“It was like staring at a Magic Eye picture,” Ravi Jayaram, one of the medics who first raised concerns about Lucy Letby, told the New Yorker. “At first, it’s just a load of dots… But you stare at them, and …
Labour won’t save the NHS
Any culture, society or nation is ultimately judged on how it protects its citizens, and how it treats and cares for its most vulnerable. And on this standard, the Conservatives have failed. Over the past 14 years, their contempt has …
The liberal lessons of the Cass Report
Pity poor Dr Hilary Cass, the eminent paediatrician charged with managing an independent review of NHS gender services for young people, whose final report was published this week. Given the hair-trigger sensibilities of interested parties, she seems to have been …
Can the Cass Report really be enforced?
When the US astronomer Carl Sagan stated that “extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence”, he was riffing on an idea that has influenced the scientific method since the mid-1700s. If we are to conclude extraordinary things, ideas that conflict with what …
Why is the NHS hiring fake doctors?
When 25-year-old Benedict Peters showed up in A&E in 2022 with chest pain, he was discharged with a diagnosis of gastritis and anxiety. That night, he died from an aortic dissection, a fatal bleed from the largest artery in the …
How ADHD became a luxury label
Josh’s mum finds it hard to understand him. At school, her son is puppyish, friendly: a 12-year-old who still has the excitability of a primary school child rather than the jadedness of other Year Eights. But at home, his mum …
Should junior doctors be paid more?
Only two years after the NHS was founded in 1948, GPs first demanded an increase to their salaries — and threatened to withdraw their labour from the service entirely if those demands weren’t met. Many of the doctors involved in …
What does Palantir want with NHS data?
Everyone has said things that, in hindsight, they regret. For Peter Thiel, the billionaire founder of PayPal and US IT giant Palantir, it might have been his claim this year that the NHS makes people sick. Or that the British …
Inside Britain’s new trans clinics
Since its closure was announced last July, Gids — the Gender Identity Development Service at the world-renowned Tavistock and Portman Trust — has become synonymous with mismanagement and medical scandal.
It was supposed to be a haven for young people …
Not every anorexic can be saved
In the summer of 1995, I watched a woman starve to death. I was 19 and L was in her mid-30s, having suffered from anorexia since the age of 15. She looked unlike any person I have seen before or …
Lucy Letby isn’t a psychopath
When we look beyond the battle over identity politics, the great majority of us share a very clear idea about the way life should be lived. We should be allowed to grow and mature, then decline with dignity as we …
Has Gids learned from its failure?
Tomorrow, it will be a year since the closure of the controversial Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust was announced. Rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission and overwhelmed by an exponential rise …
How disastrous births haunt women
The third time I went into labour, I was determined to avoid getting told off. With both of my previous births, I had somehow managed to get things wrong. My errors the first time: going to hospital too early, then, …
No one cares for carers
Granny Rosie, as she is known to everyone, is still very much herself at the age of 92: partial to a G&T when the sun is over the yardarm, and always up for a gossip. She’s also frustrated to be …
How the NHS conquered Britain
Nothing about the National Health Service makes sense. As an institution, it provokes intense appreciation, and just as intense irritation and criticism. My own feelings about it oscillate between gratitude and fury. It’s our national shame, and the envy of …