1. Medicine is rapidly becoming an expensive hobby- working class people can no longer afford to become doctors given the poor salaries and huge debts on graduation.
I am the son of immigrants - I couldn't speak English until i was 5-i was born/ brought up in longsight, Manchester- in the top 3% of the most deprived areas in England.
Medicine is the profession where when the canary in the coal mine dies, administrators lament--
"Why can't we find more resilient canaries?"
#burnout#wellbeing
1/2 Patients in the ED are not “waiting for admission” they are “specialist outliers in the ED”. So should be regarded in the same way as specialist ‘outliers’ on any other ward.
Our language matters and can change concepts.
(This is UK hospital terminology - ignore if not in UK)
I'm an A&E consultant and I'm tired after a weekend of nights.
But this am, I've handed over what I described as a "good department". This was said genuinely and with no hint of irony.
We provided great care and have very short waits to see an A&E doctor, but I'd forgotten how unacceptable it was to have 18 patients in the corridor, and elderly patients waiting over 2 days for a ward bed.
My lens of what is good and acceptable has been slowly warped by the slow & damaging effect of the working conditions of A&E departments up and down the country.
My biggest worry is that I'm starting to accept the unacceptable.
This is not about a lack of gp appointments, patients "abusing" the system or poor management - in fact we had excellent hospital management support, with patients boarding on each ward waiting there instead of A&E for a bed.
This is a simple case of patient demand being greater than what the overall health economy can cope with.
We have to either change the way we work, change demand via expectation management or increase resources.
If not, then the unacceptable becomes the norm and that's unacceptable.
Our patients and staff deserve better.
UK Government Petition - Fund Continued Access for CF Modulators
Please can EVERYONE IN UK SIGN and EVERYONE SHARE! This is an entirely NEW petition and we need every single person's signature on this.
Please save the lives of children like Rufus 💜
https://t.co/kBco9eeF3L
Solidarity.
It took me three applications and five interviews to be able to get a visa for my 8-year old to be able to join me in the UK when I had a permanent Lectureship at UCL and I was course director of one of the leading MSc courses in the country. I had to take leave from my job here in the UK (not easy) and be back in Delhi for a month. Each visa application fee was around 1000 GBP.
This keeps happening again and again to so many of us.
What an incredible addition to what has already been an awesome day ❤️💙🩵 Huge thank you to Llachlan and Rosanna @BRB for the most perfect intimate performance of Sugarplum Fairy... the Plunkett's are still fangirling #lfe5 @LfEcommunity @civilitysaves#hope#inspiration
Ambulances queuing outside an ED this week. Patients inside. New figures from England & Scotlan awful. Expect similar from Wales & N.Ireland. Underwhelming plans, poorly implemented, and sense of denial / normalisation of harm to patients and staff. Both deserve better. @RCollEM
Paediatric Emergencies 2023 is a free livestream taking place on 9th November 2023 starting at 8am UK time. To watch visit https://t.co/lPzTxiqAgD and for the programme or to submit your questions for us to answer at the event visit https://t.co/ZM6LmT2iG5
🚨 The @scotgov's opposition to the Strikes Act is welcome and reassuring.
This bill is a desperate attack on unions standing up for members.
It is good news in 🏴 that the Scot Gov is clear it won't apply it in devolved areas like health. Read more 👇
https://t.co/aOSREXd3XF
@docib I focus on the things that I can change rather than what I cannot change.
Focus on great interactions with individual patients and staff. Do the little things that make a big difference.
Remember that the death in a waiting ambulance is NOT your fault or responsibility.
GIVEAWAY!
I'm going to give TWO lucky people five paperbacks of their choice - worth up to £50! There'll be one winner on here and one on blu-sky.
Simply retweet and follow by 8pm on Sunday 22nd October for your chance to win!
Here's what 5 paperbacks looks like, just in case.
We need to solve the overcrowding crisis in A&E. I may have the solution!
It came to me whilst reading my son " A squash and a squeeze" by Julia Donaldson (author of the Gruffalo)
A&E Squash and a Squeeze, adapted by Rob Galloway
A little old A&E, lived all by itself , with cubicles and chairs and a water jug on the shelf.
A wise old health secretary heard her grumble and grouse, “There’s not enough room in my A&E house.
Wise old health secretary, won’t you help me, please? My A&E house is a squash and a squeeze.”
“Take in your drunk and disorderly patients” said the wise old health secretary man
“Take in my drunk and disorderly patients? What a curious plan.”
Kept in A&E, instead of a cell, they vomited on the rug,
And flapped round the cubicle, knocking over the jug.
.
The little old A&E cried, “I implore? It was poky before and it’s tiny for more.
My nose has a tickle and there’s no room to sneeze. My A&E house is a squash and a squeeze.”
And she said, “Wise old health secretary, won’t you help me, please? My A&E house is a squash and a squeeze.”
“Take in your awaiting medical bed patients,” said the wise old health secretary man.
.
“Take in my awaiting medical bed patients? What a curious plan.”
Well, the awaiting medical bed patients pulled back the curtains and trod on the bed,
``then sat down to eat via her long term peg.
The little old A&E cried, “Glory be! It was tiny before and it’s titchy for more.
The drunks attacked the awaiting medical bed patients and the awaiting medical bed patients got fleas. My house is a squash and a squeeze.”
And she said, “Wise old health secretary, won’t you help me, please? My A&E house is a
squash and a squeeze.”
“Take in your awaiting mental health bed patients ” said the wise old health secretary man.
“Take in my awaiting mental health bed patients ? What a curious plan.”
So she took in awaiting mental health bed patients who kept pressing the alarms in cubicle ten
And raising everyone’s blood pressure again and again.
The little old A&E cried, “Stop, I implore! It was titchy before and it’s teeny for more.
Even the mental health patients in the cubicles agrees, My A&E house is a squash and a squeeze.”
And she said, “Wise old health secretary, won’t you help me, please? My house is a
squash and a squeeze.”
“Open an urgent care centre,” said the wise old health secretary man
.
“Open an urgent care centre? What a curious plan.”
Well, the urgent care centre attracted the 111 referred worried well,
Whose long waits created an unpleasant waiting room smell
The little old A&E cried, “Heavens alive! It was teeny before and it’s weeny for more
I’m tearing my hair out, I’m down on my knees. My A&E house is a squash and a squeeze.”
And she said, “Wise old health secretary , won’t you help me, please? My house is a squash and a squeeze.”
“Take them all out,” said the wise old health secretary man.
“But then I’ll be back where I first began.”
So she persuade the police to remove the aggressive men
“That’s better – at last I can sneeze again.”
They opened up ward beds and she gave a jig
“My A&E house is beginning to feel pretty big.”
She persuaded the 111 patients to self discharge where safety would allow.
“Just look at my A&E house, it’s enormous now”.
“Thank you, old health secretary for saving the day, Our A&E is so big now, our staff might just stay.
.
There’s no need to grumble and there’s no need to grouse. There’s plenty of room in my A&E house.”
And now she’s full of frolics and fiddle-de-dees. It isn’t a squash and it isn’t a squeeze.
Yes, she’s full of frolics and fiddle-de-dees.
It isn’t a squash or a squeeze.
241 women died in the UK during pregnancy or up to 6 weeks after the end of pregnancy in 2019-2021 from causes related to or exacerbated by pregnancy among 2,066,997 women giving birth, a maternal mortality rate of 11.7 per 100,000 https://t.co/fFx5yHMOyk