BY PAUL T HORGAN That the NHS at the time of writing has a waiting list for treatment of over 7 million patients is not a symptom of a failing organisation. It is actually an indicator that the organisation has failed. Any moves to address this public disaster without major change in how British people access health care are not so much as fruitless as … Continue reading A Matter of Life and Death
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN If I were a Marxist, my mission would be to infiltrate and transform the very fabric of Great Britain, sowing seeds of discontent and radical ideology aimed at dismantling Capitalism and replacing it with a collectivist mindset. I would wield psychological tactics to instil self-doubt and guilt about personal achievements, reinforcing the toxic belief that success comes at the expense of others. … Continue reading If I Were a Marxist
BY PAUL T HORGAN I have to tell you of the experience of a close relative of mine some years ago. She was in hospital awaiting surgery for gallstones which were causing her excruciating pain. She had experienced the pain for months, but no-one had diagnosed the cause until quite late. One night, she was in her hospital bed in a side room, when she … Continue reading No Doubt There Are More Killer NHS Nurses
BY PAUL T HORGAN Surely one of the most cloyingly cringeworthy sights on British Television this year has to be the BBC’s Newsnight hosting a children’s choir marking the 75th anniversary of the creation of the NHS. All the young singers were clad in identical t-shirts as if they were part of some staatsjugend organisation. Some bureaucrat must have seen the 1980s music act St … Continue reading The NHS & BBC Are Falling
VICAR Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, I trust that You are healthy and following the rules and regulations of the lock-down in an attempt to thwart the progress of Covid 19. We now live in a strange world where, frankly, a headline warning us of an alien invasion or an incoming meteorite would now be met with a shrug of the shoulders. I have … Continue reading A Prayer for Front Line Staff
BY QUENTIN PIGG In Britain, one has to go through the ridiculous charade of downplaying things which are obvious to many but spoken by few. If your assertion is yet to find its way into the digestive tract of the media, then to express it in the presence of so-called learned people will award you the label of a ‘reactionary’. It is this position that … Continue reading Orthodoxy Sniffers
BY QUENTIN PIGG “Lessons will be learnt” – Jeremy Hunt, Health Secretary, 2017 “We will obviously have to learn lessons”– Lesley Griffiths, Welsh Health Minister, 2013. “Lessons will be learnt to ensure it never happens again” – Nadine Dorries, Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, 2019. I’d like to preface this glorified rant by testifying that it is not my wish to see … Continue reading American Hospital Any Day
BY NICK PEARCE One interesting development yesterday on Mental Health Day was how the countryside was being touted as the route out of depression and back to good health. Nature “prescriptions” by GPs could be a cheaper way to improve the UK’s mental health, a pioneering new study found – research conducted by Leeds Beckett University found that swapping regular prescriptions for nature activities could … Continue reading Countryside Helps Mental Health
BY FRANK HAVILAND There isn’t much left which isn’t racist. Managing to avoid it can be quite a challenge. Everything from your morning coffee to the weather is racism embodied. My personal favourites include: sandwiches, classical music, dating sites, science, being white, having a white family, disliking foreign food, liking foreign food, staring at people, not staring at people, and of course not being racist … Continue reading Equality Lie Violation
BY ANASTASIA CHOO Country Squire Magazine’s Anastasia Choo works in the NHS and is a proud supporter of Britain’s Health Service. Here she discusses why we should keep the NHS and suggests we all wake up to the reality that if we want a successful and effective healthcare service now and in the future we need to pay more, keep fit and waste less. The new year … Continue reading Don’t Give Up on Our NHS!
BY MATTHEW CORRIGAN Here we go again. Another year, another crisis in the NHS. This time the ante has been well and truly upped by none less than the British Red Cross (BRC), which, coincidentally has a brand-new Director of Media. Former Digital Editor at (believe it or not) The Guardian, Polly Curtis has certainly hit the ground running. In a statement released on Friday, … Continue reading NHS: Astonishingly Profligate
BY MARK TOWNLEY The NHS can never be a bottomless pit and in recent years it has been struggling more than in most years as the country recognises that there is a limit to free healthcare and the extraordinary waste that the NHS entails. Paying too much for nurses, badly negotiated procurement and too many management/admin staff and hangers-on – all these and other NHS ills … Continue reading Cumberland Madness: Disrespecting Veterans
BY MATTHEW CORRIGAN Even now, more than nine years on, I can clearly remember the cold, dark evening of March 1st 2007. I arrived at my father’s care home expecting to find him unwell; Mum had been very concerned when we’d spoken earlier. Nothing, however, prepared me for the sight that greeted me as I knocked on the door and entered his room. Dad was … Continue reading Panorama & Care Home Scandals
BY ANASTASIA CHOO There is a stereotypical image of GP surgery receptionists being grim faced, fire-breathing dragons. They often score poorly in NHS Patient Surveys. Patients complain that they find doctors’ receptionists obstructive, incompetent and unfriendly. In a recent Cancer Research UK survey based on 2000 patients, 4 out of 10 said they did not like being asked too many probing questions by non-clinical staff … Continue reading Fire Breathing Dragons
