingdom has no safe, effective or accessible health service. Instead, the existing ‘sickness’ service appears to have turned into a conditional ‘experimental’ laboratory. The United Kingdom has a dense and diverse population, and it's an island nation rich in NHS data where we, its citizens, appear to have no choice in our treatment or our fate. With no option to ‘opt out’ of the NHS, I would ask the question:
Have we, the British Public, become hostages and prisoners of the NHS?
Honesty is the best policy, and the truth is, the NHS is not fit for purpose, it is dead. Time to tell the truth, however hard that may be.
Lastly, a message to all my NHS colleagues still working within the NHS. As an old school retired Ward Sister, I know we don’t need or want the public clapping on their doorsteps for us to know they appreciate us — we have always known that, and we thank you. However, now the public are suspicious of our profession and scared in case they say or do the wrong thing, and some are literally scared for their lives. This is not our fault, neither is it their fault. It is the fault of the pseudo science and behavioural modification measures we have all been subjected too. The public support you, but they don’t support the system. The NHS need you more than you need the NHS. It’s time to stand up to the National Surveillance System and demand the return of a safe, affordable, caring health system that looks after everyone, young and old.
Virtual wards for children
Paediatric wards? Paediatric hospitals and now paediatric hospitals at home. Yes, that’s right, if you have children, your house could be repurposed as a paediatric ward should your child become ill and need hospital treatment, without the need of a hospital. It appears we are entering the world of ‘home treatment’, as tens of thousands of children will be treated at home in virtual wards.
Amanda Pritchard CEO NHS England, whose private life is kept very private, informs us that the NHS world-leading virtual wards provides ‘peace of mind’ to parents who used them during trials. However, has Ms Pritchard considered how a working parent with other children copes with a sick child on top of life’s daily demands? Many conditions including respiratory illness, asthma and heart conditions will now be treated at home. The hook to entice everyone to get on board is that there will be no travelling for parents and no expensive carpark fees. We’ll be told that virtual wards will also free up hospital beds for those who need them the most (but who decides that?) and will keep children in their familiar surroundings. However, I see this as a clever way of changing your child’s bedroom into an NHS commodity linked to chat bots via an app or telephone.
As a mother of five, I remember the days of sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a hospital next to my child’s bed if they had been admitted. Speaking as a nurse, when our own relatives and children get sick, although our training kicks into gear, our emotions do too. Was I a nurse or a mum first? The answer is easy, it was always the latter. Things look very different when it is your own child or loved one who is sick.
How many of you have felt intense anxiety and stress when your child is sick? How many of you are relieved to know that there are experienced nurses and doctors on duty 24/7 who will do all they can to ensure your child makes a good recovery? How many of us feel helpless, out of our depth, literally sick with worry when our children are ill? You would not be ‘normal’ if you didn’t feel all of those feelings. Having a child in hospital is always stressful, confined to a small place and grabbing comfort breaks and coffee breaks when you can. But knowing a support team is around is very reassuring, so a parent can then fully concentrate on the sick child. In my day, every paediatric ward had a ‘hospital school’ and a play leader so that children were kept as stimulated as possible. Juggling multiple children at home at the same time as caring for a child in hospital is not dissimilar to what I call, ‘spinning plate’ syndrome. Imagine having to care for a pre-schooler or child with special needs as well as a sick child at home.
On the flip side, in some circumstances we are hearing a few anecdotal stories of parents of very poorly children in hospital who are having anything but a reassuring and good experience, and would love to have the opportunity to look after their children at home. Hospital care should not be a lottery.
Screening all pre-term and low birth weight babies
Staying with the NHS and children, premature babies are to be ‘routinely’ offered a ‘life changing’ treatment to prevent blindness. Ranibizumab (monoclonal antibody) is being hailed as the new treatment to be offered to babies that are suffering from Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP). Ranibizumab is given by way of an injection directly into the eye. Side effects can be found here. This condition can cause blindness. All pre-term or low birth weight babies will be screened for this in the NHS. If the condition is diagnosed, treatment will begin almost immediately. Some babies will need subsequent treatment.
With reports of rises in low birth weight and preterm babies, one has to ask, why? Could it be related to the Covid–19 vaccinations that a mother may have had whilst pregnant? Until we stop the rollout immediately and investigate, we will never know. Do you know what your baby is being tested for? Do you consent?
And finally
By the time you are reading this, I will have attended the MHRA Board meeting — although at the time of writing, it appears the MHRA have forgotten to send me the link to the meeting. I wonder if, yet again, they are hoping we will all forget. The MHRA have been very busy and published their Corporate Plan 2023-2026. More on this next week.
I wonder how many mainstream journalists watch UK Column News? A number of media outlets, including the Daily Mail, appear to be as horrified as we were when reporting that the vagina has being rebranded as a ‘bonus hole’ or ‘front hole’ by a UK Cancer Charity. The same charity address the question I am sure NO women need to ask, which is, ‘Do I have a cervix?’. If you are offended by the language used by this organisation, you are not alone.
Next week I will be looking at Long Vaccine Syndrome, a post Covid-19 vaccination syndrome.
Until then,
God Bless
Debi
Proverbs 22:6 KJV
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when is old, he will not depart from it.
