September has finally arrived, as have the rain and overcast skies. Where was summer? Did it come and go without my noticing? Albeit a few isolated sunny days, it’s been mostly miserable. Summer downpours and floods are always the worst. And it’s official: the UK has endured the coolest summer for almost a decade. So much for ‘global warming’.The so-called experts can’t have it both ways, right?
I had the pleasure of interviewing one of our own amazing members, Dr Robin Kelly, a British-born GP now living in New Zealand with his wife and family. He’s an old-school GP with a difference; do keep an eye out on the website for his interview coming up in the couple of weeks, which is titled ‘The Presence’, where East meets West with remarkable results. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
As the UK sinks even further into the abyss, it is hard to recognise the country I was born and raised in as many are locked up in prison for posting something considered hateful on social media, whilst convicted criminals guilty of far more serious crimes are let out early. But where will they go? Estonia? The Telegraph broke the story after hearing that 3,000 prisoners in the UK may be sent to Tartu Prison in Estonia as it lies empty because of a ‘low level’ of Estonian crime. It’s worth noting that the World Health Organization invested in Tartu, opening a drug-free centre there in 2007.
Although no final decisions have been made, what will become of prisoners sent to Estonia? Will they be expected to resettle there upon release? Where will their passports be stored, and will their passports be returned? Are we to return to the days when we sent ‘convicts’ to Australia? Between 1788 and 1868, more than 162,000 convicts were transported from Britain and Ireland as punishment for their crimes. Most never returned to UK shores.
Autumn Budget 2024 – Tick Tock, Time Is Running Out
By the time you are reading this, there will be approximately 50 days or less until the Autumn Budget 2024 is delivered. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, aka ‘Public Prime Prosecutor’, has wasted no time in warning the exhausted British public that it will be painful and it will affect each and every one of us. Are you ready for more wallet-crippling stealth, and not-so-stealthy tax rises, incoming?
Who will be charged with the job to ‘Rebuild Britain’? Who better than a past economist at the Bank of England, with previous experience at the failed Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS)? Does that give you confidence? Chancellor Rachel Reeves is keen to blame the Conservatives for a £22 billion black hole in the country’s finances. Who better to plug the hole than Labour? Rachel doesn’t plan to hang about. She has been busy thinking up ways to make our lives as uncomfortable as possible, whilst maintaining and improving a comfortable lifestyle for herself and her wealthy cronies.
None of the rest of us will escape. Those on benefits, the disabled, sick, and elderly will all be targeted. Parents, homeowners, business owners, motorists, savers, drinkers, and smokers are also high on the target list, so it appears that even your personal life choices are no longer sacrosanct. If you enjoy doing something, you can bet that you’ll be penalised for being happy. The World Economic Forum weren’t joking when they said, ‘You’ll own nothing and be happy’. They may deny it now; however, I remember seeing it with my own eyes, and I bet you do, too.
Watch UK Column News where I reported on the proposal to scrap the Vehicle Excise Duty in favour of ‘Pay Per Mile’ for petrol car drivers. The news has caused feathers to fly at the RAC, who were purported as supporting the scheme but are now hastily retracting any prior statements that could be deemed misleading. Perhaps they are seeing their membership drop and realise they need to read the room better!
But that is not all! Far from it.
Scrapping the council tax discount on single occupancy homes will hit many elderly and vulnerable people: ‘AngelaRayner said that Labour has no plans to scrap the 25% council tax discount for single people, but refused to rule it out, sparking fears that millions could see their bills skyrocket. A total of 8.39 million dwellings in England received the discount in 2023, according to the latest figures from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’.
Using Bristol as an example, 1:3 households could be hit by the change. 32% of homes across the city currently receive a single person council tax discount, which amounts to an eye watering 63,984 people in Bristol alone. It is estimated that if this goes ahead, it will affect 8 million in England.
Pensioners are warned they could lose their winter fuel allowance in the Autumn Budget. I am sure you will be comforted in the knowledge that Wes Streeting regrets this decision and has apologised to his constituents. Do you think they will forgive and forget?
However, Labour MP John McDonnell has warned, ‘A number of MPs had a meeting with agencies representing older people... they're saying this is a real risk that people will die as a result, as we have these excess deaths in winter’. Perhaps I am being overly cynical in thinking this would help hide the increasing numbers of excess deaths due to other causal events.
The Telegraph report that parents are rushing to give their wealth to their children in preference to having it taken by the Government said, ‘Families are rushing to give away their fortunes ahead of a suspected Labour inheritance tax raid. Firms said they have seen a “sudden rise” in queries about giving away wealth since the general election was called’.
Whatever our new Chancellor announces in her maiden budget, it isn’t going to be pleasant. My best advice is to prepare as best you can. Check your energy tariff ahead of the price hikes in October and make any necessary changes and adjustments, sooner rather than later. If the Met Office is anything to go by (tongue in cheek), it looks like an icy winter of Arctic blasts ahead, and it’s coming early. Woolly socks and cosy jumpers should be at the ready. Do you have any way to heat/light your home in the event of power cuts? Could you sustain yourself and your family for a minimum of two weeks, should the need arise?
NHS
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has announced two big shifts to reform the NHS.
- From hospital to community = your bedroom and remote care
- From analogue to digital = ultimate control using the NHS App as the key to digital hell
- From sickness to prevention = chemoprophylaxis and vaccination to healthy people
But how sick is the NHS? I would diagnose it as ‘dead’. Luckily for me, I don’t have to make that call. Professor Lord Darzi of Denham does. A former Labour Peer, he has been charged with conducting an examination and investigationto determine how broken it really is. For more information on who Lord Darzi is, please check out my blog dated 21 July 2024; he is a very busy man. I never cease to be amazed by our government, as any other investigation takes years, perhaps decades. However, Lord Darzi, himself a consultant surgeon, has managed to complete his investigation in just a few weeks, perhaps because a dead patient requires little care or attention.
I am guessing the public won’t be surprised when their treasured NHS is laid bare for all to see, lifeless and beyond resuscitation. Can we predict what will be revealed? Will it be the final nail in the coffin to a two-tiered health system and privatisation? Back to the past.
Children’s services are described as being in a deadly crisis, with more than 100,000 infants under two years old left waiting in A&E for more than six hours. This is wholly unacceptable. Lord Darzi has a cunning plan. You guessed it: increasing vaccinations and tackling childhood obesity. Remember the days in lockup when children were being bribedwith junk food to take the jab? Double standards.
I can also with confidence predict there will be more philanthropic public-private partnerships. Who will be treating you? Where will you be treated and how? Does this in any way resemble the NHS you pay for? Is this the NHS you want? Me neither.
Whatever the state of the NHS, it certainly didn’t need a Peer of the Realm to tell the public what our audience already knows. Has the NHS been deliberately dismantled and destroyed, right in front of our eyes, in plain sight? Yes.
UK Column Community Forums
A million thanks to all my regular readers and, yes, I do read all the comments in our members’ community forums. Very welcome they are, too. If you are not a member of UK Column, please consider joining us. We have a very well-researched expert community that create a sanctuary of sanity in this crazy world we live in. For just £5 a month, which is less than the cost of a pint, you’ll get access to not only the forums, but also a live chat box, a 10% discount in the UK Column Shop, and UK Column Extra, which is broadcast straight after the main news. There is plenty to do and discuss with likeminded souls. UK Column has no corporate sponsorships or advertising revenue; we rely entirely on your subscriptions and donations. Fancy joining the family? Click here. Thank you so much.
I would like to take this opportunity to share some of your [unedited] posts. In my last blog, I offered my hypothesis surrounding the word ‘spike’. Are we being spiked? Thanks for all your feedback. In the same blog, I also suggested to encourage others to delete the NHS App which is clearly the key to a ‘digital hell’. The Government are desperate for you to download it. What a dreadful headache it would give them if we all deleted it! Deleting it is free, easy, peaceful and legal. With the hashtags #ScrapTheApp and #AppTrap, my posts on X are starting to gain attention. Please followme @DebiEvansUKC.
Thank you firstly to Estar, a new member. Part of her lovely post follows. She is an old school nurse just like so many of us.
I phoned up my Drs for the first time in a year and a half, as I had a serious upper back injury, where I couldn’t breathe properly or move my arms or do much at all. Their cold response was to send me a link for back exercises, and when I looked I’d have to stick an app on my device in order to see said exercises.
Well, I’m not keen on Apps, space on device and all that, and phoned back to see if they could send me the exercises on a piece of paper, so I could hold paper while trying out exercises. The receptionist was very snotty; “Shall I write down that you refuse to upload the NHS App?” She said. “Oh no, that sounds far too negative” said I. “Okay, unwilling then” she said, so I explained holding a heavy tablet to read exercises when I couldn’t even hold a cup of tea wasn’t ideal, impossible even, but then I had to explain my old device just didn’t have the room to add anymore Apps to it, and I’d been deleting apps to make space, so technically, I couldn’t. [It sounded an intrusive thing to do], & my friend was horrified that that was their “care”, and decided not to bother phoning them about her hip or knee.
A few years ago it would have been physio, an examination or a test to see if it was a compression fracture or slipped disc. I just got sympathy off the GP initially, and when she phoned the 2nd time, it was “Dr says No”, to exercises on a paper sheet, which they’d given in the past. So no care! I bought a full back brace online, and looked up exercises for my back without uploading their nefarious app.
And how lovely to be reminded of how Nursing used to be, nurturing TLC, hands-on from the start, taught by serious nurses in the school of nursing, and I lived in the nurses accommodation for the 1st year in the hospital grounds, and we got a small monthly wage to keep us going… those were some of the best years in my life, especially the early 80’s. I remember when they brought in degrees running alongside traditional nurse training, and thought how stupid an idea it was; more so now with mega debts to pay. I loved being a Staff Nurse and a Sister, it was hard work, but it was a vocation too. Lots of handholding, patient care, bed baths and bed making.
As a patient a few years ago after a serious accident, I was amazed to be on the other side of the fence, and how much it’d changed. No bed baths, despite half my limbs on one side being in casts from multiple fractures; I was given a small bowl of water and synthetic thin cloths and expected to wash myself with one working arm (& leg). The curtains were hanging off, lots of nurse assistants who’d only had a week’s training, no real care, and in the trauma unit I had a bucket in my single cell, to collect rainwater leaking from the roof… there was quite a lot of bullying of vulnerable patients too, a lot of untrained staff on zero hours. I escaped after about a month still bedbound and paid for my own care. I also noticed how many drugs the staff tried to coerce patients to take, like laxatives when I didn’t need them, and a nasty injection into the stomach muscle “to stop blood clots”.. I soon said no way; they were very painful.
Luckily all this was 3 months before the pandemic was declared, it would have been a lot worse without my family’s support and bringing things in for me like mountain socks, my warm blankets, extra fruit, and buying things from the shop, taking me home, and no masks or stupid convid rules.
You had so much interesting stuff in your blog, I wish I could remember it better to comment on. I for one definitely don’t want an artificial robot to talk to that’s pretending to be a carer. I can’t even bare automated voices on the phone. And that’s another thing, I don’t have Wi-Fi on my old decrepid phone, so it doesn’t ping much. I’ve now lost my landline, which are being phased out in just over a year, and most of the time my mobile phone has a poor reception… we’re devolving! I don’t have apps on it, nor emails nor social media, so only texts and calls. And when I did go to the supermarket I went to a person checkout.. ..It’s so good to drive out and enjoy the rural scenery where I live, although I’ve constantly got to watch and dodge the potholes now. Life has definitely changed (for the worse) this decade. But there is some kickback. Cheers 😀
And my thanks to Raffiki, another of my nursing colleagues from the good old days, who was inspired to reply to Estar.
Dear Estar,
You have taken me down memory lane. I worked in the same position as you from 1981 until March 2020, when I handed in my Nursing & Midwifery Council Registration. I worked in Acute care (adults) in the NHS and then privately in the community for a dependent child with acute medical and physical needs.
Debi's blogs are so well researched and comprehensive. I am always grateful for her immense hours spent listening to the board meetings and her analysis, which is always spot on.
As Debi's blog has a theme this week of 'Spike' I would like to make comment on this regarding NHS England and its ongoing plans to transfer 'acute' care requirements from hospital to home.
With a huge increase now in investment with the biometric and medical device industry as well as the implementation of AI digital algorithms will our 'care' management and outcomes be in safe hands in our own homes? I fear not and I believe such a shift will result in a magnitude (Spikes) of emergency call outs from the patient and family and further increases (Spikes)in A&E visit. An acutely unwell and sick patient receives inpatient hospital care with appropriate nursing and medical input and intervention when changes are determined, without delay. Nursing is always about early recognition of any patient deterioration and we have always been trained that medical devices are tools only and not a replacement for the complete physical patient assessment. Senior support is readily available in the hospital assessment.
Many patients that are classified as 'Acute' are potentially very vulnerable to sudden deterioration and first line of treatment is oxygen via face mask. It would be foolish to make decisions virtually regarding the sharing of pulse oximetry (blood oxygen) levels without immediate physical patient examination. Do you think virtual care at home patients will have an oxygen cylinder at home. I think a risk assessment would determine 'no' and by the time a decision is made the patient may be in a decompensated condition; therefore requiring demand of the 999 service.
It appears that some virtual care at home services at present manage the patient from around 8am to 8pm. The unwell person will then require to consult the normal non-emergency and then emergency or A&E Dept. In the meantime our anxious patient and unpaid relatives will be making life changing decisions regarding changes in deterioration overnight, whilst the patient has monitoring devices in situ.
Appropriate nursing and medical intervention is fundamental to prevent life threatening events and ITU admissions. My question is will there be Spikes in increase in your local hospital ITU?
If we consent to Virtual Home 'Care' how may this affect an individual’s life insurance policy? Just asking.
Thank you, Raffiki. This is a very good question for which I have no definitive answer as of this writing. If anyone reading knows, please do let me know.
And, CJ, thank you for your brave post about the reality of the care your mum is getting in a nursing home. It would never have happened on my watch.
My mother (mid 90s) had a stroke at the start of the year, spending months in hospital. A few weeks after her stroke, she had a pacemaker fitted. She eventually left the hospital and is now in a nursing home and recently had her first pacemaker follow-up appointment. Having ascertained that it was working properly, the bulk of the appointment was spent in discussion between the nurse from the nursing home who accompanied her and the cardiologists about installing a remote monitor.
My mother is now linked up to this monitor which sits in her room. Allegedly it monitors the pacemaker full time(although how it manages that when she is not in her room...) and means that she won't need to go to the hospital for any more appointments. The constant monitoring has replaced the need for regular check ups and if an anomaly is picked up, the first contact will be carried out remotely.
She's now in a wheelchair so the journey to the hospital is an uncomfortable hour each way (the local hospital having closed its cardiac unit and transferred it here) so she sees it as a great idea.
The family sees it as constant monitoring and also think it's a great idea. I've tried to explain that it's only constant monitoring if someone is reading the results!
She recently complained of chest pains, when the staff called the ambulance, the first thing the paramedics asked was whether she was hooked up to this monitor, then they called the hospital and checked the results before declining to come out on the grounds that the monitor did not show any heart problems.
I see it as a relegation of 'treatment', removal of 'care' and dereliction of duty.
My heart aches for all of you.
And Finally
The next MHRA Board meeting will be live streamed on 17th September 10.00-12.30. Tickets are available here. Please join us. It may be Dame June Raine’s last!
Don’t wash your car with tap water in September. This is the advice from Consumer Council for Water. That is, of course, if you have a car to wash!
Imagine being lined up in the playground to have your skirt measured. That is exactly what happened at Ryde Academy. Girls waited for two hours to be measured, and some were sent home as their skirt was too short. Other complaints were made if PE kits were too tight. The girls felt it was degrading.
I’m really looking forward to meeting many of you at the UK Column On Location live event. Tickets are still available, but for how long?
Book recommendations
Fighting Goliath by Professor Norman Fenton and Martin Neil
Illuminati Agenda 21 by Dean and Jill Henderson
Until next time, don’t be scared, be prepared.
God Bless
Debi
Romans 5:1
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ
