Today, the Government have scrapped their pledge to reform the Mental Health Act.

More than six years of reports, campaigning and hard work has gone down the drain.

Read my thread below: Last year, I sat on the Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Health Bill.

There was overwhelming cross-party support for reforming the Act.

To this day, the Government has failed to respond to the committee's recommendations.

https://twitter.com/DrRosena/status/1583744714016055297

"I like to paint. Or I make things. I have a thing where I make models of buses. What I make is, I get old, I don’t know, wooden crates, and I paint them." 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩 "I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes." 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

Today in Tooting, a Met Police Team were stopping fast food delivery drivers and checking immigration status under the guise of 'Covid compliance'.

Covid compliance is crucial to stop the spread, but it doesn't explain why Immigration Enforcement were in attendance. I don't think there's been full transparency with the public about the reasons for conducting such an operation - and I certainly disagree with police time being used to prop-up the Home Office's hostile environment policies.

Because multiple cases of the South African variant have been found in Wandsworth, everyone is asked to get a specific PCR test.

It is being run centrally by the Government's Test and Trace service and it's so appalling, that I fear for its effectiveness. Firstly, Tooting has approximately 105,000 residents, but capacity at the only Tooting PCR testing site is less than 700 a day - which would take us 5 months to test everyone this way.

This needs to be rapidly scaled up. Urgently.

If you’re breaking rules to celebrate tonight then you are putting others at risk, as well as yourself. Please stay at home, stay safe!

Here’s a visual representation of how many people died of COVID in the last 24 hours:

👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤

Over the last decade, Wandsworth Conservative Council has spent over £2million on publicity, an FOI has revealed.

That's the equivalent of 870,000 free school meals.

Pass it on. Figures:
2010-11: £281,845
2011-12: £180,112
2012-13: £100,672
2013-14: £131,387
2014-15: £225,478
2015-16: £273,385
2016-17: £249,491
2017-18: £276,249
2018-19: £201,095
2019-20: £85,288

Covid testing troubles thread:

I’ve been contacted by a parent who’s been trying to book a Covid test for her family but getting nowhere. The system is a joke and it’s causing chaos.
1/5 Two kids, at different schools. The youngest has developed a cough, the oldest is fine but has his mock exams in two weeks which will probably decide his GCSE grades.

Mum’s been trying to book a test, they’re happy to drive...
2/5

10 quotes from Tony Abbott, who has just been appointed as a trade envoy by our Government.

This man is now representing our country around the world. Out of all the talent on offer - he is the best our Government could come up with. On women: "What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it's going to go up in price and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up."

CARE FOR CARERS:
Today, we're launching our proposal to set up a mental health support service for all health and care staff. It'll give more than 3 million staff access to a fast-tracked system.

Let me explain why... Throughout this pandemic, frontline NHS and care staff have been in an unenviable position – they have been fearful of going to work, redeployed to new, unfamiliar departments and have lost patients – they have also lost colleagues.

Thread:

I am not alert. I am alarmed.

(1) The softening of lockdown language and anonymous briefings to the papers, has meant that the damage is already being done. What we saw over the weekend worries me no-end. The future for our country is increased infections and more avoidable death.

(2)

Thread on testing:

Government Ministers were hell bent on hitting the testing target by any means necessary. The scattergun approach wasn’t sensible and isn’t long lived - driven by a desire to prove others wrong, instead of doing the right thing.

1/5 They were under pressure because the overall Govt response was slow from the start, so they panicked and set an arbitrary target with no real plan to credibly achieve it.

2/5

Based on everything which has happened recently, here's my coronavirus thread/action plan: 1. We need mass-testing. We do not know the true extent of the spread of this pandemic.

Anti-Semitism: A thread. 1:
I travelled to Israel and Palestine earlier this year, working as a doctor, with the aim of finding out what issues Palestinians (especially from Gaza) currently face with accessing hospital treatment.

1/4

I visited the West Bank and Jerusalem recently and spoke on @BBCR4Today about the cruel and inhumane permit system which means children in hospital can't be accompanied by their parents. 2/4

This premature baby's mother had to return to Gaza after giving birth to triplets. Sadly, two of the babies died in hospital - their parents were told over the phone.

Only this week was the mother issued a permit to collect her baby - months after she was ready to go home.