Authors Electric

Jen, who died alone in hospital aged 38. Her story matters.  My September blogpost, Deaf in High Places?   was written as I was preparing to set off for the first public session of Module 3 of Baroness Hallett’s COVID-19 Inquiry: The Impact of the Pandemic on Healthcare Systems.   I still find this a troubling title. What about the impact on patients: will individuals and their human rights and needs be forgotten again in the focus on the system? Remember that slogan ‘Stay at Home – Protect the NHS – Save Lives’? I'm working with the Patients Association and Care Rights UK. We will argue that many people's lives were lost or blighted because of this focus on protecting the institution.  Why did the NHS need protecting? Because it was (is) so seriously lacking capacity that even pre-pandemic it was routinely in crisis. Remember the BBC2 series Hospital back in 2016, bed managers and consultants desperately searching for any available Intensive Care space to treat peo...

  By the time you read this … Baroness Heather Hallett Chair of the UK COVID INquiry  I’ll be on my way to attend the opening session of module 3 of the COVID Inquiry. Unlike some previous massively long-running public inquiries this one, chaired by Baroness Hallett, is sub-divided into smaller, subject-specific sections called modules. Module 1, 'Resilience and Preparedness', has already been concluded and a report has been published. It will come as little surprise to hear that Baroness Hallett did not consider Britain well-prepared for a pandemic. Hearings for Module 2 – Core UK Decision-making and Political Governance -- have also been completed but there’s no report as yet. John’s Campaign (or Ymgyrch John as we become when we cross the border) was asked to speak for patients / care home residents and their family carers in Wales. This made it just about manageable for a small organisation and it was often unexpectedly interesting to see how the situation in a differ...