Thread by @docrussjackson

Gaslighting sociopathic weapons grade windbag & UK Health Secretary, Thérèse Coffey, has patronised healthcare workers by telling them to “be positive” & avoid using policy wonk “jargon” as they grapple with job cuts & the deepening #CostOfLivingCrises.

ft.com/content/daa997…

Staff were told to avoid using “Oxford commas” — referring to the contested punctuation mark that precedes the last item on a written list.

The instructions — “New secretary of state ways of working preferences” — was published on the Dept of Health and Social Care’s intranet.

This has inevitably angered health workers, many of whom were on the front lines during the Covid pandemic & who now face real-terms pay cuts & added pressures as infection rates are expected to rise over the winter due to the Tory Government's deliberate #NHS underfunding.

Coffey’s office asked employees to “be precise” & “be positive — if we have done something good, let us say so & avoid double negatives”.

“ It does make you consider if you’re in the right place when a new minister comes in with this,” said one person with knowledge of the mood.

“The idea that we have to frame issues positively indicates a person who doesn’t want to deal with problems” they added.

Another senior public health official said they understood that staff would see the reference to Oxford commas, in particular, as “extremely patronising”.

The email has caused particular frustration among staff at the UK Health Security Agency, an executive agency of the Dept of Health & Social Care born out of Public Health England last year, the main agency in charge of dealing with outbreaks such as #Covid19, monkeypox, & polio.

UKHSA workers are “demoralised” after the government made substantial job cuts to fixed-term staff who were involved in outbreak control during the pandemic & having been warned that job cuts — of up to 70% in some departments — could seriously hinder its response to outbreaks.

Staff at UKHSA have been offered a one-off £350 payment in “recognition of the extraordinary efforts . . . over the past couple of years”, & some permanent staff at the health protection agency have been offered a 2.5% pay increase to help manage the rising #CostOfLivingCrises.

“After everything we have done to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, including extensive overtime working, including during bank holidays, we are getting pay increases that are way below current inflation rates.”

#EnoughIsEnough