The People’s Care Watchdog

This campaign has been set up by families to hold public bodies to account and create new systems of care that really care. #WeCare

[The People’s Care Watchdog @CareWatchdog]

https://t.co/0qbzUdDVKJ It's time to look this straight on and collectively bring about positive change

[UsForThemUK 🌟 @UsforThemUK]

Two stories dropped tonight each of which is the culmination of three years of investigative and legal work by the UsForThem team.

🚨MAIL ON SUNDAY: Over £200 million of undeclared potential conflicts of interest at the heart of the key UK pandemic advisory committee.

🚨SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: The UK Government's ethics committee was silenced in 2021 after raising serious concerns about lockdowns and vaccination policy.

We reported these scandals to the Covid Inquiry, in 2023, 2024 and then again earlier this year, giving it access to the paper trails and evidence we had collected, yet it has chosen to do and say nothing about either.

More to follow.

https://t.co/aCw4HlgiQD

https://t.co/7RG6aG0Aon

@lensiseethrough @nomad_dissident @jblovatt

[Together @Togetherdec]

NEW: Livestream next Thursday 31 July, 7pm

UK Covid Inquiry Care Sector Module: What was covered - and what was covered up?

Join us for free online livestream with expert speakers

Save the date and time:
7.00pm - 8.30pm, next Thursday 31 July

More info to follow

[The People’s Care Watchdog @CareWatchdog]

Our submission to the C 19 inquiry is in! Thank you to all the families who found the strength to take part, for the small team of volunteers who gathered evidence and wrote long into the night and to @hodgejonesallen for 5 years of incredible support. Here's to accountability.

[Nikki da Costa @nmdacosta]

Dignity in Dying keeps changing its position. It says whatever is convenient at a particular moment. It then deletes evidence from its website. And thinks MPs are so supportive/stupid/busy to notice.

[Danny Kruger @danny__kruger]

This morning the Leadbeater Bill committee voted to let Clause 1 go through unamended - having rejected safeguards to protect the mentally ill, disabled people, those influenced or encouraged by others or those seeking assisted suicide to save their family money. We were told at 2R the committee would improve and strengthen the bill. Not so far.

[Prof Katherine Sleeman @kesleeman]

Palliative care can alleviate the wish for a hastened death.

I am beyond shocked that the committee voted against this amendment.

[Prem Sikka @premnsikka]

30%-40% of public money given to England's care homes vanishes in profits, little left for frontline services.

Almost all care homes forcibly closed between 2011 and 2023 were operated by for-profit companies.

Profits and care can't be combined.

Watch the Minister's reply.

[Together @Togetherdec]

ASSISTED SUICIDE: "If this becomes legislation, it will drive us into the abyss" @Amanda_M_Hunter

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill risks the safety and rights of disabled people, the elderly, and those with chronic health conditions

Get involved⬇️

[Eileen Chubb @CompassnInCare]

Our 3rd report on #AssistedDyingBill will be published really soon, as a result of watching the process of this bill, we are calling for bills that that involve life & death issues such as #AssistedSuicideBill & #whistleblowing to never proceed via route of Private Members Bill's. These issues are way too important. Also, the #APPG system often spawns such bills, & this system is undemocratic & mired in vested interest cash. Lots more information to come shortly on this.

[National Down Syndrome Policy Group @NDSPolicyGroup]

Our open letter supported by 62 groups across UK representing interests of disabled people highlights need for cautious, inclusive & comprehensive examination of assisted dying proposals https://t.co/YggSHj0d1V

[Dr. Michael B. Riordan @michael_riordan]

Can we get over this ‘I agree with assisted dying in principle’ thing? If we were living in a perfect world, where doctors didn’t kill patients, where relatives didn’t exercise coercive control, where disabled people were equal citizens, and where elderly people weren’t made to feel like a burden, then of course nobody would be against assisted dying. But, in such a world, we wouldn’t need laws, because everyone would be perfect and able to regulate their own behavior. Societies make laws precisely because they recognize that people are fallible: few people may be truly evil, but all of us make mistakes. Of course, it was badly constructed homicide law that prompted Starmer as and other Directors of Public Prosecutions to support AD. But bad laws work both ways: There have been too many cases of medical malfeasance and malpractice in this country, of which Harold Shipman is just the tip of the iceberg; too many husbands, like David Clarke, murdering their wives ‘out of compassion’, it is inevitable that some will use assisted dying for the wrong reasons, whether malicious or misguided. So, if we are to legalize assisted dying, preventing abuse should not be some optional extra tagged on at some late stage in some Parliamentary subcommittee, it should be at the very heart of the legislative process. What alarms me about @KimLeadbeater and her colleagues on the assisted dying committee is that they are so uninterested in trying to use their law to prevent abuse.

[Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth]

Sky have done a report on the shocking state of care homes across the country and govt health minister Karin Smyth says she can't answer questions on it because she doesn't know about the report.

Except it turns out Sky gave details of the report to her team yesterday.

[Rustler @TheRustler83]

🚨🚨 9 times out of 10 Care Home residents were prescribed ‘End of Life’ medication during Lockdown

What followed was 5,000 deaths in just 10 weeks at Scottish Care Homes and 50,000 in England…..

[Dan Hitchens @ddhitchens]

14. Ruth Hughes, barrister specialising in mental capacity and inheritance.

“If the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is passed, then this will lead to some of the most vulnerable people dying for others’ financial gain. That is certain…

“It is surprisingly easy for a relative, whilst completing a variation on ‘the classic asset strip’, to persuade themselves that they are actually acting in their aunt Dorothy’s best interests or in accordance with her wishes or what would be her wishes if only she properly understood.”

[Dan Hitchens @ddhitchens]

Kim Leadbeater’s witness list was 80%-20% in favour of the bill’s supporters.

9 lawyers were invited (6 pro, 3 neutral), alongside 8 witnesses from other jurisdictions (all pro), academics, medics, etc.

But who *didn’t* receive an invitation? Here’s an incomplete list:

[Dan Hitchens @ddhitchens]

1. The British Geriatrics Society.

“The BGS is opposed to the legalisation of Assisted Dying…Our assessment is that the risk for safeguard failure is at least moderate in a modern, well-run AD service which we find to be unacceptable when considering the needs of older people.”

[Dan Hitchens @ddhitchens]

7. Paddy Stone, Professor Emeritus of Palliative and End of Life Care at UCL.

“My research demonstrates that there is no reliable way to identify patients with less than six or twelve months to live... At least, no method that would be reliable enough to act as any sort of ‘safeguard’ for the proposed assisted dying legislation.”

[Dan Hitchens @ddhitchens]

12. Cara Bailey, Professor of End of Life Care at Birmingham University.

“The proposed safeguards are not sufficient to protect the vulnerable, particularly those who are older, frail and dependent...people will feel helpless and a burden, and...will utilise the AD request.”

[Right To Life UK @RightToLifeUK]

A palliative care doctor debunks myths about assisted suicide live on Channel 4❌🩺

[Nikki da Costa @nmdacosta]

Lewis Atkinson MP's 'gotcha'. Witness has none of it.

👏Prof Allan House, Emeritus Professor of Liaison Psychiatry, Uni of Leeds:

"The bill just asks is this person able to make decisions. ...It doesn't cover psychological and social assessment"

Why so against this?!