Callum 🦀

Liver fan account.

[Callum 🦀 @MRCPWood]

@ALucieSmith I was hoping this was the cover of your next book!

[Dr Melissa Ryan 🦀 @Melissa_S_Ryan]

The BMA has grave concerns regarding the new draft order that it will continue doctor substitution and not reduce patient harm.

Read our reply here and take the time to fill the consultation asap
https://t.co/r26fjadhbc

[Dr Melissa Ryan 🦀 @Melissa_S_Ryan]

Doctors, sign the petition today!

The medical reform needs a serious rethink. We’re calling for:
- separate registers for PAs and reduction of blurred lines
- title protection for doctors
- no increase in the GMC powers of appeal
- new powers for PSA to demand info when needed

[Dr Melissa Ryan 🦀 @Melissa_S_Ryan]

They told us APs weren’t replacing doctors, yet the FOIs showed they were.

5000 doctors have shared their grave concerns about how APs are being employed in the NHS and the impacts, including safety fears.

We’re sleeping walking into disaster if this isn’t urgently reviewed

[DoctorsVote @DoctorsVoteUK]

“A majority of doctors responding to the BMA survey believe the introduction and increase of APs in the NHS has worsened patient care”

This won’t surprise doctors who look after patients - there is a clear need for a safe scope of practice and regulation of "advanced" practice

[DoctorsVote @DoctorsVoteUK]

Not only selling out the profession but selling out patients with less safe, less qualified alternatives.

The consultants that enable doctor replacement should hang their heads in shame.

[DoctorsVote @DoctorsVoteUK]

4/5 doctors concerned that advanced practitioners usage in the NHS is putting patients safety at risk

Incredibly concerning alongside the open admission by trusts that they are being used to substitute doctors

Patients deserve better

#AskforaDoctor

https://t.co/yUK65NuHdX

[DoctorsVote @DoctorsVoteUK]

Congratulations to everyone elected and thanks to all of you who made the effort to vote.

The reps elected on the DV platform will work hard to make our union the strongest and most effective force for doctors’ pay and conditions.

Thanks also to all 248 candidates for a candid and civil election; we look forward to working with the BMA’s new councillors on our common goals.

[Callum 🦀 @MRCPWood]

Came back from a little holiday to the exciting news that I have been elected to BMA council.

I am looking forward to working with my new colleagues to harness the machinery of the Association to secure improvements in pay and conditions for doctors.

[Becky Lavelle @DrBeckyl]

An RCN source added: “This dangerous game is the BMA at its most obnoxious. Pushing nursing down will not help doctors and they need to avoid this getting more ugly."

..no thought for patient safety or high standards of care?

The roles are not interchangeable. Be Safe > Be Kind

[Dr Melissa Ryan 🦀 @Melissa_S_Ryan]

The solution to staffing crises should not be the reduction in standards.

If we are short doctors to staff rotas, we should hire more. Not replace them

[DoctorsVote @DoctorsVoteUK]

Take back control, it’s your union.
Send off your ballot paper by tomorrow at the latest.

[Stephen Pollard @stephenpollard]

Here's my @Spectator tribute to my wonderful cat, Louie, 'Nothing prepares you for the death of a pet'

https://t.co/RfhP6vxXJX

My companion – my friend – Louie died suddenly on Tuesday. He was nine (his tenth birthday was due next month) which, in cat years, made him middle-aged. No one saw it coming – he’d had his six-monthly check-up a few weeks ago and was seemingly fit and well. If you don’t have a pet, you can’t fully appreciate the depth of the bond and the corresponding rawness of the grief.

Louie has been my constant companion, especially since I divorced and moved into my own flat six years ago. Living alone, I regarded Louie – formal pedigree name Albalou Bojangles, a British shorthair – as my closest friend, in the sense that I saw more of him (it seems bizarre to be writing in the past tense about him) than anyone else. He was there throughout Covid, when I was shielding, and through treatment for my leukaemia. My whole flat is a reminder of his presence with scratch pads, toys, cat furniture, and all the other paraphernalia that comes with a cat.

The morning after his death was so difficult. We’d had a morning routine which was the same every day. I slept with the bedroom door closed, as otherwise Louie would be in the room demanding food. At around 5.30 a.m. he’d start scratching the door and meowing loudly. I’ve always been an early riser anyway so I’d get up and go to the kitchen to give him his food as he rubbed himself against me, as if saying ‘thank you’. Then he’d push his face against the shower glass as I washed and follow me to my bedroom, jumping on the bed while I dressed. Louie would follow me into the study as I looked through the papers and hop onto my desk, usually bashing my keyboard. That same routine, every day. But not any more. I’m bereft.

Louie had spent the day with me on Tuesday as I was having a new boiler fitted, so I was keeping him out of the way. At around 2 p.m. he was – as he often did – lying across my tummy as I watched TV on the sofa, purring happily as I stroked him. I had to disappear to my study for ten minutes to check some edits on a piece and when I got back, he was lying outstretched, all 35 inches from his nose to the start of his tail, under the dining table, where he never sits.

I went to stroke him and he didn’t move, so I assumed he was in a deep sleep. I called ‘food’, which always wakes him up, and there was nothing. Then I realised he wasn’t responding at all. I called the vet in a panic saying I thought he had died – I couldn’t quite tell if he had actually stopped breathing. I’m only five minutes from the practice and when we got there, the vet confirmed he had no heartbeat.

As I think about it now, I’m struck by how he must have known something was happening and so took himself to a new place to stretch out ready to go to sleep forever.
It was all so sudden – ten minutes before he went he was (or at least seemed) totally fine. The vet said it was most likely a stroke or a heart attack, perhaps after some underlying issue. The only good thing is precisely that it was so sudden and so he didn’t suffer.

On Wednesday night I went to the kids’ house to break the news. Cat owners will know that wonderful feeling when you open the front door and your friend has somehow sensed your return and is sitting there waiting for you. I live in a maisonette and Louie would almost always be at the top of the stairs as I put the key in the door. There was no Louie that night when I got home. My flat is empty.

Rest in peace, my friend.

[DoctorsVote @DoctorsVoteUK]

The time is now.
The day is here.
One more day to fill out your ballot and send it in the post to ensure safe delivery.

[Becky Lavelle @DrBeckyl]

Love skepticism. Hate careerism. Doctors, vote!
@DoctorsVoteUK

[Callum 🦀 @MRCPWood]

Amare nesciri … but I feel strongly enough to put myself on video saying please vote to build a BMA that actually works for members.

[DoctorsVote @DoctorsVoteUK]

Last weekend to return your ballot. Vote in the order on the slate to build a doctors-first union that works for you.

[DoctorsVote @DoctorsVoteUK]

Last chance to vote for a doctors-first union. Get your ballot in the post this week if you want a BMA that works for you.

[Callum 🦀 @MRCPWood]

Send your ballot off this week to ensure it arrives in time.

[DoctorsVote @DoctorsVoteUK]

Last chance to vote for a doctors-first union. Get your ballot in the post this week if you want a BMA that works for you.

[DoctorsVote @DoctorsVoteUK]

🦀 COUNCIL ELECTIONS! 🦀

The BMA Council controls the budget, sets strategy, and authorises industrial action. It’s the most important committee in our union. 1/n

[Callum 🦀 @MRCPWood]

As the excellent @trentconsultant always reminds me: job planning has to be by mutual agreement.

Consultants must feel empowered to say no to training our replacements.

[@medicalmodelwithabriochebun @medicalmodelbri]

@thomasdolphin @BMA_Consultants

@UHSussex are writing the supervising training and teaching of PAs into consultant contracts

PAs and Clinical Fellows are an ‘alternative method of augmenting ward cover ‘

What are you doing about this ?

https://t.co/1rALBRrXCu