💙 Claire 💙

RNLD & SCPHN | Mama of Boys | NHS Activist | Proud @Nursesayno Rabble Rouser | #VoteReject

[Dr Andrew Meyerson @AndrewMeyerson]

Dear @VictoriaAtkins,

Welcome to X and to your new role as UK Health Secretary. It’s been said that the role of Health Secretary is a “poisoned chalice” so here’s my best advice for you in your new job: stop poisoning the cup.

Your Conservatives inherited the #1 ranked healthcare system in the world and because of your party’s criminal-grade negligence, our NHS is now performing among the worst in Europe.

Patients are waiting longer than ever before to see a GP, get a diagnostic test, get an ambulance, be seen in A&E, be admitted to hospital, receive social care, or have their cancer diagnosed and treated. Mental healthcare is a tragedy. Our hospitals are falling apart with the same dangerous aerated concrete that’s in our schools. NHS clinicians waste hours just waiting for our computers to start.

The situation has become so dire in emergency medicine that 500 patients are dying every single week — that’s 25,000 deaths in 2023 alone — from preventable delays accessing NHS emergency care. Those 25,000 people would still be alive had it not been for your party’s terrible decisions.

But the worst part about your collapse of the NHS and the hundreds of thousands of people killed because of this negligence, was that it was intentional. This wasn’t an accident. It was all by design.

Your @Conservatives engineered this tragedy to drive more people into private healthcare, holding patients hostage on a painful never-ending waiting list, forcing the most desperate to take on medical debt or empty their life savings to pay out of pocket for care that used to be rapid, accessible, and free for all.

This has been catastrophic for public health and the wider economy, leading to record numbers of people unable to work due to infirmity.

The facts are clear: Your @Conservatives engineered the greatest assault on public health in the NHS’ 75 years by gutting NHS resources, denying us £400b in funding over a decade, funnelling record amounts of NHS money into the private sector, failing catastrophically to plan for the pandemic, wasting shocking amounts of taxpayer money during the pandemic, and all throughout this government has taken the hard work and sacrifice of our amazing NHS staff for granted.

We NHS staff have never felt more abandoned by our government. You cannot expect us to continue working in a system you are intentionally collapsing, cutting our pay by 25-35% for our nurses, junior doctors, and consultants. You have allowed the system to hurt so many of us that it’s no wonder that we’re seeing record numbers of our colleagues leaving the NHS, either by suicide, or by airplane to other countries where our labour is respected and valued.

So how do we fix this mess? The answer is not more of your party’s terrible ideas. The answer is to start listening to healthcare experts who unanimously agree: the NHS has been starved of its funding, beds, staff, and social care needs for far too long. Each one of these issues is a national security crisis that needs an urgent solution.

So it’s time to start listening to experts and fix the damage your party has inflicted on our health.

It’s time to fix our staffing crisis and deliver safe staffing every single day for patients by valuing our labour and addressing our staff retention crisis.

Because if you don’t — if you continue to ignore our expert advice — you’ll see all 1.5m NHS staff on the picket line, and the public will stand firmly with us, because while you fight for billionaires and sell off our NHS for profit, patients know we’re standing up for them, fighting for their care, and protecting their NHS for the next generation.

Madame Health Secretary, I promise you today: We will not rest until our patients, our colleagues, and our NHS is safe. Do the right thing and start listening. Good luck.

#SOSNHS #DoctorsStrike #PayRestoration

[Resident Doctors @BMAResidents]

📢 STRIKE DATES ANNOUNCEMENT📢 Junior doctors in England to take further #PayRestoration industrial action.

The first strike action will take place from 7am on 20 December to 7am on 23 December. The second will take place from 7am on 3 January until 7am on 9 January.

[💙 Claire 💙 @ClaireRNLD]

RESIGN @markjenkinsonmp

[Harry Eccles @Heccles94]

Hi Twitter

This is @markjenkinsonmp

He has edited footage of a nurse to mislead the public

He then brags about it and goads the frontline NHS Nurse when she calls out his lies

He has no respect for Nurses, or for his constituents.

If you think he should resign, please RT.

[Holly @SocialistHB]

This man in a position of power, in public office continues to harass me and twist my personal story to fit his narrative.

I am a working class woman and I’ll always speak up for myself, my colleagues and my patients.

I’d say ‘do better’, but think he’s lost a cause.

[Dr Andrew Meyerson @AndrewMeyerson]

To the person who tore down the signs outside of our hospital at 4:15am, we have you on CCTV and the police are aware.

We won’t be intimidated to stop the #DoctorsStrike and we will not rest until our patients, our colleagues, and our NHS is safe.

#SOSNHS

[NHS Workers Say NO! @NurseSayNO]

Go Holly 👊

Saying it how it is.

This government are insulting all NHS workers.

We welcome minimal service levels. We want them every day! This government is failing our NHS!

We wil keep on fighting for our NHS 👊

Are you with us?

[💙 Claire 💙 @ClaireRNLD]

@RobbieN30510844 @CEmWilliams @MSEHospitals @GingerGeek75 @celinewilding Thank you! We couldn’t do this without you! 💙

[Charlotte Williams (also on Bluesky) @CEmWilliams]

WINNERS! @MSEHospitals #InnovateAwards well done @ClaireRNLD @GingerGeek75 @celinewilding #TeamMSE 🏆

[BBC Question Time @bbcquestiontime]

“Patients are at risk every single day of the week… people are dying in the back of ambulances and this cannot go on”

This #bbcqt audience member, a nurse, says she will continually vote to strike “for patient safety”

#bbcqt https://t.co/353mzsH2lN

[NHS Workers Say NO! @NurseSayNO]

Every Time Rishi blames NHS workers for his own failings, it makes NHS workers more inclined to strike.

NHS workers have seen pay losses of 20-35% since 2008, and vacancies are higher than ever.

This trend cannot continue.

#SOSNHS

[Harry Eccles @Heccles94]

Today @RishiSunak claimed that waiting lists hit 7.7 Million due to industrial action by NHS workers.

Well that is a lie. Tory mismanagement is the cause.

RT if you think Rishi should apologise the NHS workers fighting to save the NHS.

#SOSNHS

[Dr Julia Grace Patterson💙 @JujuliaGrace]

If you think this government are to blame for the failures in the NHS, please retweet this. They are pointing the finger at hard-working NHS staff and we need to send Rishi Sunak a message!🚨

[💙 Claire 💙 @ClaireRNLD]

Solidarity with #consultants and #juniordoctors today as they strike together!

#JuniorDoctorsStrike #ConsultantStrike #NHSCrisis

[💙 Claire 💙 @ClaireRNLD]

@Heccles94 I don’t trust them with a single thing.

[💙 Claire 💙 @ClaireRNLD]

@RishiSunak You’re either mistaken, deluded, or a Liar.

[💙 Claire 💙 @ClaireRNLD]

💙

[NHS Workers Say NO! @NurseSayNO]

🚨 Statement from NHS Workers Say NO!

[💙 Claire 💙 @ClaireRNLD]

Solidarity with educators! 💙

[NHS Workers Say NO! @NurseSayNO]

NEU Members you know what to do.

Launch your #VoteReject campaign.

6% from existing budgets is NOT good enough and will fix NOTHING.

We’re with you all the way ✊

#NEU

[💙 Claire 💙 @ClaireRNLD]

How proud am I of @JaneGilby?! At our @MSEHospitals #MSEShineAwards she’s has just been awarded ‘Outstanding Achievement’ for her amazing contributions to #Dementia Care!

Well deserved! 💙

[Dr Andrew Meyerson @AndrewMeyerson]

Dear @Telegraph & @DailyMailUK,

For the last 13 years, you have enabled the Tories' devastating assault on our healthcare, serving as lead cheerleaders for policies that have harmed our patients, our colleagues, and our NHS. You have poisoned the country's minds for far too long, and now that you are attacking our colleagues, we've had enough.

2/3 of the public still firmly support us striking NHS workers — not the corrupt govt you so readily defend — and now that you are losing the battle of public opinion, you are desperately going after my colleagues to find any way to smear us. We're not going to tolerate it any longer.

While successive Tory governments dismantled and destroyed NHS services, you did your job of manufacturing consent for their harmful policies from Austerity 1.0 and 2.0 to the 2012 and 2022 health care bills — pieces of legislation that faced near universal opposition from health experts and all of the Royal Colleges — and you enabled those policies to succeed, because what you do isn't journalism for the public good, it's propaganda for the government's wealthy friends.

You then manufacture outrage with myths about NHS managers, immigrants, and NHS funding, never questioning those in govt who intentionally defunded and dismantled the formerly #1 ranked healthcare system of this great country in order to drive more people into private healthcare.

Alongside Tory govt ministers, your publications bear significant responsibility for the NHS crisis we now face. With your cheerleading, patients are now suffering on the longest GP, A&E, cancer, and outpatient waiting lists in NHS history at 7.4 million people long. 500 patients are now dying every single week due to preventable delays accessing NHS emergency care — with over 13,000 dead patients thus far in 2023 alone — all because of Tory policy failures that you championed and you enabled.

We are now suffering through the worst crisis in NHS history — one that your newspapers helped engineer — and because you are so morally bankrupt, even with alarming staff suicide rates, your editors think it's okay to attack my burnt out frontline NHS colleagues, defending billionaires instead of doing real reporting that is in the public interest of our patients.

You could elucidate to your readers why those 13,000 people are dead, or where the billions stolen from the public purse during COVID can be found, or how no one can see an NHS dentist, or how our mental health crisis has let down a generation of children and families, or how the govt still hasn't fixed the broken social care system, or you could investigate how many A&E departments have been closed in the last decade, or how many beds have been shut, or you could look at how much NHS funding goes into the pockets of private companies and never reaches patients, or how govt policy in a dozen other areas has harmed public health, but no, you choose to attack my friend Holly and our colleagues to try and find any way to discredit us.

Holly Turner has more integrity in her little toe than you've got among your entire staff — and certainly among your editorial boards — and we won't sit by and watch as you attack her for sport.

And so to the editors of the Telegraph and Daily Mail: We are not afraid of you. You are mouthpieces for a govt that will go down as one of the most corrupt in our lifetimes and your influence is waning rapidly. It's time to keep Holly's name out of your mouth. It's time to stop cheering the arsonists who are burning down our NHS, and it's especially time for you to stop gaslighting the public into believing that their neighbourhood looks better on fire.

You have never been on the side of patients and you never will be. And no one in the UK who wants reliable and honest information about NHS policy should trust anything that's written in your newspapers.

We fight for our patients. You fight for our billionaires. I think the public knows who to trust.

#SOSNHS #PayRestoration #NHS75

[Dr Andrew Meyerson @AndrewMeyerson]

Dear 🇬🇧,

We junior doctors are set to launch the longest period of industrial action in NHS history as we go on strike for 5 consecutive days from 13 July. Striking is always a last resort but it's an absolute necessity right now. Here's why.

Your NHS is collapsing because we don't have enough funds, staff, beds, and social care. We are in this position because we have a government that for the last 13 years intentionally engineered this crisis to push more people into private healthcare — never to improve your care, we all know that hasn't happened — but to profit from the breakup and privatisation of the NHS.

13 years ago, this government inherited the #1 ranked healthcare system in the world and look what damage they've done. You are now suffering on the longest waiting lists in NHS history at 7.4m people long. You are waiting longer than ever before to see a GP, to be seen in A&E, to get cancer care, or to get a hip replacement.

All of these delays means that you and your family are not safe RIGHT NOW, even when not a single NHS worker is on strike.

To illustrate just how bad the situation has become, an estimated 500 patients are dying every single week from preventable delays accessing NHS emergency care — that's now 12,500 dead patients so far in 2023 alone — and a huge contributor to those deaths is a lack of staff in every single part of the system.

People are dying at home, on the backs of delayed ambulances, or in overcrowded A&E departments here in the 6th wealthiest country in the world. This is nothing short of criminal grade negligence from those in power for the last 13 years and you and your family, and all of my NHS colleagues, are paying the price.

This is what it comes down to: This government does not give a damn about NHS patients or staff, and is content to allow your family and our colleagues to suffer while they bleed the NHS dry to support a growing private healthcare system for the wealthy, while working people suffer in a crumbling NHS. Rapid care for the rich. Delayed and denied care for the rest of us.

So I ask you this: If our colleagues are leaving the profession in record numbers because our pay has been cut by nearly 32% in the last 15 years, if we're leaving in record numbers because it's become far too difficult to work in the NHS that is collapsing around us, if we're leaving in record numbers because far too many of our colleagues are killing themselves because it's too painful to watch our patients suffer from a government that has completely abandoned us all, then what should we do?

In this situation, do we stay silent and watch people die? Do we stay silent as this government destroys your access to high quality healthcare? Do we stay silent as our colleagues take their own lives? Do we stay silent as they destroy our professions and force us all to leave the country?

We NHS staff have a moral obligation to protect our patients, protect our professions, protect our colleagues, protect our communities, protect our NHS, and fight back in any way possible.

If that means going on strike to highlight these problems and fight for the future of the NHS, then so be it. Indeed it's the most patriotic thing we can do.

#SOSNHS