Dear… I have just read this about further delays to NHS pay rises. I am beyond appalled and I hope that you will agree with me given your close connections with the NHS. The staff are on their knees. They are working so hard and do not have enough staff, plus they weren’t paid what […]
In Tuesday’s All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Coronavirus the evidence session talked to experts about access to coronavirus vaccines across the globe. Where are we in terms of the pandemic and equitable vaccine access? Dr David Nabarro, Special Envoy of WHO Director-General on Covid-19 said: “We are still deep in the pandemic. We are not […]
Chi Onwurah, MP for Newcastle Central, is highly concerned by the latest figures from the NHS which show that at the end of September 2021, there were 92,225 people on the waiting list at The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. There were 5,113 people waiting for more than one year for an appointment and 167 people waiting […]
It was reported last week that some Covid restrictions had been increased within parliament following 114 cases of Covid-19 being linked to the Westminster estate between 4 October and 5 November. MPs have been told to wear masks and advised that face-to-face meetings should be avoided if possible, while tours of the building have been […]
Protestors from North East for Europe waited at Hexham General Hospital to greet Boris Johnson today. Kim Sanderson, spokesperson for North East for Europe said: “We are here to meet the Prime Minister to voice our concerns over corruption in the Conservative party at national and County Council levels.” “We also want to show our […]
The UK government still says that it is not time for their ‘Plan B’. Meanwhile for many people ‘Freedom Day’ felt like ‘Anxiety Day’.
The NHS is in crisis. The government has mismanaged Covid and Brexit has not helped. An analysis by Giuseppe Bignardi.
Are Britons really tolerating high Covid rates? What about the example shown to us by our politicians? Carol Westall investigates.
A personal story of cancer and immunotherapy, showing the vital importance of the contribution of scientific experts
On 5 October the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Coronavirus met to discuss the UK government’s ‘Winter Plan’ with witnesses giving expert evidence from a local, national and international perspective. In September the Prime Minister announced the plans for tackling Covid during autumn and winter in England. ‘Plan A’ is designed to prevent […]
Some of the English-speaking world’s most renowned historians have recently set up a scholarly group whose aim they declare is “to reclaim history, not weaponise it”, by means of calling out “fake history” in the face of “culture wars”. Their website, History Reclaimed, justifies this endeavour as a response to undefined “campaigns to rewrite the […]
A recent holiday in Italy has allowed me to compare the contrasting approaches taken in fighting Covid-19. In Italy face masks are still compulsory in enclosed spaces. Here they are not. Thus, in a recent journey to Manchester my train compartment was packed, but hardly anybody was wearing masks whilst a few were coughing. Italy […]
Involve me Talk to me Help me understand These are words I read from the summary slide from the new NICE guidelines for babies, children and young peoples experiencing healthcare. This was developed in consultation with young people. I heard these words in a webinar, Vaccination in Children: Evidence, Ethics, and Equity, given by the […]
The current government has brought new meaning to the word ‘dishonesty’, as in creating a false illusion that something is real when it clearly is not. In good old-fashioned language it’s a bare faced lie. And as such we need to call it as it is. This has been likened to adding a garden shed to your […]
The latest APPG Coronavirus oral evidence session on workforce, well-being and NHS capacity was held on Tuesday. Question: how will the NHS survive winter? “The problem is so extreme that up to 70% of the NHS working population are considering a career change over the course of the next 12 months” This was a startling […]
The session on 10 August, began with questions to the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) about the much discussed issue of vaccinating children. On the surface it seems obvious; vaccinate children so they don’t get sick with Covid-19 and vaccinate children so we get closer to the frequently discussed notion of herd immunity. The APPG […]
I started smoking when I was about 14 (1957 or thereabouts) and I smoked, more or less without interruption, until I was 71. I say “more or less” because I did try to give up on a number occasions – once I lasted four days and then my wife threatened that she would sit on […]
To get close to normality we must accept the pandemic is not over yet For some politicians “learning to live with Covid” is a mantra that means allowing high numbers of infections. However, we may get closer to normality if we accept that we cannot yet return to full normality. In comparison with other countries […]
I remember that in the process of writing my diary entries, I had to recall memories recessed in the back of my mind for over a year. We often don’t think of traumatic memories as ‘trauma’. I briefly addressed the concept of mass trauma at the very end of the diary, so now it’s time […]
The impact of Brexit and Covid As the number of holidays in Europe is increasing, we are coming to terms with the changes brought about by the end of the Brexit transition period and Covid-19. On arrival in Europe, we have to join the non-EU passport queue. One critical change is that British passports are […]
The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Coronavirus held an evidence session on Tuesday on the impact on key workers. Four key workers gave compelling and heartbreaking accounts of how Covid -19 was contracted whilst working. Part 1 of the APPG on Coronavirus Layla Moran, the chair of the APPG on Coronavirus, said: “The harrowing evidence […]
Dear Diary, I never thought I’d be writing to you, trying to wrap up the last 19 months in a bow. I wanted to write an article on mental health and students. Given how difficult it feels, writing it like this might be a nice change of pace. So here goes nothing. February 2020 I […]
Last Wednesday, 21 July 2021, as I Joined with the SODEM team at the regular PMQs protest outside parliament, I was told in unequivocal terms by a Covid-denier that I didn’t represent “The People”. Just what I am to make of that? I’m sorry, “The People”, but I have never made any claim to represent […]
This week the government offered a 3% pay award for NHS England staff. I have friends not in the healthcare sector who have been enquiring if this was a good thing because the government has clearly backed down from earlier in the year when 1% was proposed. Let us look at this deal in more […]
I tested positive on Tuesday 13 July following a PCR test the previous day. However, I feel like I have dodged a bullet as so far, my symptoms have been relatively mild. I did a lateral flow test on Sunday 11 July just prior to the big England v Italy match and that was negative but I […]
Savid Javid was pinged. We all know what that means, so it was necessary for him to inform recent associates, and it would be necessary for said associates to also isolate. This is a few days before ‘Freedom Day’. These have been the rules for us all. They’re terribly inconvenient, that’s true, but we are […]
This morning it was announced that Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak would not be self-isolating. Instead they would take part in a pilot scheme to test daily. However, after a somewhat tumultuous morning there has been yet another U-Turn. They will self-isolate after all. This comes after the Health Secretary, Sajid Javid recently tested positive […]
Nic tells me, in response to the Government’s relaxation of Covid -19 rules and so called ‘Freedom Day’: “It’s hard to realize that you’re thought so little of in your society. We are dispensable.” Nic has blood cancer. She wrote to her MP: “I am writing to express my extreme concern and dismay at the […]
As the UK wonders how safe it is to remove restrictions with ‘only’ 52 percent of the country vaccinated, spare a thought for countries where vaccinations are currently very limited and the Delta variant has arrived. For example, I wrote in March about Tanzania, which I called a ‘country of concern’. Since that article, a […]
The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Coronavirus held a live oral evidence session today on the impact the removal of restrictions on 19 July will have on schools, those who are clinically extremely vulnerable, and on the risks posed by long Covid. The ending of restrictions has been dubbed ‘Freedom Day’. In the first […]