What a lively news and Extra last Friday! Both Ben and I were feeling quite ‘salty’. We certainly had a packed news and colourful Extra. Both Ben and Mike had already planned to wind me (in the nicest possible way) up, talking about International Women’s Day, of which they know I disapprove. As a woman, I would like to see it abolished, quite simply.
What is very obvious, though, is the sense of overwhelm that we are all feeling right now. If I could be granted a superpower from God, I may choose a speed-of-light power; perhaps then I would be able to keep ahead of the information cascade that we are all being bombarded with. Every morning, we appear to be waking up to ‘breaking news’, ‘global crises’ and more fear-inducing clickbait from mainstream media. There is no respite, and that is because it is planned and deliberate. There are so many topics to cover, it is hard to know where to start. However, we do like to bring you news that you may not be hearing or seeing on other channels.
NHS board meeting and NHS App
My favourite sources of information are board meetings—such as those of the MHRA or NHS England, although I also frequently tune into the Care Quality Commission (CQC) board meetings and my own local hospital board. Yes, I accept and agree that they are often boring, long and tedious; but on the flip side, they are treasure troves of precious jewels of information that not many people bother to tune into. Taking a couple of minutes to register your view informs them that you are watching.
We live in a busy world where people have busy lives and busy schedules. In 2024, I sometimes sit quietly and watch people getting on with their lives. Many are focused on their black screens and don’t even notice my presence, but I wonder: what are they looking at? Facebook? Twitter? Sport? Or perhaps a blockbuster film? Maybe they are messaging their friends or looking up a location? I don’t expect many bother to take two precious minutes to register their view on board meetings, even though it’s free.
The MHRA Board didn’t really think anyone would bother to tune into their video recordings, until we proved them wrong. Since I have been reporting on their meetings, the MHRA Board has gone from the shadows to the glare of our spotlight; they have transferred from the realm of the unknowns to the knowns and gone from comfortable to uncomfortable. Have we made a difference to how they operate? Yes, we have, and that is the power of the people. Even so, those on the NHS England Board have yet to realise that they are likewise under intense scrutiny, and continue to forget the cameras are on. Loose lips sink ships.
The NHS is all but dead—but here is the big question. Is it the ‘fat cat’ controllers sitting at the NHS Board table who are hammering the final nail in the NHS coffin, or is it us? It appears it could be the latter: perhaps not intentionally, but nevertheless, it is the majority of British citizens who are extinguishing the remnants of what was our health service, and we can stop it. I would like to tell you how.
On last Friday’s UK Column News, I reported on the NHS England board meetin. I have to admit, choosing which of the 24 jaw-dropping segments I had timestamped in my notebook was difficult: there were just too many to choose from. However, I was particularly alarmed to hear how successful the NHS App was proving to be and that over 90% of adults have downloaded it to their spy phones. Are you one of them? But successful for whom? I have some questions:
- Will we will have a totally automated health service in the next few years?
- Will we have any human primary healthcare contact, or will GPs be extinct?
- Will we need to see any medical professional in the future?
- Will hospitals be staffed by humans?
- Will we be able to access any advice without the app?
- What happens if we refuse to use the app?
After all, who needs a GP or a pharmacy when you have a spy phone with an app? Who needs a delivery driver when a drone will do? Who needs a nurse when you have your own personal ‘matron in a bag’? The NHS App gives patients access to their medical records, appointments, test results, repeat prescriptions and referrals. Your NHS App can send you tests, deliver you medicines, give you advice and information and will even monitor your vital signs. And that, according to Director of NHS Digital Channels Professor Joe Harrison, is just the start! Your NHS App is a doctor in your pocket. Your NHS App will be your new clinician when you are in hospital. Your NHS App will be your new best friend—or will it?
We learned at the board meeting that a staggering four million people in the UK are accessing their medical records a day through the NHS App. Why? Can they understand the medical language that will be reading, which will be included in their records? Can they understand the consequences of their diagnosis, or will they jump to the internet to find out? 97% of GP practices are now able to communicate with their patients this way; therefore, it is reckoned, there will soon be no need for doctors’ receptionists or physical surgeries to visit. Gone are the days of full waiting rooms, overflowing with irritable children, crying babies and coughs and sniffles. Behind us the times of reading out-of-date Farmers Weekly and National Geographic magazines while you wait. No more fierce receptionists to get past before you get an appointment with a doctor. How much better can it get? Pardon my cynicism.
The NHS App has been hailed as the single biggest transformation in the NHS for many decades. How exciting to have a camera next to our beds monitoring our vital signs 24/7, 365 days a year, with not a nurse in sight! Will there be any human staff manning our hospital wards and departments, or will a camera, robot nurse or avatar be your only company? Is that the NHS you want, because that is exactly what we are heading for … unless we take drastic action.
For those reading who have the NHS App downloaded to their spy phones, perhaps you would consider deleting it and removing it from your device? Unwittingly, every single person who is using the NHS App is allowing the National Health Service to be dismantled and buried forever, creating a new digital world where we will all be tracked, traced, monitored and medicated, but based on what? An algorithm, a computer model, a prediction.
If you are working in the health service, whether as a receptionist, doctor, nurse, porter, cleaner or admin clerk, there will be no job for you. Your work will be replaced by machines, robots, avatars, cameras, computer algorithms and Artificial Intelligence. Do you want that? Hospitals where the smell of flowers fragrances the air, relatives pile in to see their loved ones with cards and bunches of grapes festoon the wards have now been confined to the history books. Welcome to the era of the ‘Smart Hospital’. Are you ready for a brave new NHS? Or will you remove yourself from the system?
The NHS App is, as Professor Harrison proudly announces, just the beginning. Soon there will be one app for everything—and the functions of your mobile phone will be integrated into your body. This is no longer science fiction, it is pseudo-science fact.
There is only one choice, as I see it: disable the One App to Bind Them All, refuse to rely on algorithms, get rid of smart devices that tell you how you are, decline to be directed by a spy phone. Look in the mirror instead: do you look okay? Are you eating, drinking, peeing and pooing? Do you know what day of the week it is and do you consider yourself fairly healthy? If there are no outward signs or symptoms of any illness, presume you are fine and should get on with your life. Ditch the device, ditch the app and ditch the paranoia. After all, whose body is it anyway?
Stories in Brief
NHS
Children are being groomed to choose a career in the NHS.
Thousands of secondary school children have been attending talks to learn about a career in the health service, which has over 350 different career opportunities available, ranging from clinical positions to IT professionals and scientists.
The NHS has committed to growing its workforce to navigate the rising demand for healthcare as part of its Long Term Workforce Plan, with plans to double medical school training places by 15,000 and increase the number of GP training places by 50% to 6,000 by 2031. Do you know what career your child is being encouraged to follow?
NHS staff blame the public for discrimination
It didn’t take long, did it, before it’s the public being blamed for something. This time, it’s that old standby, discrimination. According to a national staff survey, one in twelve NHS staff who responded say they had faced discrimination whilst at work. In last week’s blog, I asked whether we should ensure that loved ones who were going into care homes or hospital should wear bodycams, to protect them from abuse by staff. However, it appears the NHS sees it the other way around, and that it is us, the patients, that they need protecting from. No mention of confusion, anxiety, frustration, fear or abuse that may have been caused to them.
It appears that unwanted sexual behaviour has also been experienced by NHS staff, but at this point I would like to add that I know two patients who have separately been subjected to sexual abuse. However, despite compelling evidence, the NHS here in Cornwall choose to turn a blind eye. It works both ways. In my thirty years of nursing, I never once experienced what I could classify as being on the receiving end of sexual harassment from a patient.
Yet it is not just patients who are guilty of sexually abusing staff. The survey also revealed that 3.84% of staff faced unwanted sexual behaviour from their colleagues, warranting a ‘sexual safety charter’ for the NHS. In my day, something as innocuous as a cheeky wink from a doctor or a reassuring arm around your shoulder was considered a compliment. Today, it’s a threat. How times have changed.
Whooping cough
Chickenpox, RSV, measles, polio—the list goes on. But now we have a new kid back on the block. Whooping cough is making the headlines. The UKHSA has published new data to show that whooping cough, otherwise known as pertussis, is on the rise. Last year, there were 858 cases, but in January 2024 alone there were allegedly 553 British cases reported. As you may expect, Covid–19 is being blamed, as is a decline in uptake of vaccines in pregnant women and in children.
As if new parents don’t have enough to deal with, now they will be faced with a barrage of requests to get the latest jab. Babies of 8, 12 and 16 weeks of age are being offered whooping cough vaccination as part of the six-in-one combination vaccine for newborns. A new Childhood Immunisation Campaign has been launched, which in reality is one huge marketing exercise to pressure parents to get their children jabbed. According to the UKHSA, there have been zero deaths from whooping cough reported in the UK for two years, so let’s put this into perspective.
Parrot fever
The zoonotic stable swells—chickenpox, monkeypox, avian flu, and now parrot fever: a bacterial respiratory infection, otherwise known as psittacosis. According to the World Health Organisation (yawn), there is cause for concern, since five people in Europe have died from the bacterial infection parrot fever. It originates from infected birds; humans who work with them are most at risk.
Your e-mails—Smart meters
Thanks so much to Gerard, who sent me this great information on smart meters. The subject has generated quite a lot of comment; I will be covering this again in the near future.
Dear Debi,
Having just read your most recent blog, which I always look out for, I thought it worth responding to your suggestion of making contact with regard to my experience with smart meters.
Having worked in industry until I had to take early ill-health retirement (without a pension because it would cost too much!!!...there's a full story there), I was very much familiar with SMART goals/targets. The T was always described as 'timed', but in reality it meant trackable. Therefore, when smart meters first came on the scene, I immediately said no thanks. I would get the odd e-mail from my energy supplier (changed regularly, so can't remember which one) but I just deleted them without even reading them. About two years ago, my current supplier started sending me emails about every two to three weeks, trying to persuade me to get a smart meter installed, since it would save me money, etc. After laughing at their idiotic logic, I again deleted them.
After a period of calm for six months or so, they started again but this time used the 'your electricity meter is past the certification period' line. To begin with, I just ignored them, but when they started sending out reminders every three or four days, I e-mailed their customer service team. I politely, yet robustly, informed them that there was no legal requirement, asked if they could send me the evidence that the meter was out of calibration, and said that I only wanted a traditional meter fitted. I also informed them that their hidden-away statement that 'if you have a gas meter, we will change this also' was deception, plus my gas meter was only two years old. They responded by stating that they only installed smart meters, to which I reminded them that there was no legal requirement for this.
After a short period of continuing to 'remind me', they have now gone quiet for the last four or five months. I don't expect that to last, due to the Energy Act and the financial penalties that all energy providers have been landed with by our useless political class—but they might just have to force their way in. My current energy provider's CEO was recently on record as stating that smart meters are not working as they should due to a variety of reasons, so I might just bear that in mind when they come knocking.
My wife and I follow UKC (a subscriber in my wife's name) whenever it is on and regularly read the very informative articles on the website. Without all the work that you all do, I'm not sure where we would be, so thanks to all the team for your hard work bringing us the truth.
Best, Gerard.
And Finally
Fancy winning a cool $1 million? How about developing AI technology to fight antisemitism? The Jerusalem Post tells you how to enter. If you don’t fancy that, perhaps you relish the reward of a discount if you shop at North Face, with strings attached. You will need to pass a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion course entitled ‘Allyship’ first. I wish I was joking, but sadly I am not.
If neither of the above suggestions grabs your attention, perhaps this will, particularly if you can’t stand your neighbour. In Washington State, USA, Senate Bill 5427, when it is signed in law, will allow citizens to report ‘bias incidents’, in return for $2,000 of taxpayers’ money. Really? Yes, really: in essence, you can send your neighbour to jail for wrongspeak in the state named after the father of American liberty. You can’t make it up.
Whatever we hear in the mainstream media, whether it is in print or on a screen, we must assume—unless we can prove otherwise—is a lie. If the Government tells us something is safe, presume until proven to the contrary that it is dangerous. If the economy is doing well, presume until the reverse burden of proof is convincingly lifted that it is doing really badly. If news is declared ‘fake’ by official sources, presume on first reading that it is authentic. If we are told that a mitigating measure is being taken to keep us safe, presume that we are in danger.
Nothing is as it seems. Question everything. Take no-one’s word for anything: only rely on yourself, your truth, your research and your faith. No-one is about to come and save us, except God. Prepare and pray. Things aren’t about to get better any time soon. For those of us lucky enough to be blessed with unshakeable faith, there is nothing to be fearful of, for faith is the antidote to fear.
To finish on a slightly lighter note, thanks so much to one of our wonderful viewers, Steve, who has sent me this recommendation for a hugely rich source of natural Vitamin C: Biona Organic Acerola Cherry Pure Super Juice. Bottles can also be bought individually. Enjoy.
Until next week,
God bless,
Debi.
And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. Revelation 13:4-5
