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I read this @JamesMelville and I am now in tears, which is apt as I started the day in tears reading the account of an ITU Sister who went back to work despite being on maternity leave leaving her 5 month old baby. Her story just caught the essence of the many deaths 1/n https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1334951248475328517
there have been. The rest of today I was involved in a conference where we were speaking about trying to deal with all the patients who need surgery. A repeated story from speakers was how their best efforts had been affected by the need to care for ever increasing numbers 2/n
of Covid admissions (which off course don't exist). Then on top of this was the evidence that operating on people who have Covid is dangerous as they have a greatly increased mortality...it gets worse even if they catch Covid in the recovery period i.e. after discharge then 3/n
there is also increased chance of problems. My surgical colleagues are doing everything they can to ensure that they can operate on patients safely and protect them in those first few weeks following surgery. Then I read you mention we must manage the outcome of lockdown 4/n
Non Covid treatment delays. FFS don't you understand you cannot simplify things and say that lockdown caused this. Was it perfect? Not by a long shot but we have learned. Could we have done better? Definitely the messaging about being open for business was not handled well. 5/n
However tweets that just gloss over and make profound statements do not help. Without lockdown their would have been worse carnage! As someone with a major following I expect better. You also made a statement of the bloody obvious - we must address the damage 6/n
but you aren't leading that from the front or contributing to how we do that safely. Those working night and day, planning services, trying to build safe pathways for patients. They are the ones that are leading this - doctors, nurses, managers, indeed all the staff in 7/n
Primary and Secondary Care. So please stop the soundbites James. If you want to help get involved locally with your hospital. Apply to be a NED do something practical. Otherwise I suggest being careful about becoming another keyboard critic of the NHS.
