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NHS

Dear Spotlight, 

My wife Sue SRN called me in to watch your programme which was to celebrate the start of OUR NHS 75 years ago from Torbay Hospital

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001nk94/spotlight-evening-news-05072023

There is much that I could say about it. It started nervously with rehearsed statements by senior staff in the Acute Medical Unit. It included short interviews of patients in the AMU. But as journalists you must have moral and ethical reservations about video recording vulnerable people after oral permission is gained.

Ms Graham interviewed Dr Matt Halkes a consultant anaesthetist. His morale appeared to be low and he started with 'its very hard times'. There was mention of technology and 'apps'. Mr Kevin Dixon of 'Healthwatch' added very little as expected but included 'we must involve patients'! Healthwatch tries to blunt the reality.  Dr Sarah Wollaston, whom I know is a good GP, said this in her smiling contribution - 'Its very difficult to be efficient when your beds are very full.' This was after Ms Graham asked whether they would encourage people to come into the NHS - this 'business'.

Your editor included a piece showing the mountainous nurse with 'head set' communicating with a neurologist sitting remotely via the net. The patient had multiple sclerosis and had a spinal symptom. You might know, that of all specialists, neurologists need to take careful histories and then examine the patient, and especially the 'nervous system', with great skill and in detail. The editor included a clip of this nurse falling over. Was this mocking? Mrs Williams, the happy patient, said it was good to avoid the germs in attending the hospital.  Some truth there perhaps.

An image of Teignmouth Hospital was shown and audio - 'the first hospital to be built by the NHS'. The BBC will know its fate might now be sealed, a ridiculous centre for a medical bureaucracy having been approved by Teignbridge 'planning' two weeks ago to replace just a few functions of a closing hospital.

Preface:

I was to be one of eleven speakers at the Conference, 3 doctors and one dental surgeon among them.  Freedom of speech in the land of Magna Carta (but hear lawyer Anna De Buisseret with Prof Dolores Cahill in Part 2 on this) is only happening in groups and via these new platforms like Brand New Tube.

Dr Stephen Hopwood, the engine for this meeting, booked it for Totnes Town Hall. Stopped by Totnes Town Council after a petition - c.130.  One vote for the meeting - Councillor George Mitchell.  Then tried Dartington - no go.  Then the Toorak Hotel Torquay - an ideal venue.  The manager - a good man, had calls from Public 'Health' England and Torbay Council demanding that he refuse to host the conference.  Dependent re licence etc he had to kow-tow.

This chill some. but for most it is 'water off a duck's back'.  'Dear, I am on the 'pooter'.  What would you like from Morrison's home delivery tomorrow?  The smoked duck breast sounds tasty'.

Find time to dip into the talks, especially the interview - off camera, of my new young doctor friend.  This comes after my 29 minutes - 1.03 hrs to 1.32

For truth, and for the revolution of the mind and a turning away from global serfdom

David

Part 1     https://brandnewtube.com/watch/the-awakening-conference-part-one-20th-nov-2021_5e8QgkOvOvGHZXN.html  My 31 minute contribution is from 1.03 hours to 1.32 hrs.

Part 2    https://brandnewtube.com/watch/the-awakening-conference-part-two-20th-nov-2021_rnbT3f2DHXjl8cz.html



(Meeting at the Toorak hotel in Torquay cancelled by Public ‘Health’ England and Torbay Council so planned march in Totnes +www will suffice)

I am pleased to speak of OUR NHS. With the poverty between WW1 and 2, and the hardest slog for freedom from Nazi domination, a bankrupt Britain decided that ‘loving thy neighbour’ was the essence of our humanity. And it happened in 1948 in spite of strong opposition from the British Medical Association and many doctors.

I will give you a very personal account of the NHS because I have seen it and felt it all, ever since I became a medical student aged 18 in 1958 at St Mary’s Paddington, the home of penicillin. I will speak of its lowering under a deeply fascist regime, and speak at the end of my certainty that there will be a renaissance in my calling, in parallel with the rebuilding of OUR NHS.

David Halpin FRCS

Kiln Shotts

Haytor

Newton Abbot

TQ13 9XR

 

25thof May 2021

To your Honour, the justice in the High Court in Manchester in the case of the GMC v Mr Mohammad Iqbal Adil FRCS Ed FRSI

Ref:   CO/1567/2021 Dr Mohammad Iqbal Adil FRCS Ed FRSI  GMC 5183820

"I do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

There is too much paper in this case. I do not want to subject your Honour to more. I hope to be succinct, and direct as well. I reiterate what I said in the previous document of 19 pages, analysing and responding to the claim made by the GMC. That is - I am doing more than the usual McKenzie friend in giving a view because it is in my native tongue.

First there is the ‘incident’ where in Mr Adil’s operation to relieve obstruction by a rectal cancer in a very ill man with secondary cancer in the draining lymph nodes and liver, he brought out the distal ie wrong end of the colon, requiring correction a few days later. This was the one product of a trawl, and it has revealed a ghost of a fish. A copy of the clinical notes has never been put into the defendant’s hands in spite of his asking at least three times. This is unlawful and unjust. Is there something in those notes which are best hidden? I ask that it be struck out.

Second open letter to

Dr Dyer, former Medical Director, Torbay Hospital/TSDHT in the first instance,

and copies to

Chairman of TSDHT – Admiral Sir Richard Ibbotson KBE, CB, DSC - ‘Provider’ body

Dr Paul Johnson Chairman of the Devon Clinical Commissioning Group -‘Commissioning’ body

Professor Adrian Harris Executive Medical Director and Deputy Chief Executive, Royal Devon and Exeter and to those with ultimate responsibility-

Mr Matthew Hancock Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, NHS Improvenent, and Mr Jepson – NHS Providers.

and to some of the MPs in Devon who are not holding the executive to account

First open letter - https://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/37-articles/nhs/330-letter-to-dr-robert-dyer-mb-chb-medical-director-at-torbay-hospital

Dear Dr Dyer,

I wrote to you on the 2nd of November.  There has been various correspondence since which I will refer to briefly.

Re Case 1.  The most abysmal treatment I have ever seen since qualification at St Mary's in 1964.

I attempted to contact you at Torbay but ended with Ms Fox, PA to Ms Davenport.  She told me you were 'off site' (I presume either at the Exeter ''Nightingale'' or re STP SW).  She was reading my correspondence to you - as I understand it.  I asked on a Friday for the records of Mrs Jean Owen (JO) to be sent to me on the Monday.  She had sent written permission to you for release of her records to me.  I was trying to get skilled help for her left arm, loss of which was threatened. An image taken in her home by Jo Clarke-Irons, about 2 months after presentation with a fracture of her olecranon process at Torbay A&E- ? open ? closed, is within the link above on my website. Lay people should be warned – disturbing.   Incidentally, I have never seen such thick nylon sutures before.

The records have never arrived here.  I probably asked also for the links to the digitised radiographs, in part to see whether there was evidence of ?open, ?closed fracture.

I am very glad to see in last week’s Mid Devon the wide, robust support for this hospital. It has served the people very well since very early in the 50s when Britain was on its ‘uppers’ after WW2.

Readers will know that I have been on the case for the Community Hospitals for years. I have spent thousands of hours in my retirement on this, both in South Devon, and Devon more widely – especially in its north. In spite of fact and logic, and along with other conscientious citizens, I have seen a fatal combination of the CCG and the Torbay ‘Trust’ closing 70% of these beds. As predicted, the inability to discharge patients promptly from Torbay when right to do so, and to exclude the best care to patients who can best be treated primarily by GPs in local hospitals, has been proven.

This has reflected a ‘neo-liberal’ ideology in the three main political parties. The idea is that ‘public’ is bad, and ‘private’ with so called competition, and privatisation, are good. For instance, a talk I gave in Totnes in 2007 was entitled ‘Your NHS: Going, going, gone.’ It was widely advertised and all those town councils where there were community hospitals were written to. 30 people turned up – mostly GP friends and their ex-nurse wives. There was one councillor. This was at the tail end of a Labour regime. For too many decades OUR NHS has been a political football and victim to political whim.

Readers who notice signals will have questioned why April 1stwas chosen as a calendar day for the launching of the Health and Social Care Bill in 2012. This was driven through with Lansley, now Baron Lansley. What ever was said ‘The NHS is Safe in Our Hands’ etc, the opposite was intended. This bill was not founded on professional knowledge and experience in our medical services. Instead there was major input from such as PWc, McKinsey et al.

Copies to Chairman of TSDHT – Admiral Sir Richard Ibbotson KBE, CB, DSC ‘Provider’ body

and Dr Paul Johnson Chairman of the Devon Clinical Commissioning Group ‘Commissioning’ body

and Professor Adrian Harris Executive Medical Director and Deputy Chief Executive, Royal Devon and Exeter

Open letter – see https://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/ or search ‘david halpin’

Dear Dr Dyer, 2nd of November 2020

This is necessarily long but should be of interest and a spur to re-evaluation of the present downward direction of OUR NHS, and towards the better for it, and for our society in general.

My own course as a patient, and in service within OUR NHS

David HalpinYou will know me by reputation, and from your wife Stephanie caring for me as a GP. She might have sought your advice as an endocrinologist about my iatrogenic but not fully expressed diabetes ‘insipidus’- due to damage of my secondary renal tubules from 27 years of Lithium – 800 mg pd rising to 1000 mg pd. Nocturia and extreme urgency of micturition resulting. ‘Isosthenuria.’ This was stopped in Spring 2019 at my request having learned of the cause of several ‘side effects’ from my reading. My fingertips were becoming numb and I love using my hands. This was out of self-diagnosis - ‘physician heal thyself!’. BNF advice was to review the need for further prescription of this nerve and kidney poison every 3-4 years. That never happened to my knowledge.

There were other deleterious side effects – cerebellar ataxia, thankfully largely resolved, shoe size increase from 11.5/12 to 14 – handmade boots necessary, sudden onset of hyperacusis with my own speech as I weened off the Li, etc. At a second opinion with Dr Jeannie Todd at the Hammersmith last March (requested by me) I was found to be a little dry (I note loss of skin turgor on waking in the morning), hyperparathyroidism secondary to Vit D deficiency, and some iron deficiency. Latter longstanding. I have put this down to achlorhydria. (Vit B12 required for about 15 years. I do not associate the latter with inappropriate consumption of Li.)

Readers might recall my summary of a long process well before any ‘consultation’ about a glossy ‘hub’. OUR NHS - Destabilise>demoralise>dismantle. And perhaps they would have read the quote from the annexe to my web site when I stood, with some exhilaration, as a truly independent candidate in Newton Abbot last December. Here it is again -

In his report to the Conservative Party’s Economic Reconstruction Group in 1977, Nicholas Ridley wrote that: "...denationalisation should not be attempted by frontal attack but by preparation for return to the private sector by stealth. We should first pass legislation to destroy the public sector monopolies. We might also need to take power to sell assets. Secondly, we should fragment the industries as far as possible and set up the units as separate profit centres."

But do not look just at the Tory party. The other two, Tweedledum and Tweedle, have the same core. This is called, by euphemism, ‘neo-liberal’. ‘New liberal’ - that is having been either on the ‘right’ or the ‘left’ before. This is typical of the distraction used to fascinate the minds of the electorate/plebiscite. The EU has it in its core also. The essence is the idea that competition brings efficiency and general good, as against the command economies of the former USSR or Mao’s China. The reader will know that neither ideology brings too much ‘good’. Good comes from the essential spirit within the human, and indeed the animal kingdom, along with ‘common sense’.

This large and complex ship is steaming at maximum knots. It is crammed to the gun-whales with passengers. On the bridge and down in the engine room there are the GPs, specialists, nurses and all the important others keeping the ship on course and the screws turning.

'Sparks' the radio officer is doing his best to keep up with the stream of often contradictory messages coming over the short wave from the owners' offices.

Hunt, Dr Poulter, Nicholson, Keogh, Hakin et al are barking out the orders across the ether. The deck hands are shifting the deck chairs furiously as directed from the Westminster head office whilst the band plays on, and on.

There is dense fog and there are icebergs about. Should the officers of the watch go to 'slow ahead' and change course? If the course and speed are held, disaster is sure. If the SS NHS sinks, it will be sunk for ever. It will never be re-floated.

I noted the artist’s impression of a new department store at a corner of Brunswick Street in the MDA of 27th August. But then read that this was in fact for ‘health’ and ‘wellbeing’ **.

I recall that this structure and its siting was discussed behind closed doors about a year ago. Mrs Sylvia Russell defended the secrecy by saying that commercial, or similar categories, needed confidentiality. So much for democracy and ‘localism’. The shiny proposal is set to house one of three general practices. General practice has been the bedrock of OUR NHS, and the main purpose in spending £8 million would be for a centre for the GPs and their skilled staff. Central to that would be face to face contact rather than ‘video links’ etc being forced upon our tired populations.

So I look to the foundations, as to any building, and avoid a sandy base.

Adjuvanted (sic) Trivalent Influenza Vaccine:Seqirus

I have been invited twice by my GP surgery to have ‘flu vaccination.

I asked for details. “I should be grateful to know which vaccine I would receive and its contents.  Also - I  have in mind a surgeon whom I trained.  Some doctors at Torbay Hospital resisted 'flu vaccination first time around, but it was insisted upon.  c. 8 years ago.  This doctor/surgeon suffered a neural injury as a result, with a permanent effect.  My diagnosis, without examination - ?neuralgic amyotrophy.  I have seen this following ?tetanus immunization or ?toxoid administration for instance.  (edited)  Added - there were 'hot spots' of 'lock jaw'.  Daccombe was one, and that patient was a market gardener in that hamlet.  The good local GP promoted vaccination against tetanus.

I am sorry to add to your work but like to know what might be injected into me.  I add that I have not had the 'flu jab' for at least 10 years and have been lucky to 'escape' the seasonal A or B. My wife and her brother have never suffered 'flu!  This is food for thought. Many thanks David Halpin

Answer “The flu jab you would get is Seqirus adjuvanted trivalent influenza vaccine. Hope this helps.”

Seqirus is part of CSL Limited (ASX:CSL), headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. The CSL Group of companies employs more than 20,000 people with operations in more than 60 countries.