Across the pond, dire warnings are often intoned about something called Christian Nationalism. This is (we are told) a rising, virulent strain of theocratic fascism that fuses Christian dogma with sexism, ethnocentrism, and state power. Others, again, warn that this …
I’ve seen too many bad deaths
As an emergency physician, I make agonising life or death decisions every day. When caring for a terminally-ill patient whose organs are failing, and who can’t recognise her own children, I work with colleagues and family members to decide whether …
Humiliation won’t heal hospitals
You learn to be tough as an NHS doctor. But starting my shift a few days ago, even I was shocked. I spotted a patient, clearly someone with severe mental health issues, stuck on the ward without proper care. I …
The NHS is failing epilepsy patients
Megan Gardiner was 17 weeks pregnant when she died alone one June morning in 2022.
She had experienced her first epileptic seizure 12 years earlier, two days after her thirteenth birthday. “We heard a scream and then a loud bang,” …
Obesity will starve the NHS
There’s one thing I’d happily see Rachel Reeves raise taxes on: junk food. Spend a day in my A&E department if you don’t believe me. I’m constantly treating people suffering from chronic conditions — type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, …
Blair was right about ID cards
Why won’t Keir Starmer support digital ID? When they caught wind of the electoral landslide, Blair and Blunkett lurched from their caskets to demand a return of this, New Labour’s most divisive and, eventually, most thoroughly defeated policy. But Labour …
Wes Streeting wants to experiment on you
Only last month, Health Secretary Wes Streeting was warning us sternly against “killing the NHS with kindness”. This week, true to his principles, he announced an intention to start experimenting upon fat people in partnership with Big Pharma.
The five-year …
Wes Streeting wants to experiment on you
Only last month, Health Secretary Wes Streeting was warning us sternly against “killing the NHS with kindness”. This week, true to his principles, he announced an intention to start experimenting upon fat people in partnership with Big Pharma.
The five-year …
A&E is now a deathtrap
Last Friday night, a young man walked into my A&E department, mid-hallucination, and started to lash out at a crowd of patients. After being wrestled to the ground by my specialist clinical colleagues and security staff, it didn’t take long …
A&E is now a deathtrap
Last Friday night, a young man walked into my A&E department, mid-hallucination, and started to lash out at a crowd of patients. After being wrestled to the ground by my specialist clinical colleagues and security staff, it didn’t take long …
Letby Truthers want a good story
“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 …