The REAL news. Episode 3. The NHS. (With special guest Dr Rob Galloway A & E consultant)

This is a big one. I have a sister with a chronic illness and I myself am a long term service user of the NHS. Today I received a Facebook message from a woman called Judith who lives in America who wishes to warn of us of the terrible things being done to our NHS and of the grim future these changes will usher in for us all. You can read her thoughts on this at the end of this open letter from one of our A & E Doctors.

An open letter from an A&E doctor:

I am writing to you for your help in trying to stop the unprecedented damage happening to the NHS. Please read, share, like, tweet and tell your friends.

As someone who has the privilege of working for the NHS as an A&E doctor, I see firsthand what is happening. Please trust the real doctors and not the spin-doctors.


We have tried to highlight what is going on; through the media, marches, speeches and endless tweets and facebook posts. But it is not working. Things are getting worse and the NHS, which we all care so much about may soon no longer be able to care for us.
The only things which might save it is if the British public no longer just accept what is happening – but start to fight back. This is above party politics. This is about what we want our society to be like. Fight back for the greatest safety net we have – the knowledge that as a UK taxpayer if we get sick, then we will be looked after; an envy throughout the world.

The NHS was born on the 5th July 1948. Heroes from World War II, no longer wanted to accept a society where if you were rich you would prosper and if you were poor you were left to suffer. It was born in a period of great austerity but money was found because health and welfare was made a priority above all else.

A letter was sent through the door of every citizen. The opening lines were:


This promise is one we may soon not be able to keep.
The NHS has its problems and needs reform. But its ethos was what made it great; patients before profits, co-operation instead of competition.But the last few years has seen a determined effort to undermine all that is good about the NHS – its socialised system of working for the good of our patients.

The government have started a process of privatisation. Billions have been wasted on re-organisations and competition and contracting out of services to the private sector which have destabilised the hospitals we all use. Despite this, the NHS kept going because of the skills and commitment of its staff.
So, to deliver the politically and ideologically driven plan of reducing the size of the state and selling off the NHS to the private sector – the government have started to attack the staff. Harm the staff and you damage the NHS. A damaged NHS is one which the public would go along with privatising.

If this happens, things will become like the USA where they spend double on health care to what we do, but the money is wasted on profit, beaurocracy and excessive wages and the standards of care are so much lower than in the UK, especially for the poor.
Why are they doing this? It has been their plan all along. The extreme right wing in this country do not believe in working together for the common good. Thy do not believe in the concepts of the NHS. They believe in individuals floating or sinking. Jeremy Hunt even co-authored a book on this 10 years ago in which the authors said the NHS is “no longer relevant in the 21st Century.”
The new contracts they are proposing for junior doctors will mean an exodus of doctors from the NHS. Without these doctors, standards of care will fall, waits will rise and patients will die.
They have said this is about 7 day working. That is just not true. The new contract will harm 7 day working. How do you improve care at weekends if you stop incentivising people to work in jobs with lots of out of hours work by saying evenings and Saturdays are normal working hours.

They have also spun the truth by saying there will be an 11% pay rise to basic pay. But Junior Doctors salaries have a large component made up of supplements because they work so many nights, weekends and evenings. If you cut these payments by more than the basic pay rise it is in fact a pay cut. They have also said they are offering pay protection. But this pay protection will only apply to current doctors in their current posts and the government seem to be hoping that current doctors will happily see their future colleagues get worse terms and conditions. But these future doctors will simply leave the NHS and patients will suffer. You can tell the politicans are lying by simple maths my 6 year old can do. They have said that everyone will get an 11% basic pay rise but the pay envelope will not rise. This does not add up without cutting the pay for those doing out of hours work.
There is so much misinformation and so many lies out there – spun by the politicians and propagated by sections of the press. We need the British public to see through the misinformation, lies and spin and to help us.

Public opinion matters. There may well be a strike by junior doctors. During the strike consultants like me will be doing what we can to make things safe. No one wants the strike – especially not the doctors. They have said they will negotiate with the government as long as the government say they will not impose a contract. That can only be fair – but the government refuses. A strike will be the fault of the government.

If the doctors strike, it would be to protect the NHS and not to harm it. Protect if by forcing the government into a climb down so that they do not bring in these disastrous policies which will lead to so much damage to the NHS.

But it is bigger than just this issue. We as a society must think about our priorities. Do we starve the NHS of resources whilst having tax cuts for millionaires and multinational businesses? Do we value and protect the bankers and speculators who have harmed this country so much? Or do we value and protect the doctors and nurses who heal the country?

We must start to fight back. Do whatever you can to let people know what is happening. Campaign on the street, pubs and ballot box. Contact your MP, sign petitions or join groups such as the NHS Support Federation ( Even if we win the junior doctor battle and even if Mr Hunt is forced to resign, that is only the first battle in a generational war for the NHS .
Remember what Nye Bevan said on the day the NHS was founded. The NHS will last, as long at there are the folk with the faith to fight for it. We as members of the British public need to have the faith and we need to fight for it.

If we don’t, the NHS which our grandparents so proudly formed, will no longer be there for our children. They may never forgive us.

Yours sincerely

Dr Rob Galloway, A&E Consultant

Here’s what Judith my Facebook friend in America had to say.
“As a US citizen who had to quit working due to chronic auto-immune illnesses, I strongly urge you to take this issue as seriously as possible and do absolutely everything you can think of to save the NHS. I’m familiar with the health situations of many people in the UK through online support groups. Trust me, you most definitely do NOT want privatization and anything like the stress-filled, discriminatory, inadequate, expensive mess we suffer with here, where medical expenses are a leading cause of personal bankruptcy.”
NHS 7.
NHS 1.
NHS 3.
NHS 2.
NHS 4.
So there you have it. We’d also like to add if you drive a Volkswagen and have a love for sausages now would be a really good time to start getting behind your NHS.
Ok well let’s not panic too much. There may be a few lies being told on the NHS but I’m sure we can trust the government on other issues such a welfare….
NHS 3.
Leader of the Labour party and Communist berserker Jeremy Corby has been accused by the Sun News paper of being unpatriotic by not bowing deeply enough at the weekends remembrance service. We asked a news vendor in Blyth Northumbria of his thoughts on this and he directed us towards this…
rmeme 7
So that will be that….
In other news the Sun newspaper has been voted newspaper of the decade….Unfortunately that decade is the 1970s
On other issues Corbyn has claimed he would never press the nuclear button. Well if you can’t trust him to annihilate humanity what can you trust him to do?
Other rumours circulating about Corbyn are that every time you don’t eat your crusts he kills a kitten, he saves all his farts in a jar and releases them on Jewish holidays and is regularly known to take 11 items through the 10 item till…the bastard.
Still with the Labour party they looked a bit confused recently when they said they would support the Fiscal Charter. Then they said they wouldn’t support the Fiscal Charter. Then they went a bit Admiral Akbar from return of the Jedi and announced…
rmeme 8.
Well that’s it for todays REAL news. Join us tomorrow when we’ll be asking the is there any need for the Tories to spend 15 million on a Margaret Thatcher museum. We already have them. They’re called coal mines. Sleep well if you can.

F**k Austerity.



Remember when your high street used to go butchers, independent baker and maybe not a candlestick maker but what was commonly known as the handyman’s, where you could buy candles. But now you look at your high street and it goes charity shop, another charity shop, pay day loan lender, bookies and four Gregs the bakers. Well there are a lot of factors that have caused this but you can bet a weeks worth of foodbank vouchers that austerity has placed a big part in these changes.

To put it simply austerity is class war. It does nothing but make a population suffer. Good old austerity when the billionaires in business tell the millionaires in politics that the rest of us are too greedy.

Austerity almost sounds nice. Like something homely and sensible that your grandparents did during the war (there’s been plenty of them just pick one that suits your age/generation) Austerity is nice and simple like a baked potato and cheese (hold the pickle we’re on an austerity drive here.)

Austerity under recession makes no sense. It just doesn’t work. If we spend the economy gets it back in tax. If we save, or stick money in a tax haven it does nothing. It’s useless.

In the bigger picture of our economic systems the savings we make from the poor are miniscule. And if we keep hammering them then any money we save in shrinking the state will cost us more in crime and malnutrition. Besides this concern about the deficit is a smoke screen. If we went after the unpaid tax in this country we could probably clear it tomorrow.

We’ve had a budget today and it makes for grim viewing if you’re a young person or at the bottom of the social scale. Many of you reading probably think that’s not you…but pause for a second and ask just how easy it could be for you to end up there.

Again this is class war. The so-called welfare state is being eroded. It’s not an economic policy that makes any sense as to end a serious recession. Who runs an economy as a form of punishment? C**ts do…that’s who

So fuck austerity I say. Me and my wife have decided to join the resistance and holiday in Greece this year. We urge you to do the same. Because when this really kicks off they’re going to need all the help they can get…and maybe we’re not too far off being in the same boat as them.