emma clatworthy

[Jack Dart @JackWDart]

If people genuinely believe Burnham won’t receive the exact same media onslaught, they’ve not been paying attention.

Starmer is not, objectively, bad. This idea that he is somehow the worst PM in British history is frankly laughable.

Liz truss lasted 49 days, crashed the pound and was laughed out of Downing Street.

Since Labour took office, Keir Starmer’s government has:

• Scrapped the two-child benefit limit, lifting hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty and putting money back into some of the hardest-pressed households in the country.

• Expanded free school meals, cutting costs for families and making sure more children get a proper meal during the school day.

• Expanded funded childcare, reducing one of the biggest monthly costs facing working parents and making it easier for people to stay in work.

• Raised the National Living Wage, increasing pay for millions of low-paid workers.

• Strengthened workers’ rights, giving people greater protection against insecure work and bad employers.

• Introduced statutory sick pay from the first day of illness, so workers are less likely to choose between their health and their wages.

• Ended no-fault evictions, giving renters more security in their homes.

• Brought rail operators back into public ownership, taking key services out of failed private hands and giving the public a stronger stake in how they are run.

• Cut NHS waiting lists from their post-pandemic peak, meaning more patients are being seen sooner.

• Raised the state pension through the triple lock, protecting pensioners’ incomes against rising costs.

• Scrapped the old non-dom tax regime, making some of the wealthiest people in the country pay more fairly.

• Added VAT to private school fees, raising money from those most able to contribute.

• Removed business rates relief from private schools, ending an unjustified tax break.

• Increased neighbourhood policing, putting more officers and PCSOs back into communities.

• Helped bring knife crime down, meaning fewer families face the devastation of serious violence.

• Recorded the lowest homicide rate since the 1970s, a material improvement in public safety.

• Created Great British Energy, giving Britain a publicly owned clean energy company.

• Created the National Wealth Fund, backing investment in industry, infrastructure and clean energy.

• Passed planning reforms aimed at getting homes and major projects built faster.

• Improved relations with the EU, reducing diplomatic hostility and rebuilding practical cooperation.

• Agreed a UK-EU security partnership, strengthening cooperation on defence and European security.

• Signed a long-term partnership with Ukraine, reinforcing Britain’s support against Putin’s invasion.

• Secured new trade agreements, opening up markets for British businesses.

• Helped restore seriousness to government after years of scandal, chaos and decline.

People do not have to like Starmer. They do not have to vote Labour. But pretending this is the record of the worst Prime Minister in British history is absurd.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Look at this astronaut's face during reentry, knowing the capsule exterior is at 5,000°F.

The physics of why he's alive are wild.

The air in front of the capsule compresses so violently at Mach 25 that it turns into plasma. 5,000°F on the surface. Half the temperature of the sun. The heat shield absorbs that energy by literally burning itself away, layer by layer, carrying the heat with it as gas.

One inch of material is the entire margin. On the outside of that inch: 5,000°F. On the inside: 75°F. Room temperature. The thermal gradient across that single inch is the steepest temperature drop humans have ever engineered.

The orange glow in the window is ionized nitrogen and oxygen. That plasma is why comms go black for six minutes during reentry. Ground control can't reach the crew. The astronauts are alone inside a fireball, falling at 25,000 mph, watching the laws of thermodynamics keep them alive through a 1-inch wall.

Artemis II did exactly this last night. Four astronauts hit Earth's atmosphere at 24,664 mph, rode a 4,900°F plasma sheath for six minutes of radio silence, and splashed down a mile from target.

The heat shield is now being inspected for cracks. They found over 100 on the last unmanned test.

[Canada Hates Trump @AntiTrumpCanada]

The 2026 World Cup shouldn’t be played in a country whose president just posted that it’s a “great honor” to kill Iranians.

Move every match to Canada and Mexico. Or every nation should withdraw.

The FIFA Peace Prize recipient is now bragging about genocide. Read that again.

[emma clatworthy @emmaclats]

@RhysWMPharm V Dapper 🤌🏼 How I miss this!

[emma clatworthy @emmaclats]

@RhysWMPharm Good luck Rhys!

[emma clatworthy @emmaclats]

@RhysWMPharm Happy Christmas Rhys! Lovely scenes 🎄💫

[Peter Stefanovic @PeterStefanovi2]

Reform UK leader @Nigel_Farage says the public want to leave the ECHR

Let him know he’s wrong by sharing this widely

[Welsh Heart Failure Society @WelshHFSoc]

Nearly ready for the first meeting of the Welsh Heart Failure Society! It all starts tomorrow!

[Will Hayward @WillHayCardiff]

Yet more data showing that the 20mph limit in Wales is highly effective at reducing crashes.

They show a reduction in road casualties on 20mph and 30mph roads combined.

From Jan - March 2024:
⬇️19% compared with the previous quarter

⬇️26% lower than the same quarter in 2023

These are the lowest recorded figures apart from during the Covid pandemic.

377 casualties were reported on 20mph and 30 mph roads combined between Jan-Mar compared with 463 casualties in the previous quarter.

[emma clatworthy @emmaclats]

@hollymorgs Happy travels!

[emma clatworthy @emmaclats]

@hollymorgs @LambiasePier @elmir1omerovic @divaka_perera @achir76 @KingsCollegeLon Massive congrats 🥂

[emma clatworthy @emmaclats]

@mandiewelch3 @UniSouthWales @CwmTafMorgannwg @CwmtafNursEd @BSHNurseForum @aimeeIbbotson @karenbeale82 @WelshHFNF Brilliant 👏🏼

[emma clatworthy @emmaclats]

@RhysWMPharm @escardio @CwmTafMorgannwg Brilliant Rhys!!

[emma clatworthy @emmaclats]

@ParkseyJA @BSHeartFailure Ahh you’re in London! There’s no one left in Wales 😂 Have a brilliant time Ann

[emma clatworthy @emmaclats]

@BSHNurseForum @DelythRucarean @BSHeartFailure Congratulations Delyth!

[emma clatworthy @emmaclats]

@RhysWMPharm @BSHeartFailure 😭 have a great conference!

[emma clatworthy @emmaclats]

@DelythRucarean @SwanseabayNHS @NHSWalesAwards @BSHeartFailure @BSHNurseForum Fantastic, well done all 👏🏼👏🏼

[emma clatworthy @emmaclats]

@ramsey_sabit I couldn’t agree more. It’s horrifying 😩

[emma clatworthy @emmaclats]

@ParkseyJA He’s awesome! I want to meet him ❤️

[Rob Galloway @DrRobgalloway]

Thoughts on the NHS…..

Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

But this is what is happening in the NHS right now; hoping things will improve when just giving the same failing medicine.

As an A&E doctor, I am proud of what I do and would not want any other job

But I am getting increasingly demoralised that despite best efforts, it can seem like we are moving deckchairs on the NHS titanic and just applying a sticky plaster to ever expanding gaping wounds of deep routed societal problems.

The relentless pressures are getting worse and we are insane if we think the same solutions will solve the problems we have – even with more money and slightly different politics.

We need to have a different approach if we are to have a functioning NHS in the future

We need to look at the issues and potential solutions

1) A large amount of the problems we see are preventable - problems from poor diet, lack of exercise, smoking, drugs and crucially poverty and people’s lack of opportunity and optimism about the future. Efforts should be made to prevent the problems not react to them

2) We must ask ourselves are we doing too much for people and extending their length of life but not addressing if it gives them a quality of life that they would want. Just because we can do so much for patients, doesn’t mean we should.

3) On the whole, the clinician treating you now, are feeling less happy with taking on risk than those ten years ago – hence why there is often over investigation instead of simple reassurance. The risk of being complained about and being sued is one reason. But how to take risk is not taught explicitly and we are losing significant numbers of highly experienced senior decision makers such as GPs who have learnt these skills through years of practice and are replacing them with much more junior staff who are good at working within their defined skills and protocols but who do not have the training and experience to be good “riskaticians”. This is also true of algorhythm based triage systems where the default position is often 999 ambulance and A&E without consideration of this decisions on other patients whose care is delayed because there are only finite resources.

4) We are providing care in the wrong place. I see so many people who could have been cared for by out of hours senior decision makers who can make a judgment call to treat at home, rather than coming to hospital. Instead, paramedics have to bring these complex elderly patients into hospital where they are then seen by junior staff who often can over investigate and admit which leads to deconditioning and deterioration.

5) Medical services are designed around 9-5 Monday to Friday working. This needs complete overhaul so that the same quality of care is provided 24/7

6) The private sector is not the solution. Where profit becomes before patients there is often a hidden bias to overinvesting and over-treating. The money spent on private sector investment run diagnostic centres may well be used in a better way.

7) Mental health care needs to be prioritised as much as medical care. Both are under resourced but the lack of beds and community care for mental health patients creates enormous pressures on emergency services and crucially leads to unacceptable care for the most vulnerable of patients.

8) Any remodelling of the NHS has to be a phased approach – stabilise the current crisis with investment in community as well as hospital care and then longer term transformation so that we truly become a health service rather than a reaction to illness service,

9) Key to a needed NHS transformation is keeping experienced staff and the only way to do this is empowerment of their decision making, flexible working and appropriate renumeration and recognition. The biggest risk to the NHS is that staff will soon stop caring and just go into self-preservation mode. So worry when people like me stop writing messages like this, rather than when we do!

My biggest worry is that politicians won’t want to face up to these incredibly difficult problems and will try and kid themselves and us that a bit more money and tinkering will solve the issue.

It wont. We need radical new thinking now and the politicians to realise this. Without this, the NHS will wither away to be replaced by privatised medicine and the care which will all deserve, will only be available to the richest in society.

Please feel free to share these thoughts so that politicians of all shades can see the reality and thoughts of someone on the front line rather than just the sanitised version of the NHS they are shown.

Thank you for reading my post weekend literary catharsis

Rob Galloway , a tired but still optimistic (just) A&E Doctor.

📷