#nhs uk

[littleraeofsunshineda]

Anyone in the UK:

Big survey on the NHS has been launched.

I am BEGGING people to go on and opine loudly that they need to get their shit together on retaining staff by any means necessary.

All their plans are great (yes we obv need a single system for records wtf is this 1990) but literally nowhere do they acknowledge that everything from "care in the community" to "preventing instead of treating" is currently in the fucking pits because

THERE ARE NO FUCKING STAFF OR SPECIALIST TRAINING PLACES

change.nhs.uk

please fucking do it

[nightmaretour]

I've got so much to live for but sometimes I kinda feel like giving up is preferable to having to desperately fight for any scrap of healthcare I need. I'm so tired

[aquilacalvitium]

If you're reading this, it means that I am now officially working for the NHS!

If you're reading this within the last few hours of it being posted, it means I am currently in my first training session!

All this means a lot less time for me to be online. I will probably be pretty active in the evenings, especially during my first week, as it's an easy, mindless thing to do when I'm tired.

This also means, less art and fanfiction updates. I mean my brain is always going so even if I'm at work I'll likely be throwing ideas around inside my head and end up coming up with a few things, but getting them out into the open takes energy and concentration which I won't have a lot of as my body adjusts to this new sleeping schedule.

So unless I feel particularly motivated one evening, don't expect anything original from me for about a week or so.

I promise I'll keep working on my submas fanfiction, and I still want to have a go at a mini comic with my fnaf glamrock sona, but other projects like my pokemon webcomic or that one crowd drawing that I've been putting off for months will have to wait a while.

In regards to that last one, I'm slowly working my way up to it again! I know a bunch of people are excited to have their sonas put in, so I promise I'll do my best not to make you wait too much longer!

Anyway! I'm terrified of starting this new job, but I can only do my best! Wish me luck!

[aquilas-designs]

GUESS WHO’S OFFICIALLY AN NHS WORKER??? 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳

Starting on Tuesday the 13th of March 2023, I will be starting my apprenticeship in admin work for the National Health Service!

It’ll be a lot of writing and maths and data entry and studying and I can’t wait!! It might not be the most glamorous job in the world, but I don’t mind. I’m so thrilled that I get to work for what is basically the backbone of the UK!

Unfortunately this does mean I’ll have less time for art as well as all my other hobbies, but I’ll still draw! It just means art will be slower than normal. My new studies will be top priority!

-

If you like my art, please consider reblogging!

[mysharona1987]

[media-bias-fact-check]

(Source of the Day) NHS: A High-Credibility Source for Reliable Health Information

(Source of the Day) NHS: A High-Credibility Source for Reliable Health Information

The UK’s NHS (National Health Service), established in 1948, provides universal and free healthcare. The NHS website, launched in 2007, offers directories of local services, medical information, and public health data, allowing patients to manage prescriptions, records, and appointments online. The NHS ensures free comprehensive care. It is funded mainly through taxation and national insurance,…

[spartanmemesmedical]

"Weight-Loss Medication Demonstrates Significant Cardiovascular Benefits: Landmark Trial Shows Reduced Stroke and Heart Attack Risk"

“Significant Heart Benefits Found in Weight-Loss Drug: New Trial Reveals” A recent trial has uncovered that a weight-loss medication also holds the potential to lower the risk of heart attacks and strokes. The pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, makers of Wegovy, reported that their latest study demonstrates a 20% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular events among overweight individuals with…

[marlinspirkhall]

For British trans people who aren't still stuck on a waiting list, please do this survey.

Everyone else, reblog this so we can make sure it reaches the few people it needs to reach.

SURVEY LINK

[mxactivist]

[URGENT] UK NHS consultation on puberty blockers

VERY SHORT DEADLINE! (Wednesday 1st November 2023)

The UK's National Health Service (NHS) are about to ban puberty blockers for all trans adolescents, except for a small group who are eligible and willing to be research subjects.

"As part of this NHS England-led process, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) was commissioned to review the published evidence. Overall, there was no statistically significant difference in gender incongruence, mental health, body image and psychosocial functioning in children and adolescents treated with PSH." -- 6-page introductory PDF to consultation

That's because puberty blockers don't change gender characteristics by definition, you absolute donuts.

They're carrying out a consultation on this because they have to, and there's only two days left. If you are in the UK and you are a young trans person or know any young trans people, please check out this consultation.

Need help answering the questions? Here's a couple of handy links:

Here's a really helpful article about the consultation and some persuasive arguments you could include in your answers, from What The Trans!

Abigail Thorn outlines some excellent points on Trans Writes.

Mermaids, a UK charity supporting trans kids and their families, has a guide for responding to the consultation, too.

Here's the first question, to help you work out if you're in the target group:

In "other", you could put anything like "friend of a trans adolescent", "family member of a trans child", etc. If you're a trans adult who was on blockers or who would have been on blockers if waiting lists had been shorter or family/doctors had been more supportive etc, choose "patient".

Click here to participate.

Deadline: Wednesday 1st November 2023.

[elierlick]

The Guardian DIY HRT hit piece finally came out and there's something inspirational about it. It's not the article itself. Our community came together over the past month to warn one another not to speak with them - and they couldn't find a single interviewee doing DIY!

[littleraeofsunshineda]

the state of the NHS after fourteen years of Tories is a terrifying and miserable capitalist hellscape

case in point, me, the last week or so:

have uti, picked up from a partner's infection. Very simple easy thing to treat. This one is a nasty little bugger, I feel like shit.

call gp. Ask for appointment.

No appointments.

At length told a pharmacy can prescribe 3 days of antibiotics without you seeing gp. Excellent!

Receive antibiotics. At this point we are ~3-4 days in. That's also how long it's been since I had a proper night's sleep because I HAVE TO GET UP TO PEE FOUR TIMES.

Antibiotics produce great improvement, but (surprise) perhaps not 100% by the time I finish the course. Nevrthless, am told by pharmacy I can't get any more from them. I must go to gp.

Call gp. Come down at 8am physically to surgery next day.

Arrive at 7.47. 12th in the queue. Total queue reaches >20 by 8am. For a cool parallel, they run out of appointments at person 8. The poor receptionist looks like if she has to tell one more person there's nothing she can do, she'll cry.

Receptionist tells me I can try again tmm (arrive at 7.30? I wonder thoughtfully) or try submitting a request through The App. Someone will call me today. I thank her and submit it in the car before I leave.

3.55 (GPs generally close at 4pm). No call. I squish down the fear that I am Karen-ing and call in. "I'm so sorry," I say, "do you know if I WILL be called today?"

She says I might get one up to 6pm, but that will only be a receptionist who will be booking an appointment in the next couple of weeks. "This can't wait two weeks," I say. "Your own guidance says so."

"There's nothing I can do," she says, and: "You shouldn't be using the online system for things that are urgent, anyway." "I tried to get an emergency appointment and there was nothing: I was TOLD to use this," I say, helplessly. "...Well anyway," she says, "the receptionist might call you by six."

AHA! I think. I am immensely lucky and have some small health insurance through work - including virtual gp. Maybe they can help! I book an appointment through that platform, relieved.

The appointment is over the phone within an hour - phenomenal. She tells me that she is not allowed to prescribe me anything: the uti not fully clearing up in 3 days of antibiotics means I need specialist urine testing as there is likely resistance. It needs to happen immediately, today, tonight, because I am at risk of a kidney infection. She can only refer me back to the NHS.

I say "but they don't have anything, and I can't argue - the poor receptionist can't do anything about not having appointments."

"You have to fight," she says. "You have to be seen. Go to urgent care if you have to."

It is now 6.05pm. The receptionist has not called.

Guess I'm spending the evening in a&e.

This is the struggle to get basic healthcare in the UK right now, and there is very often NO OPTION other than A&E. I HAVE some level of "private healthcare", and they could not do anything. Imagine what it's like for most people who don't even have the tiny level of access for a virtual GP to tell them that they ARE right, and they DO need to make a fuss.

I have been crying on and off all day. This is just not having healthcare. I wish I had any confidence at all that we'll change how we vote as a country.

[nightmaretour]

I swear you could be dying of radiation poisoning and the NHS would just prescribe physiotherapy

[bisexualseraphim]

Anyway regardless of how you feel about the Royals, even if you’re like me and think they’re all parasites, here are some things to remember:

The UK taxpayer is funding Kate’s high-end treatments whilst millions of citizens are on years-long NHS waiting lists for their own treatments and waiting hours upon hours to be seen in A&E when they’ve had a severe incident; so much money that could be going towards funding the NHS properly is instead going to the Royals. Kate is very likely going to be perfectly fine. Millions of regular tax-paying UK citizens will not.

HOWEVER. Kate isn’t going to see your memes making fun of her on tumblr dot com — but other people whom have suffered because of cancer will. If common decency won’t stop you from posting crab rave GIFs celebrating the illness of a mother to three young children, hopefully the chance of someone else with cancer or with a friend or relative with cancer seeing it will.

Seriously does no one else think Kensington’s PR nightmare is kind of fucked up like the fact they were so Weird about all this and let a sick woman in their “family” take all the blame for their shitty Photoshop skills. Royalist stan blogs I’ve seen you on here and I ask you: is THAT not some kind of indication as to how fucking evil they are if absolutely nothing else is. Please tell me you’ve seen the light by now I can’t cope anymore

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Palantir’s NHS-stealing Big Lie

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then SAN FRANCISCO (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

Capitalism's Big Lie in four words: "There is no alternative." Looters use this lie for cover, insisting that they're hard-nosed grownups living in the reality of human nature, incentives, and facts (which don't care about your feelings).

The point of "there is no alternative" is to extinguish the innovative imagination. "There is no alternative" is really "stop trying to think of alternatives, dammit." But there are always alternatives, and the only reason to demand that they be excluded from consideration is that these alternatives are manifestly superior to the looter's supposed inevitability.

Right now, there's an attempt underway to loot the NHS, the UK's single most beloved institution. The NHS has been under sustained assault for decades – budget cuts, overt and stealth privatisation, etc. But one of its crown jewels has been stubbournly resistant to being auctioned off: patient data. Not that HMG hasn't repeatedly tried to flog patient data – it's just that the public won't stand for it:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/21/nhs-data-platform-may-be-undermined-by-lack-of-public-trust-warn-campaigners

Patients – quite reasonably – do not trust the private sector to handle their sensitive medical records.

Now, this presents a real conundrum, because NHS patient data, taken as a whole, holds untold medical insights. The UK is a large and diverse country and those records in aggregate can help researchers understand the efficacy of various medicines and other interventions. Leaving that data inert and unanalysed will cost lives: in the UK, and all over the world.

For years, the stock answer to "how do we do science on NHS records without violating patient privacy?" has been "just anonymise the data." The claim is that if you replace patient names with random numbers, you can release the data to research partners without compromising patient privacy, because no one will be able to turn those numbers back into names.

It would be great if this were true, but it isn't. In theory and in practice, it is surprisingly easy to "re-identify" individuals in anonymous data-sets. To take an obvious example: we know which two dates former PM Tony Blair was given a specific treatment for a cardiac emergency, because this happened while he was in office. We also know Blair's date of birth. Check any trove of NHS data that records a person who matches those three facts and you've found Tony Blair – and all the private data contained alongside those public facts is now in the public domain, forever.

Not everyone has Tony Blair's reidentification hooks, but everyone has data in some kind of database, and those databases are continually being breached, leaked or intentionally released. A breach from a taxi service like Addison-Lee or Uber, or from Transport for London, will reveal the journeys that immediately preceded each prescription at each clinic or hospital in an "anonymous" NHS dataset, which can then be cross-referenced to databases of home addresses and workplaces. In an eyeblink, millions of Britons' records of receiving treatment for STIs or cancer can be connected with named individuals – again, forever.

Re-identification attacks are now considered inevitable; security researchers have made a sport out of seeing how little additional information they need to re-identify individuals in anonymised data-sets. A surprising number of people in any large data-set can be re-identified based on a single characteristic in the data-set.

Given all this, anonymous NHS data releases should have been ruled out years ago. Instead, NHS records are to be handed over to the US military surveillance company Palantir, a notorious human-rights abuser and supplier to the world's most disgusting authoritarian regimes. Palantir – founded by the far-right Trump bagman Peter Thiel – takes its name from the evil wizard Sauron's all-seeing orb in Lord of the Rings ("Sauron, are we the baddies?"):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/01/the-palantir-will-see-you-now/#public-private-partnership

The argument for turning over Britons' most sensitive personal data to an offshore war-crimes company is "there is no alternative." The UK needs the medical insights in those NHS records, and this is the only way to get at them.

As with every instance of "there is no alternative," this turns out to be a lie. What's more, the alternative is vastly superior to this chumocratic sell-out, was Made in Britain, and is the envy of medical researchers the world 'round. That alternative is "trusted research environments." In a new article for the Good Law Project, I describe these nigh-miraculous tools for privacy-preserving, best-of-breed medical research:

https://goodlawproject.org/cory-doctorow-health-data-it-isnt-just-palantir-or-bust/

At the outset of the covid pandemic Oxford's Ben Goldacre and his colleagues set out to perform realtime analysis of the data flooding into NHS trusts up and down the country, in order to learn more about this new disease. To do so, they created Opensafely, an open-source database that was tied into each NHS trust's own patient record systems:

https://timharford.com/2022/07/how-to-save-more-lives-and-avoid-a-privacy-apocalypse/

Opensafely has its own database query language, built on SQL, but tailored to medical research. Researchers write programs in this language to extract aggregate data from each NHS trust's servers, posing medical questions of the data without ever directly touching it. These programs are published in advance on a git server, and are preflighted on synthetic NHS data on a test server. Once the program is approved, it is sent to the main Opensafely server, which then farms out parts of the query to each NHS trust, packages up the results, and publishes them to a public repository.

This is better than "the best of both worlds." This public scientific process, with peer review and disclosure built in, allows for frequent, complex analysis of NHS data without giving a single third party access to a a single patient record, ever. Opensafely was wildly successful: in just months, Opensafely collaborators published sixty blockbuster papers in Nature – science that shaped the world's response to the pandemic.

Opensafely was so successful that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care commissioned a review of the programme with an eye to expanding it to serve as the nation's default way of conducting research on medical data:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/better-broader-safer-using-health-data-for-research-and-analysis/better-broader-safer-using-health-data-for-research-and-analysis

This approach is cheaper, safer, and more effective than handing hundreds of millions of pounds to Palantir and hoping they will manage the impossible: anonymising data well enough that it is never re-identified. Trusted Research Environments have been endorsed by national associations of doctors and researchers as the superior alternative to giving the NHS's data to Peter Thiel or any other sharp operator seeking a public contract.

As a lifelong privacy campaigner, I find this approach nothing short of inspiring. I would love for there to be a way for publishers and researchers to glean privacy-preserving insights from public library checkouts (such a system would prove an important counter to Amazon's proprietary god's-eye view of reading habits); or BBC podcasts or streaming video viewership.

You see, there is an alternative. We don't have to choose between science and privacy, or the public interest and private gain. There's always an alternative – if there wasn't, the other side wouldn't have to continuously repeat the lie that no alternative is possible.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/08/the-fire-of-orodruin/#are-we-the-baddies

Image: Gage Skidmore (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peter_Thiel_(51876933345).jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

[whatevergreen]

UK Labour is now nearly Thatcher era Conservative.

[guilty-feminist]