As a consultant who looks after a big 28-30 bed ward all year round, year in year out, in addition to my committments on AMU/ take, the most important constant working relationship i have is with the charge nurse/sister

Ours is a bloody marvel!
So were his two predecessors Brian deals on a daily basis with staffing shortages/gaps (as is standard across NHS general and acute wards)

With so many patients who really need 1:1 or at least 1:2 for reasons of delirium/dementia or medical acuity

He is always "in the numbers" out of necessity

Interesting

I can't really wrangle a news story out of this, and i clearly won't get any on record quotes so i will just post it on line

I FOI'd @NHSEngland to ask them about the decision made a few months back to end access to @NHSPracHealth which has helped so many doctors remember @chrishopsonnhs sending tweets out saying that they had changed their minds and giver @NHSPracHealth a reprieve (in wake of all the outrage from medics)?

Well I FOI'd @NHSEngland to ask about their risk assessment/decision-making/comms processes re initial decision

@DrSteveTaylor @PhilSmithIsBack @mouseter_chef @HSJnews what happened is this
1. Time and time again, the royal colleges, speciality societies, faculties lobbied government agencies for increase in medical school places, increases in training numbers in their disciplines

2. Time and again they were told "No way" (except GP/Psych) @DrSteveTaylor @PhilSmithIsBack @mouseter_chef @HSJnews 3. Survey after survey of foundation/core training/ST grade doctors (including several from the RCP) as well as consultants/GPs showed that a major cause of stress/burnout/dissatisfaction was workload including time spent on admin tasks and away from direct patient care

@PhilSmithIsBack @mouseter_chef you are absolutely right that the top brass at the RCP (and other places with clout like NHSE) very suspicious of social media, don't *get* it and don't want to engage with it and this is one reason they ran into so much difficulty @PhilSmithIsBack @mouseter_chef i received repeated heavy-handed warnings that i should stay well clear of social media when running for PRCP and then again after i had won and how no good would come of it. Including an obviously staged conversation at a dinner

It is one reason i resigned

Thread:

Lots of traffic on here at the moment about @RCPhysicians and some possible takeover of senior officer roles after recent scandals and controversies

As a former Vice President, Trustee, Councillor (till 2019) and President-Elect i understand the charity's issues... It is absolutely the case that the RCP and other Medical Royal Colleges have a key role in

Policy influencing
Lobbying
Campaigning
Awareness Raising
Media
Social Media
Challenging/Speaking truth to power
Visible support for and engagement with members

But....

trying to separate/isolate/separate stream infected/infectious patients from non-infected ones in hospitals, GP waiting rooms and care homes is *not* "un-evidenced social distancing"

It is infection control policy to try and protect already vulnerable people and changing your hospital bed base to accommodate this, in the middle of pandemic respiratory virus surges and thence reducing overall available numbers and occupancy of general and acute beds by c 10% is not "hospitals are half empty" -

I realise that "data" is not the plural of "anecdote" but i have seen more cases in past few months than at any time in a 35 year NHS career of patients admitted with no acute medical issues but whose home has become totally uninhabitable and who are self-neglecting with no help Of course, in an idea world a community and housing/social care based response would be more appropriate but they default into acute hospital because nothing else can happen fast enough and left with no option and once they are in hospital they are stranded for weeks

amongst all the annoyance about Michelle Mone paying Mark Williams Thomas for a "get me off the hook" documentary re PPE shortages

I am far more angry at the national leaders and local NHS managers (many of them registered nurses and doctors by background)

They were culpable Who decided to downgrade the PPE specifications and deviate from WHO guidance (driven by shortages)?

Who failed to recognise the risk of airborne transmission and so only allowed high spec PPE for people working with aerosols (professional hubris/intransigence/complacency)?

experienced teacher in Times letters "the benign neglect of my childhood" vs "an intensity and selfishness that does kids no favours cos they will struggle in the real world"

Made me think. For me and many of my friends 70s/early 80s childhood *was* "benign neglect"

I loved it cos even from 11 or 12 i would be out playing unsupervised for hours, fishing, riding buses around manchester, going off to watch football at Maine Road/Cricket at Old Trafford, with no adults present. Going out to Peak district on train to go running. Going off on camping trips

#bbcqt very short odds indeed on @bbcquestiontime that one of the questions from the audience will be about the future of the NHS
and just like on #bbcaq last week, Kate Andrews will Shill for the private healthcare industry by saying we need an insurance/market model she deliberately forget to mention that perfectly good universal systems in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Malta, Sweden, Finland are tax based and others (e.g. Canada) have provincial insurance massively funded from central tax. And only mention Germany/Switzerland/Holland/France/Aus

The embargoed press release for the @NHSEngland Long Term Workforce Plan on Thursday was released 12 hours before the actual 151 page plan (which people had neither seen nor read at that point)

The gushing, cheerleading, uncritical praise in numerous quotes was a serious mistake It is unusual in the health policy/comms world to embargo the press release but then not even release the document it is referring to till hours later let alone to line up loads of people to comment who haven't yet seen the final document