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Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 1h

Not surprising really. A year NHS has started on major reform, demotivated clinical staff starting industrial action, serious job reductions in NHSTrusts as make big £ cuts. NHSEngland and ICBs floundering over large job cuts
www.hsj.co.uk/quality-and-...

Diagnostics performance slides despite NHSE hailing ‘record summer’

Performance on the NHS's main diagnostic target has dropped back a year despite efforts to increase capacity and ramp up activity, figures published on Thursday show.

www.hsj.co.uk

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 1h

Tory idiots. It is about economic growth not cost cutting. Thirteen years of ‘austerity’ let wrecked public services, and forced millions into poverty. The NHS is struggling with consequences of their stupidity. Answer is economic growth not retrenchment
www.economist.com/britain/2025...

The stricken Tories reach for the chainsaw

A wise move for a party in a dire position

www.economist.com

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Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 2h

University budget problems at least partly consequence of UK becoming a less popular destination for those high fee paying foreign students? Were 14% fewer applications for international student visas in 2024, when new immigration rules introduced, than the year before
www.bbc.com/news/article...

Thousands more university jobs cut as financial crisis deepens

University workers will vote on national strike action this month over a 1.4% pay offer made in the summer.

www.bbc.com

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 2h

Community- based mental health services for adults of working age ‘Safety’ rated ‘inadequate’.
www.cqc.org.uk/press-releas...

CQC tells Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust to make urgent improvements - Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has told Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT) to make urgent improvements after an inspection of two of its services in March found a decline ...

www.cqc.org.uk

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 2h

www.ippr.org/articles/tak...

Taking stock: Counting the economic costs of alcohol harm | IPPR

The World Health Organization’s guidance on alcohol is clear: there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. Alcohol is known to cause at least seven types

www.ippr.org

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Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 7h

Talk about a ‘broken NHS’. But not who ‘broke’ it? Also no mention of how the UK population is becoming poorer- with 12 million people living in absolute poverty in 2023- much sicker and older. All leading to unprecedented rising demand on an NHS that has been systemically underfunded for years

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Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 7h

Much of the extra £ 25 billion has gone on pay rises and NI increase. Then another big chunk - maybe up to £5bn - will be spent on the increased medicine costs to please Trump.

NHS England cannot even afford to pay redundancy costs that are part of planned NHS reform

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 7h

Improve the living standards of the poor improves health and reduced demand on the NHS. Increasing poverty, struggling public services with rising demand on a struggling NHS. All a direct consequence of 14 yrs of stupid and careless Tory government
www.jrf.org.uk/a-minimum-in...

A Minimum Income Standard for the United Kingdom in 2025

The Minimum Income Standard (MIS) provides a vision of the living standards that we, as a society, agree everyone in the UK should be able to meet. This report from the Centre for Research in Social P...

www.jrf.org.uk

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 7h

UN press release from 2019 - the eve of the Covid pandemic. How UK ( Tory) government policies led to systemic ‘immiseration of millions’ across our country. Add Covid pandemic to swingeing public service cuts= unmanageable NHS demand, the service of last resort.
www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...

UN expert laments UK’s ‘doubling down on failed anti-poor policies’

GENEVA (22 May 2019) - The UK Government’s policies have led to the systematic immiseration of millions across Great Britain, the UN’s expert on poverty and human rights said in a report released toda...

www.ohchr.org

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 8h

Number of trolley waits increases in Sept as does the waiting list for elective treatment. We remain a considerable distance off the, now, seemingly impossible 2019 NHS performance. Not just Covid backlog but backwash from years of Tory austerity programme.
www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/qualitywatch...

NHS performance dashboard

www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 9h

Will the NHS prevention strategy work better this winter? Very high cumulative hospital admission rates for flu last winter following declining and very low vaccination rates among critical groups- including people with long term health conditions and immunosuppressed.
www.gov.uk/government/n...

UKHSA weekly winter surveillance bulletin

Weekly UKHSA report for the 2025/26 season, monitoring respiratory viruses as people are encouraged to take simple steps to protect themselves.

www.gov.uk

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 9h

Trump ends the war? Of course- without the USA it could not have continued for as long as it has. So reckon even Trump must think it is time to finish possibly in hope of that Peace Prize - and lucrative real estate and building contracts What a sick joke
www.aljazeera.com/features/202...

How the US funded Israel’s wars on Gaza, Lebanon, Iran

Twin reports from the Costs of War Project find the US has backed Israel with more than $21bn since October 2023.

www.aljazeera.com

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 9h

Considering USA is major arms supplier to Israel and funds it to tune of $3.8billion/yr doubt it could have carried on the war if US pulled the plug- that Trump has now likely threatened to do with Netanyahu.Which,of course, they could have done a long time ago.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

‘Trump is like a juggernaut’: how the Gaza ceasefire deal was done

Sidelines chat at UN was turning point for US president, but others also have right to claim role in end of two-year war

www.theguardian.com

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 10h

The GP workload crisis. Yet we have many newly qualified GPs unable to find employment! More about lack of £ funding than a lack of work.
www.rcgp.org.uk/News/workloa...

Nearly three quarters of GPs say patient safety is being compromised by their workload, as concerns are raised over new reforms

RCGP publishes new polling ahead of College Chair Kamila Hawthorne’s speech at its Annual Primary Care Conference.

www.rcgp.org.uk

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 10h

This guy not seen the NHS is treating record numbers ( thanks to a significant non- British staff) as it works flat out BUT waiting list is still rising? Yet NHS trusts cut frontline clinical posts to save £ and GP practices complain that despite need for more fte GPs they do not have the funding

3

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 11h

NHS delivered ‘record’ number of treatments and GPs used Advice and Guidance instead of hospital referral for over half a million patients,but overall waiting list still actually increased this summer. Fingers crossed the vaccination programme impacts winter demand
www.england.nhs.uk/2025/10/reco...

NHS England » Record summer of NHS activity

www.england.nhs.uk

1

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 1d

www.newscientist.com/article/2499...

There are five types of sleep – here's what that means for your health

Scientists have identified five sleep profiles, each of which is linked to distinct mental health symptoms and brain activity patterns

www.newscientist.com

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 1d

Many GPs say they are working at or above capacity as not only are patient numbers increasing; they are having more appointments each year on average at the same time as GP full-time-equivalent numbers are decreasing
www.pulsetoday.co.uk/analysis/spe...

GP practices consider cutting lists to improve access

Many practices are at capacity, and are unable to provide the levels of access they would like – with some considering cutting their lists.

www.pulsetoday.co.uk

1

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 1d

Big increase in price UK pays for drugs will take a significant chunk of cash from the NHS budget increase. All to keep Trump happy in case he decides to rip up the recently agreed UK/USA trade deal- and in vain hope of cuts to tariffs on UK steel exports to US?
www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/new...

Britain weighs medicine price increase to avoid US tariff war

www.independent.co.uk

1

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 1d

Government’s latest ‘Connect to Work’ programme may have more of a problem convincing potential employers than disabled and sick workers
disabilityhorizons.com/2024/12/7-ou...

7 out of 10 disabled workers failed by employers

Updated insights into the challenges faced by disabled workers in the UK, recent statistics and ongoing efforts to improve workplace inclusivity.

disabilityhorizons.com

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 1d

Leonard Cheshire survey in 2024 found that 73% of disabled workers had left work due to disability or health conditions with 66% of managers saying workplace adjustments are a barrier to employing disabled workers and 60% concerned a disabled person not able to do the job
www.gov.uk/government/n...

Job advisers to be embedded in GP surgeries as tens of thousands more sick and disabled people offered help into work

Over 40,000 more sick or disabled people will receive intensive employment support to move into secure, fulfilling work and out of poverty, thanks to a £167.2 million boost to the Connect to Work prog...

www.gov.uk

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 1d

Bit simplistic take. Demand in the NHS is effectively limitless. Now GP time is increasingly taken up by longer patient consultations with more complex long term chronic conditions as our population gets older and sicker.
www.bbc.com/news/article...

Alternative services will help GPs, says Hampshire NHS boss

Making use of pharmacies and a new online booking system could help ease demand on GPs.

www.bbc.com

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Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 2d

Wonder if it occurred to those brains that run our government that large majority of disabled people are not unemployed because they want to be. That they have tried over years, many years perhaps, applying for jobs but have run up against exactly the same barriers as these DWP ‘work coaches’

1

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 2d

Lots promised by NHS since 2023. In Feb this year the current government even launched a consultation on a ‘Digital Inclusion Action Plan: First Steps’. Regardless, it is mainly those who use NHS most- elderly, disabled and poor that are NOW most excluded by new systems.

www.gov.uk/government/p...

Digital Inclusion Action Plan: First Steps

www.gov.uk

Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 2d

‘As Britain’s stock of household wealth has grown so have the gaps between the wealthy and less wealthy’. Well, knock me over with a feather
www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

Before the fall • Resolution Foundation

This report is the fourth in our series of ‘audits’ of households’ wealth, offering the most comprehensive assessment of wealth inequality in Britain. It comes against a backdrop of an unprecedented m...

www.resolutionfoundation.org