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Dr Julia Grace Patterson 💙 Profile picture
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20 Feb, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Millions of us, millions, feel outraged by our government’s behaviour. Feel unrepresented. Feel unheard in the media

Parliament is not holding this government to account effectively. Traditional organisations (certainly within medicine) are not doing enough. Our establishment...
...our trade unions, our representative bodies, are failing us. And they’ve been failing us for years. Let me use healthcare as an example.

In the past 5 years, nurse student bursaries have been removed. Healthcare workers on visas pay thousands even to work in the NHS...
...which relies upon them and is 100,000 staff short. There are 6.5 billion in unmet NHS repairs. The pensions are a disaster (some doctors PAYING to work extra shifts due to the crazy taxation). And almost 900 of our colleagues have died on the COVID-19 frontline...
Many of whom had no PPE. Where is the outrage? Where is the advocacy? Where is the noise?

The noise comes from the new, fledgling organisations springing up. @GoodLawProject, @nurses_united, @EveryDoctorUK, @TheDA_UK

Back the new things.
The new things have your back💙

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More from @JujuliaGrace

Dr Julia Grace Patterson 💙 Profile picture
20 Feb
Since last Summer, the government have managed lockdowns based on the ability of the NHS to ‘cope’ with a burden of sickness and death. They haven’t tried to eliminate sickness and death. Last summer they instructed many hospitals to create ‘surge capacity’. This is essentially..
Some extra ICU beds. No extra ICU staff (we’re short of those), but extra beds. They like to say that the NHS has ‘coped’ because they incorporate these surge beds in their numbers.

Firstly, the NHS has not coped. We had far more ICU patients than these surge beds could hold...
Secondly we didn’t have enough ICU staff. The staff have done heroic things, but at times there have been 4 patients to every 1 ICU nurse (it should be 1:1).

Thirdly, we shouldn’t be managing a pandemic by judging whether there are enough beds to house the sick and dying...
Read 4 tweets
Dr Julia Grace Patterson 💙 Profile picture
15 Feb
Hello! In case you’re following me but don’t know my ‘story’, here it is!

I’m Julia, I’m a doctor. Qualified in 2010. Started running national political campaigns in 2015 with Dr Georgina Wood (@DrMusical). We campaigned for the NHS, and doctors’ working rights. At the time...
@Jeremy_Hunt was stripping junior doctors of safe working hours. Feels like a lifetime ago now. We didn’t have enough clout or resource to oppose the government successfully. But we caught the campaign bug. We realised we needed better methods to capture energy from medics...
So we started the Facebook group “The Political Mess”, for medical activism, for all UK doctors. We realised that lots of excellent doctors involved in campaigning were burning out because of the sheer energy needed to campaign while...
Read 10 tweets
Dr Julia Grace Patterson 💙 Profile picture
10 Feb
Our exposure of what was happening in a London hospital before New Year was (we believe) one of the dominant forces pushing the government to lockdown the UK. The media knew what was going on, but had no proof. Someone whistleblew to @EveryDoctorUK, and we took the story to...
the press. I don’t think any doctor could have received that information, of inadequate safe staffing levels, as COVID cases escalated, and simply sat on it. I recognise that the information was shocking, and for staff locally, our exposure caused upset and stress...
I won’t deny that, and I was wracked with guilt towards those staff members as the story exploded in the press. I’m still conflicted. How do you balance the responsibility towards one hospital’s reputation against your concerns for the entire population when lockdown wasn’t...
Read 6 tweets
Dr Julia Grace Patterson 💙 Profile picture
1 Feb
In my role as @EveryDoctorUK Chief Exec, I represent 1650 doctors. And (this is a little personal), that’s a tough job because our members hold me to account very successfully. They are a group of articulate, vocal, intelligent people. The only reason I can lead EveryDoctor...
...is because of a massive group of people advising and instructing and feeding back. And we’re small and we’re learning, and together we’re building something strong. I never worry when doctors are vocal; that feedback is very necessary, it keeps us on course....
..but I’m worried now, because doctors have become quieter. NHS staff are tired, they’re under so much pressure. They’ve been under this pressure and it’s not letting up.

If you have any opportunity to show NHS staff kindness, and support, please do that. Please...
Read 4 tweets
Dr Julia Grace Patterson 💙 Profile picture
30 Jan
I was trolled horrifically for a week around New Year. I struggled to eat or sleep for a week. And now I’ve recovered, and built my confidence back up, I’d like to say something.

Do you know what type of person it takes to put a hard-fought medical career on hold, to lobby...
for others’ protection? Do you know what it takes to take a £50k loss of earnings, which will affect you and your young family? Do you know what it takes to build a cross-party coalition of 104 MPs during a pandemic?...
It takes absolute humility, and the ability to see beyond yourself, and the ability to listen, and the ability to pick up the phone to absolutely anyone in order to fight for protections for NHS staff. It takes stomaching feedback from everywhere, constantly, and taking it..
Read 4 tweets
Dr Julia Grace Patterson 💙 Profile picture
30 Dec 20
THREAD (1/3): I’ve just found out that one region in the UK has paused all vaccinations for a week, because they cannot find the staff 😮. This is because the government have not adequately supported NHS staff- the vaccine programme is a huge, largely unsupported effort.
(2/3) Many GP practices for example are very over-stretched, with staff working extra shifts and pulling out all the stops to deliver vaccines. However, with cases spiralling, the government need to step up and support by providing trained staff (perhaps by enlisting the army).
(3/3) I’m hearing that NHS staff in the area with paused vaccines are desperately worried about vulnerable patients and are scrabbling for solutions. As soon as I know more, I’ll tweet. Watch this space. 💥🚨@EveryDoctorUK
Read 5 tweets

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