6 years ago, when I got an offer for medical school, I was told I’d have a job for life.

Weekly, I hear of people that can’t get doctors appointments, or two year waitlists.

Doctors in their thousands are getting rejected for jobs, and today I was one of them. A 🧵. Before you say, oh, you must not be competitive, I scored over average in the exam, plus 289 in 1/2 sections which typically around less than 10% achieve. I have presented at national conferences, publications, ran my own teaching programme, am conducting an audit, and in good standing with the GMC.

I routinely talk about how poor the NHS has become as doctor delivered care seems to be becoming a thing of the past, and how broken the NHS is.

But now I’ve seen it on the side of a patient. I spent last night in A&E after someone I care a lot about got inadequate care and wasn’t able to see a doctor at any point prior. Im furious on his behalf. A 🧵. On Friday night he started to feel feverish and had flank pain, dysuria (pain on urination), frequency and urgency.

This is all very convincing of pyelonephritis, and needs urgent treatment.

He went on until 2am when I told him to ring 111, as he really did not feel right. They told him he needed care within 2 hours. 2 hours came and passed. No call.

If you care about the future of the NHS you best buckle in.

I’m a doctor. I’ve been trying to tell you all that NHS/gov intend to use physician associates with two year degrees to replace doctors.

Well I found proof in official NHS documents. A 🧵 (it gets worse) Charlie Massey (I’ll let you google who he worked with before the GMC) wrote to NHS England stating that he wanted them to assure doctors in UK that they weren’t using PAs to replace doctors. Despite this being in official minutes.

NHS England haven’t given a response.

Putting the government in charge of the NHS is like putting foxes in charge of guarding the hen house.

I’m going to describe a problem to you all that is important for your health, your families health and the countries health.

And people need to act today because time is running out. Yesterday, legislation started to be laid to allow physician associates (individuals with only two years of medical training) to be regulated by the GMC. They are currently unregulated. Doesn’t sound too bad? Stick with me.

The GMC only regulates doctors. That’s context number one.

I’m a doctor. A 🧵

I drive to work. I pass a GP surgery where at 07:30AM patients are queuing outside in the cold, waiting for it to open so they can get an appointment. 6579 applications from qualified doctors to enter GP training got rejected this year.

Next, I get to work. Once I’m at work I see patients lying the corridors outside A&E, and patients ‘boarded’ on wards (an extra patient in the middle of the room in bays), with a screen round them for privacy. I remember that I was not trained to deliver care in this way. Neither were the nurses.

I see some wards struggling.

Why are med Twitter doctors so upset?

This is going to be a very messy 🧵 . I’ve been thinking about it for a while.

Let me start by saying
- I do not blame PAs/ACPs or have anything against them individually. They’ve made an objectively smart decision.
- I do not blame employers/GPs who’s lives have been made easier. Told you this would be messy.

We’re at this point where our training is becoming to seem redundant. But if all these people can take our locums, plug our rota gaps, then why doesn’t it work the other way round? This is especially important when the doctor is often paid less.

Hi! Last week our favourite right wing rag, the @MailOnline , wrote a front page exclusive hit piece on me.

Why me? Er… well no ones really sure. I’m not a doctor. I wasn’t on strike.

No doubt it was designed to keep me quiet. No chance. Let’s hit piece the hit piece. 🎯 🧵. Whilst I admire the Daily Mails commitment to gutter journalism, but I will simply have to right some wrongs:

👩🏻‍🎓 I’m not a doctor. I can’t strike. I can’t picket people. How I therefore joined a ‘junior doctor walk out’ in March is beyond me.
🐝 I do not somehow live in… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

It’s time to re-galvanise people for #LiveableNHSBursary. A recap thread 🧢. So - what’s the problem? Medical students in their fifth year or fifth/sixth year of study (when the most clinically useful) receive a drastic, and inexcusable drop in their student funding. They go from a full SFE maintenance loan of up to £9706, to this suddenly dropping to £1975 maximum for the year. They are then given an NHS bursary of £3643 maximum - but only for eligible students. (There is an extra weeks allowance). Let me put this into context for you.

After a traumatic Christmas, being hospitalised just before exams due to bad MH (hugely added to by financial pressures), I found out I passed all my exams yesterday. I want to explain to the public something they might not understand. A long but IMPORTANT 🧵 #LiveableNHSBursary I got a strong over average on practical exams. In my knowledge based exam I got 67%. A very strong pass. Here’s the clincher: I’m ranked 255th out of 350th students. We get a ranking for every written exam. This ranking directly contributes to the jobs we get.