An Eloquent Rant: Hashtags, The NHS, and the Desensitised Population

As I sat down to start writing this, I was surrounded by a storm. A Twitter-Storm, but none the less, mud was flying. On Sunday 2nd August 2015, hot off the heels of #ImInWorkJeremy and #WeNeedToTalkAboutJeremy, we had #SaySorryHunt; which kind of feels like the Return Of The Jedi of the ongoing NHS Hashtag Wars. I’m not belittling the work of anything that shines a light on Jeremy Hunt’s ongoing attack on the NHS, and the manipulation of the media to create fear and distrust between medic and patient, but I do at the very least question the hashtags target. This is because it is taking aim at one man. Yes, it’s the Health Secretary, the man responsible for running the NHS and also responsible for the ridiculous state it’s in, but Mr. Hunt is a small part of a much larger beast that wants to devour our health service and spit out it’s bones. Mr. Hunt is never going to apologise for his actions because he thinks he’s doing the right thing. Quite clearly he’s not going to change his mind. And even if we get a vote of No Confidence in his abilities as Health Secretary, there will be another to take his place, and continue with the policies that were created within an institution that has been wanting to privatise the NHS for years; the politicians.

On Sunday morning I was doing my regular patrol of the Twitter-sphere and came across a rather inflammatory tweet from a Member of Parliament. Geraint Davies, “Labour & Co-operative MP for Swansea West”, has since deleted this tweet from his feed (and replaced it with another that supposedly has more clarity, but still making general and harmful statements) presumably because of the responses he received from people who actually work as GP’s, and within the rest of the medical community. Now it may well be that the MP thought he was doing his job as a public figure by sharing something that he’d learned, however as someone who has claimed to be a supporter of the NHS in the past, and as someone who has a career in the public spotlight, you would think he would know better than to share a confusing and wholly unsubstantiated statistic with a public that are already in fear and confused by doctors. There is no doctor that I know that would delay a cancer referral because of cost. This is another unsubstantiated, libellous attack on GP’s

A conversation on Facebook between myself and a colleague.

It is we, the public that are caught in the middle of this of this battle between medic and politician (which, despite what the latter would have you believe, started with their reprehensible behaviour towards the medical profession), and yet many of us don’t know it’s happening . After years of mis and dis-information from certain branches of the media, coupled with Mr. Hunt’s demoralising speeches on “lazy” work-shy doctors, high waiting times, cancer scares etc. the people of this country are either scared and distrusting, or have simply no interest. Even with the “NHS Hashtag Trilogy”, people are still not getting the point of what thousands of medical professionals are trying to say. I’ve had multiple conversations on social media with people trying to understand what it is I, along with thousands of others, have been trying to get at. Lots of people still think that #ImInWorkJeremy and #WeNeedToTalkAboutJeremy is all about doctors complaining they don’t get paid enough. Of course, that is not the case at all. And it’s so frustrating!

There are also those I spoke to who had no idea what #WeNeedToTalkAboutJeremy was even about. For all they knew, Jeremy Clarkson had been secretly filmed stumping his toe on a plank of wood and had wondered outside to punch a gibbon! Even people within the media didn’t know what this Twitter trend was on about, and that’s a sobering thought. Jeremy Vine was one of many news presenters that I wrote and tweeted, asking them to explain why this massive online backlash against the Health Secretary wasn’t being reported. To his full credit he was the only one that replied, but as you can tell from the conversation, he had no idea what any of it meant. Once he dug deeper, he seemed to get the picture.

A short conversation between myself and Jeremy Vine, the day before he tweeted a link to my article on #WeNeedToTalkAboutJeremy

This is what the NHS is up against – the desensitised population. The fact that people still do not the know the plight of the NHS and the damage caused by the Government is not their fault. Despite living in a world so well connected through communication, which should be widening our eyes and ears, we have become an increasingly insular society. We are surrounded by and are connected to multiple sources of information, yet have the ability to choose to read only what we’re interested in. On Twiitter I follow a raft of writers (and now NHS staff), while the person next to me just follows gossip sites giving the latest celebrity gossip. On the BBC app, we can choose what type of news we would like to be informed on, and remove from our feed the ones we don’t care about (not that it matters about the BBC when we’re talking about #WeNeedToTalkAboutJeremy – their silence on this continues!).

We have our own lives to lead, and our own stresses and strains to deal with in an increasingly frantic world. To quote one person I met today: “why are you worried about the doctors? It’s not like they won’t have a job any more. They’ll probably earn more money “. True, maybe they would, but like we all know, that’s not what this fight is about. It’s about the National Health Service. Keeping free health care for future generations. The fact that people always gravitate towards the money is just another example of the type of society we live in.

If you replace “rail” with “hospitals”, and “passengers” with “patients”, this will explain precisely what the health service will look like if privatised.

Take the rail industry as a prime example. This once publicly owned transport network went through a complete privatisation programme between 1994 and 1997, and it remains one of the worst performing rail networks in the western world, with continued delays in service and hikes in ticket prices. This is the epitome of privatisation, and the reason why we cannot let this happen to the Health Service. The very nature of private business is to make money through providing a service. There is always a bottom line. Cuts may be made to stay in the black. Shareholders will always come before the service users. In the case of a service that provides medical care and treatment, surely this would be completely unacceptable, as cost cuts would be potentially life threatening to the “customer”. If you’re lucky, maybe you get a private health care company that is financially well off. Maybe they’re able to provide you with services that you hadn’t thought you needed. You may be sold on the idea of this extra treatment, or diagnostic tool, or insurance product, for extra piece of mind. It would be the medical equivalent of PPI’s!

On 1st April 2013 (the date doubtless ringing alarm bells!), The Health & Social Care Act 2012 came in to force, much to the utter dismay of medical professionals. What the government dressed up as a step to making the Health Service fit for the modern world, was seen by those who actually know and work in the sector as ” the final stage in the systematic dismantling of the NHS […] carried out by stealth” (Doctor Youseff El-Gingihy, Guardian- 30 March 2013). 

Doctor Youseff El-Gingihy writing in The Guardian, the day before the Health and Social Care Act 2012 came in to force.

One major part of this act was to open up the medical field to competition. In much the same way as the opening up of the country’s telecommunications industry, it allowed private medical firms to swoop in with the promise of a better service than provided by the public one. The idea was apparently that doing this would help drive up health care standards through business competition offering more patient choice. The fact is that even before this act came in to force the “marketisation of the NHS has driven up costs and produced worse results”, thus repeating the failings of the privatisation of the rail network. It was made abundantly clear to those who understood this unknown (to the public) yet enforced legislation, that patient care would inevitably be reduced while “there are huge profits to be made for private healthcare companies”.

This is what the diligent, hard-working staff at the NHS want to stop, because they know full well it will compromise patient care. Full stop. Yes, their salary is effectively being cut due to unfair contracts being imposed by the Health Secretary, and that’s insulting for the medics and all others with cuts or without pay-rises while politicians at Westminster receive a pay rise. Yes, they work exceedingly long shifts and often unsociable hours, but that’s part of the job. What they despise is two things:

• The blatant bad-mouthing and lack of respect from politicians and the media who make unsubstantiated, scaremongering claims and accusations based on twisted facts and figures.
• The thought that they will one day be forced to put the size of a shareholders bank account over the care of a patient.

This insular society we live in has distracted the public from the fact that they are slowly losing their NHS. Free health care will soon be a thing of the past, and many people seem to neither know or care. There’s too many other things to worry about in life, “there will always be doctors”. We’ve had almost 70 years of the NHS, and as time has gone on we have taken it for granted. As time has gone on we have become an increasingly self-important society, where no one has bigger problems than us. This, coupled with the ridiculous scaremongering stories by the press and ill-informed politicians has created the “worried well”, who believe that because they “haven’t stopped sneezing all day” (true story – hay fever!) and because the health service is paid for by their taxes, they deserve to see a doctor more than someone who has chest pain and is in a full on heart attack. We as a society have forgotten to take care of ourselves, of each other. We rely increasingly on professional medical advice for symptoms that are in no way serious, while removing that attention from someone who actually needs it. This is why the NHS is stretched beyond breaking point, and this is why private companies can swoop in and save the day, as long as you have a credit card!

On a personal note I feel it’s time for me to stop talking about this for a bit. Talking people can’t hear a whisper, and yet when you shout at the top of your voice for too long, those people just turn and walk away. No matter what you take from everything I have written on this NHS fiasco, remember this: there is currently an online petition to debate a vote of No Confidence in Jeremy Hunt. Parliament requires a minimum of 100,000 signatures for a debate to be considered. The number is now way past that at over 211,000, and it’s still growing. If nothing else, keep one eye on this. If this Government continues to come back with ridiculous defensive statements based on the same twisted facts and figures that they have fed you for so long, or if they do not even call for a (serious) debate, then you have hard proof (more so!) that this Government does not have your best interests and those of your friends and family at heart.

This isn’t about Doctors or Nurses, GP’s or Consultants. It’s about our Free Health Service

Yesterday morning, the silence was broken. Fifteen days after Jeremy Hunt made his inflammatory speech at the Kings Fund in Central London, giving NHS consultants an ultimatum on working weekends, and describing the rest of the staff as “lazy” and over-paid, the desperate voices of those people he bad-mouthed and those who support them were set free. After spending over two weeks building up in the virtual pressure cooker of social media, traditional news outlets have finally started to take notice.

Jeremy Vine used his Twitter feed to break two weeks of silence around #WeNeedToTalkAboutJeremy.

Jeremy Vine is the first mainstream media broadcaster to openly take notice of #WeNeedToTalkAboutJeremy. He neither supports nor ridicules, merely highlighting the fact that there is a story here. Whether he decides to take it further and make it part of his Radio 2 show remains to be seen, but the fact that he recognises it, and has put it in the public arena, means that the hard part is about to start.

The public’s take on this is crucial, and the petition to debate a vote of No Confidence in the Health Secretary could be seen as a risky move. What is seen as a democratic register of the public’s view by some can also be questioned for it’s validity – ‘it’s just NHS staff signing’ or ‘people are just bored’. I mean if you can get a petition going to get a flavour of low fat yoghurt back on the supermarket shelves you could petition for anything. The danger with this petition was that the public wouldn’t take it seriously; that it was ‘those doctors whinging again’. Which is sad because that would miss the point completely.

Reputation is everything in a career, especially in one as publicly scrutinised as the NHS. Mr. Hunts speech, where he (among other things) put the emphasis on consultants and their apparent refusal to work weekends as the reason for higher patient deaths on Saturdays and Sundays (totally wrong), has made a scapegoat of that particular senior role in the health service, while still allowing the Health Secretary to appear to maintain the view that he cares for the NHS. He turned the blame of failure of weekend access on a group of people who, yes, do have an opt out clause in their contract so they don’t work weekends but, as you will be able to read already in the Mirror, and from this weekend in the Independent, “88% of consultants are already working weekends”, based on a survey by the BMA of almost 900.

Preview of Independent cover – Saturday 1st August 2015

The Mirror starts to expose the lies.

Here’s the truth about doctors, and I can say this because I’m married to one. People don’t become doctors or nurses for a dream working week. They don’t sign up because they’ll have time for lengthy breaks during the day, and they certainly don’t do it for the money. People become doctors because they feel they can help, they can make a difference. They spend at least 10 years training and honing their skills to be the best they can be before they are officially qualified, and even then, throughout their entire career, they never stop honing and training. They spend an increasing amount of time in an environment that never stops, having to tell patients often horrifying/heartbreaking truths, while diagnosing conditions from their encyclopaedic medical knowledge, all the time speaking to patients who may be as nice as anything, or rude and uncooperative.

Now here’s the thing about medical professionals – none of that bothers them. They will never complain about their job because it’s what they love, it’s what they signed up for. Long hours, no breaks, finishing late – it’s all part of the job, and that includes working at weekends. Doctors accepted this ages ago because of how our modern society functions. Thousands of people working shifts which includes weekends, and the staff at the NHS knew they would have to adapt to that. What staff at the NHS do not appreciate, is their own boss telling them that they are useless, they’re not doing enough and should work more but be paid less. This whole notion of a seven day working week for the NHS already happens because of demand and need from the public, but there is one fundamental question nether Mr. Hunt nor the Health Department has answered – how will this be paid for? For a hospital to be fully functional at the weekend extra staff of all levels are required. Then there’s support teams outside the hospital walls; social care workers, councillors etc. They will all require funding, which the the £8bn the Government pledged in the manifesto will barely touch.

Here’s another thing about medical professionals; we, our society, will always need them. There will come a point where you need to make an appointment to see that nurse, or you need to sit down with a consultant, or you may need to pay a visit to A&E. The thing we are fighting for is how those life-saving services are going to be funded. We live in a capitalist society so all those man hours, knowledge and equipment need to be paid for. Time is money, and that money must come from somewhere. Do we really want to squander a universal free health care system that is paid for through our taxes and end up paying insurance premiums for check ups and examinations that may well be a waste of medical time, but will create a profit?

While I sit here telling you about all this, the National Health Service is being dismantled right in front of us. All this media attack from the government is a smokescreen, to turn public opinion against the ‘money grabbing work-shy doctors’ who in reality are working above and beyond what should be realistically expected of them, working way past the end of their shift to make sure patients get the care they deserve. In the meantime those patients are seeing ‘stories’ in certain right wing Tory linked media saying ‘leg pain is linked to cancer’ or ‘neck ache could be cancer’ or ‘Cancer Cancer Cancer’, (remember all the stories where “my doctor ignored all my symptoms and it was cancer”), increasing fear and therefore demand on medical staff way beyond capacity, so doctors have to not only deal with those who require much needed treatment and help, but also the “worried well”. This in turn portrays the doctors as unable to cope with their job, but don’t worry, here’s a privately run medical company who ‘really know how to do their job’ so everything’s ok. Oh, and what’s your credit card details please?

Since GP’s were forced to take control of the budget of all health services for their own locality back in 2010, they had to commission services on an increasingly smaller budget whilst patient demand has also increased exponentially. This has also meant time taken away from running their GP surgeries and stretching patient care even further, not that the doctors would ever let you see that. This model that the government imposed on them, against advice of medical professionals, was set up for GP’s to fail. It is this situation, imposed by the previous coalition government, that has paved the way for private companies to swoop in and take over. We already have the likes of Virgin Health providing their own service. As soon as patient demand picks up, they will be made to pay for extras and eventually the NHS will be nothing more than a brand name, the heart of its ‘free for all’ service ripped out. The public needs to step in and join the fight. The twisted facts that are being released to the media are nothing more than pro-government, pro-privatisation, anti-NHS propaganda, specifically designed to cause fear and confusion among the public.

The battle lines here are very clear; do you trust a government that manipulates statistics and twist figures to serve their own fictional narrative of ‘lazy doctors’, while many of them have their personal links to private health care companies which stand to take considerable profit at the expense of patient health, and who are conveniently recommended to receive 10% pay rises, or do you trust the diligent medical professionals who look after your loved ones without charge, that never complain about their vocation and are forced in to a pay-cut, while being strong armed to working longer hours, but are now fighting to get back their dignity and respect?

The only common ground that the doctors and nurses have with Jeremy Hunt and the current Conservative government is that they both want a seven day NHS. There is already a seven day NHS. The issue is that the Government don’t want to pay for it, so they are turning responsibility and blame on those who are doing the job. This is why it was imperative that the mainstream media began talking about it. Now, with the likes of the BBC’s Jeremy Vine, and the Mirror and Independent getting the story out of social media and in to the full view of the public arena, we can finally get the voices of these hard-working people heard and understood.

Is The UK Government Banning Mainstream Media From Reporting On One Of The Most Important Stories Of The Year?

I often ask myself where our society would be without social media these days. It’s become the way to keep in touch with friends and family, see hilarious (some not so much!) pictures and videos, promote businesses films and music….. Social media has also become an invaluable tool for free speech. Something that the mainstream media (TV, Radio, Newspapers) seems to have lost its grip on a while ago.

In my previous article I briefly talked about how our media is paying little or no attention to the storm surrounding Jeremy Hunt’s atrocious attack on NHS staff. That was over the weekend, and I honestly expected that when I woke up Monday morning it would be the top story on most, if not all respectable news outlets. Boy was I wrong!

#WeNeedToTalkAboutJeremy

The reason I had such high expectations was because on Sunday 26th July #WeNeedToTalkAboutJeremy came to life on Twitter. Similar to its predecessor #ImInWorkJeremy, this hashtag was designed to bring together all the thoughts and feelings of the Health Secretary’s latest attempt to undermine our heath service, only this time it was more open to everyone else, as well as doctors and nurses. And boy did this thing come to life! Just one look using this hashtag lead feed showed you exactly what the people of this great country think of a man in charge of the NHS who has no qualifications to be doing so. There was much made of the petition to call for a vote of No Confidence. Awareness was rising. The nation was showing huge interest in this story. As I sit here even now, people continue to spread the word.

So if social media was alive and buzzing, what was the traditional mainstream media doing? Answer: NOTHING. On the radio, TV, websites affiliated with these broadcasters, nothing. And I don’t understand why. Surely the job of the national media and news companies are to report on stories that are in the public interest of this country? I can think of no other story, right now, that is more in the public interest than the future of its health service. Why are they not talking about this?

Screenshotof The Last Leg YouTube channel, 23:36, Monday 27/07/2015

The only mainstream media outlet that I have seen talk openly on this story was Channel 4’s The Last Leg, where Its host Adam Hills went off on one of his trademark rants calling out Mr. Hunt for his remarks. During this you could practically hear the entire NHS workforce applauding and cheering ‘finally, someone gets it. At last people are listening’. The weird thing is that what usually happens after one of Mr. Hills rants is they are uploaded to the shows YouTube channel. At the time of writing this, that brilliantly succinct rant has not been uploaded.

The biggest disappointment for me in all this has been the BBC. The British Broadcasting Corporation has said not one word. There has been nothing on their TV or radio stations, or on their website. We all know that the BBC has its own issues with the current government, especially ahead of the Royal Charter review, but if a corporation designed to entertain and inform is not going to report on one of the most important and relevant stories in the country right now, then what’s the point of its existence? And I’m saying this as someone who loves the BBC. Sherlock, Doctor Who, Fiona Bruce, Jeremy Vine – these are all regulars in our house, and I dread the day that the Beeb is taken from us. Why they have not reported a word of a story that is practically on their doorstep is beyond me, and if I was a conspiracy theorist I would be saying that the Government is stopping them from doing their job, gagging them. But that couldn’t be happening, not in a free and democratic country, right?

Screenshotof BBC News Website (Health) 00:36 Tuesday 27/07/2015. Also no mention on Top Stories or UK News sections.

There has been some signs of hope in all this. The Mirror newspaper has posted a story just recently on Labour Leadership Candidate Andy Burnham, and his intent to pledge a vote of No Confidence in Jeremy Hunt. This is the first national newspaper that has openly mentioned not only the petition, but also the 200,000+ signatures. Interestingly the Guardian have also published a story on Mr. Burnham, ahead of the same press conference on Tuesday 28th July. In their story they make a point of saying that Mr, Burnham, currently Shadow Health Secretary, will be talking on the 70th anniversary of the year that a Labour government that created the NHS came in to power. It then quickly goes on to dissect Mr. Burnham’s role in the Labour leadership battle (which is totally newsworthy) but mentions nothing of the fact that he will be voting No Confidence in his Conservative counterpart when parliament resumes. Once again, a media blackout on the part of the story that affects an entire nation.

Mirror is first national newspaper to talk about petition for vote of No Confidence in Jeremy Hunt,

The media will always have an agenda, an angle when it comes to reporting a story. This is something that, as we have become more media savvy over time, we have also come to accept. What is unacceptable is when the traditional media say nothing on a story. When they just keep quiet on a subject like this that is so important to everyone, you have to wonder why. Is there some kind of conspiracy here? Whatever the answer it appears that TV and radio (and much of the printed press) is not up to doing its job, so it’s down to us. We must keep going on social media – our tweets, posts, links etc. are working. The petition is well past 203,000 signatures, and it will only continue to grow if we keep chatting about it. Keep the pressure on, and this Government has to listen. After all, we elected them in to power – we gave them their jobs, they work for us. Not for themselves or the highly profitable private companies they’re chums with, us. These people are our representatives and so far they are not listening to us (Andy Burnham accepted).

If we don’t ensure that this latest attack on our health service is taken seriously, there will come a day where you won’t be able to go to A&E without a credit card. A day when new parents won’t be able to walk out of a maternity ward with their baby without paying a charge at the exit. That’s not us, that’s not what the UK is.

 

UPDATED: Monday 28/07/2015 – 22:00

Not long after this post was first published, at 9am this morning The Last Leg finally uploaded that rant of Adam Hills towards Mr. Hunt. It is unclear why it took three and a half days to do so, but finally more attention is being drawn to the attack of the Health Secretary on the Health Service.

In print the New Statesman is the first publication to openly talk about the feelings of NHS staff since the initial reaction after Mr. Hunt announced his intentions to enforce new contracts, and insulted the entire workforce. #WeNeedToTalkAboutJeremy is highlighted and explains in great detail the reasons why the medical profession is so angry with its boss,

In the rest of TV land, and in all of radio, silence. Thankfully, as we see here, cracks are beginning to show in the media blackout. Word is getting out, people are talking, and it will be a grave social injustice if after everything I have talked about, at the very least, Jeremy Hunt is not removed from his post as Secretary for Health.

Stand Up For Our NHS, Or Really Pay The Price

A couple of nights ago I was sat with Wife O’ Mine watching DIY SOS. You know the show – Nick Knowles finds a family that’s been through the mill and basically gives them a new house, all with the help of willing volunteers who step to the plate simply to help. The family see the house, they cry, we, the audience cry. We cry because we remember that there is always someone going through a worse time than us, and it makes us grateful for what we have. I also think we cry because DIY SOS, as contrived as some may say it is, represents the best of us – complete strangers pitching in to help other complete strangers. For free. Because it’s the right thing to do.

With that in mind, here’s a video clip I’d like you to watch. It’s about eight minutes long, so please make sure you have the time, if not now then later. Please watch, all the way through. Don’t skip, don’t pause. Please watch, and listen.

That was of course a short piece from the documentary film “Sicko”, from the controversial Michael Moore. While you may disagree with some of the views and politics of both Mr. Moore and Tony Benn, what we cannot ignore is how quickly things have changed since that film was made. Back then in 2007, our NHS was the envy of countries around the globe for it’s high standards of healthcare and it’s clear ‘access to all’ policy, while in America the best healthcare was reserved for those with the fattest wallets (and, if you believe Mr. Moore, even then it wasn’t as good as the UK). So here we are, eight years down the line, and America’s President Obama is spear-heading his own “free healthcare for all” with Obama-care, while in the UK we’re doing the opposite. We’re selling off our publically funded healthcare system a piece at a time. And what’s worse, the mainstream media seem to not want to talk about it.

Of course, I’m writing this on the back of Jeremy Hunt’s latest dig at medical professionals – belittling the work of hospital consultants and implying that they are “lazy” and don’t work at weekends and nights. Mr. Hunt is saying this to stop the NHS staff from being paid for working unsociable hours and effectively creating a pay-cut. This is when these highly trained individuals have not received a pay rise for the last five years, and MP’s have just accepted a 10% pay rise. Oh, and they get the summer off. The backlash to this outright contempt has been phenomenal, at least in the medical world and in the circles of friends and family of those people. The hashtag #ImInWorkJeremy made a point of showing the Health Secretary just how out of touch he really is from the profession he’s employed to govern. During his speech he never once invited the NHS to sit with him and work out a plan to help shape a better health service. Instead he told them that this is how it will be done, and if you don’t like it you will be punished. This highlights how little respect he has for all the medical staff, and the unwavering crusade to do away with free health care in return for lots of cash .

Several petitions have been launched against Mr. Hunt, one even through the government’s own e-petition website. At last count they had over 190,000 signatures demanding a vote of No Confidence in the Health Secretary. Now that’s a pretty big number, so why aren’t the mainstream media paying more attention to this? Why is the medical profession being ignored (except by certain right wing newspapers who seem hell bent on attacking doctors and nurses and, oh yeah, have close ties with the Conservative party)? I’ve been keeping an eye on these mainstream media to see if there is any hint of them covering the story, but have yet to see any direct or indirect reference to the petitions on the TV or radio, and you have to know exactly what to look for on the internet. This worries me, a lot.

If only Graham Norton’s idea to help people appreciate the BBC could be applied to the NHS.

The BBC is one of those companies. It is also, like the NHS, another one of the country’s fine public services, facing drastic cuts ahead of the new Royal Charter. Is that one of the reasons why they are distancing themselves? One of the BBC’s most high profile (and no denying, highly paid) talents, Graham Norton, had an interesting idea to make people appreciate the BBC more: “[..]switch off the BBC for two months” he said in a recent interview in the Daily Telegraph “and everyone would s*** themselves.” It makes sense, following that old adage of “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone”. That strategy could work for a broadcaster. For a health service, a life-line, it’s impractical and immoral. The doctors/nurses/paramedics would never do that, because they care. They care about their patients. This is their Achilles heel, their weakness. The government know this, and like some kind of sadomasochistic super-villain, they exploit it for their own gain.

The only mainstream media outlet that has dealt directly with the petition at this is the Channel 4 show, “The Last Leg” (broadcast live on Friday 24^th July 2015). Comedian and host Adam Hills went on one of his trademark rants targeting Mr. Hunt (as well as Michael Gove and his wife) saying that they are “badmouthing some of the hardest working, best qualified people in Britain, who are also woefully under-paid”. What he said in that short segment put succinctly in to words exactly how people in the NHS are feeling without relying on defending themselves against distorted reports and twisted figures. At this point I would usually show you a link to such a clip, and yet despite the usual practise of Channel 4 to upload Mr. Hills trademark rants for posterity, this one has, as yet, not officially appeared (although to their credit they have uploaded the hilarious clip of Mr. Hunt being followed around a car park by a guy playing a Sousaphone!). You have to wonder if the Government has placed some kind of restraining order on this material being made more public. The petition itself continues to grow with as many people as possible thankfully shouting about it through social media. As I sit here writing this, the petition is over 190,000 signatures. It needed 100,000 to ensure that Parliament will consider it for debate. The Government has responded to the petition (just scroll down the petition webpage to see it), but with nothing new – just hiding behind those distorted reports and twisted figures again. They’re trying to get out of their obligation to discuss this, and still the mainstream media say nothing. Interestingly another petition on the same website calling for the total legalisation of cannabis in the UK has 125,000+ signatures and is plastered all over the Guardian’s website, and doubtless others media outlets. I’m not saying this debate isn’t important, it just seems ridiculously selective. Surely the job of the mainstream media is to report on subjects and stories that are in the public interest. I can think of nothing that is more in the public interest of this country than the future of its National Health Service

.

I refuse to even think that we as a country want to live in a society where the best health care is only available to those with the money. We’re not those people. Nick Knowles proves that! The problem that we have is that we elected a Government in to power who got in on the ticket of fear, and their closest opposition had no clear message on how they would handle things any differently. We put these people in power, but that does not give them the right to lord that power over us. We gave these people their jobs, they work for us, and somewhere along the line we seem to have lost sight of that. So before I sign off I want to point you in the direction of some other interesting articles that will at the very least make you think we are being played.

Remember the recent Fox Hunting debate? The Tories wanted to repeal the ban, the SNP thought they’d flex their newly pumped up political muscles and say “hell no!”? While all that was going on the Government quietly decided to launch an enquiry in to whether the NHS should be paid for through charges and insurance rather than tax. This was not reported in the mainstream media.

The UK’s leading private health care business Care UK has recently been exposed for a lack of care towards its patients, yet still manages to net an impressive multi-million pound profit. This is the sign of what Mr. Hunt is running towards – profit for the sacrifice of care. This was not reported in the mainstream media.

Jeremy Hunt has recently, and quietly shelved a key Tory promise to cap care costs for the elderly. This U-turn has apparently cost the tax payer £100m and is a prime example of the Conservative government not sticking to it’s election promises. This was reported in the Guardian newspaper.

There will doubtless be more loosely relevant stories in the coming days, especially if, as you see in that last article, people within Jeremy Hunts own party are getting annoyed with hm. Still, we must keep shouting. Please spread the news about what’s going on here. Sign the petition, share it. If you’re not sure what’s going on, ask people in the know. Read all the Facebook posts and Twitter feeds, not from the media, but from those who have been fighting to keep your health service safe; the doctors, the nurses, the ones who are on the front line of this ongoing immoral battle. Jeremy Hunt has, with the help of certain right-wing newspapers, convinced an entire generation that doctors and nurses don’t work hard enough, and that they are paid too much. As such respect for doctors is at an all time low. As an example GP’s are viewed as autonomous drug despensers whose (minimum)10 years of training and experience can be usurped by a quick search on Google. Wife O’ Mine is a GP. She returned home from work yesterday afternoon (oh yes, a Saturday!) having seen 76 patients (with one other GP) and spent the entire time apologising. Saying sorry to patients who could not get an appointment to talk about their high temperature of 37 degrees (normal body temperature!). Or saying sorry to a 15 year old boy for “only working 9-5 last week” forcing him to change his weekend plans with his mates. Which is interesting as that was the same day my wife left home at 7am and didn’t get back until 9 that night absolutely exhausted, having had not one break. (She told me she tipped her morning coffee down the sink, at 6pm!). Maybe I should ask where she was while I was with our two young children! She didn’t complain, she never does. Doctors don’t complain, not about doing their job. It’s what they signed up for. They just don’t appreciate being dismissed as overpaid layabouts. Surely government ministers at least can appreciate that?

Perhaps instead of going to the wrong place to get treatment on a bad foot, Michael Gove should talk to his old chums in his previous place of work about educating people how the NHS actually works, like where you should really go for a suspected broken foot. Hint: minor injuries units don’t have 24 hour x-rays, Accident and Emergency do!

Perhaps instead of going to A&E with his kids because he couldn’t get a GP appointment, Jeremy Hunt should have remembered that he runs the Health department and should therefore know that he could have gone to a 24 hour walk-in centre, which were created specifically to relieve non-emergency pressure on already overstretched A&E wards and staff.

Or they could have both gone to their private health care chums. Surely they could afford that, especially with that extra 10%. Wonder if they get mates rates?

Now is the time to back our NHS. Show support for these heroes, because that’s what they are – heroes. If we don’t stand up now, against our government – the self serving supervillains, pretty soon we won’t be able to walk in to an A&E department without our credit card.