This year, like every year, I’m working clinically on Christmas Day. Thousands of doctors and other NHS staff are working, like other frontline public service providers, to keep the country safe and ticking over while most people enjoy the day with family and friends 🎄

Merry Christmas! Just another juvenile delinquent heading into work on Christmas Day. Wishing everyone, including our health secretary, @WesStreeting, a lovely Christmas. 🎄🎄🎄

Since we founded in 2020, Frontline19 has provided free counselling & psychological support to over a million NHS and frontline workers. Every life lost to suicide is an avoidable tragedy. A shocking 1 in 4 NHS workers have considered suicide, this situation cannot go on. We're working hard to change things, but whatever challenges they face, we are here for those who need us. Together, we’re stronger on #WorldSuicidePreventionDay #WorldSuicidePreventionDay2024

These kind of comments make it all worthwhile. We're privileged to be among the people our healthcare workers turn to when they need free confidential counselling and support. Keep being awesome and doing what you do; we'll keep doing what we do too 💙🙏 #FridayFeedback

We are so incredibly sad to hear of the death of the Dr Michael Mosley in Greece. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ A wonderful human who made such a difference in the world. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ We are are thinking of his wife Dr Clare Bailey, his children, friends and colleagues. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ He had such a huge impact on so many people and has helped so many to be happier and healthier. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ May his memory always be a blessing 💔⁣ 📷 Jamie Oliver #drmichaelmosley

Loudspeaker person needs an MBE, Pride of Britain award, Sports Personality of the Year, the works.

It's puzzling that people blame "the NHS" for the state it's in. It's not a religion, simply a mechanism for paying for universal care (tax funded, free at the point of need, largely publicly provided). The main reasons it can't cope with demand, in no particular order are... 1. Alarming levels of child poverty, health inequality and unhealthy ageing. 2. Pointless, costly and harmful political redisorganisations and outsourcings. 3. Reluctance of politicians to pay for and secure safe staffing levels and infrastructure 4. Insufficient focus on prevention, primary care, social care and education 5. Inability of those in authority to tell the truth, particularly when things go wrong 6. Lack of accountability for those who cover up the truth, suppress whistleblowers and kick obvious scandals into the long grass. 7. Treating the staff so poorly that want to leave, or do leave, to seek a less stressful, better paid job. This has got nothing to do with the NHS as a funding system, but the political and voter choices that have allowed it to be underfunded - and hence unsafe - for so long. It's rare in life you get "more for less". In healthcare, we usually get "less for less". We are currently not providing prompt universal healthcare but rationing it so severely that people are suffering and dying for want of health, dental and social care. Myriad public inquiries have recommended rebuilding the NHS around safety and quality, but until we address these issues we are just pissing in the wind... This doesn't sound much like comedy, but I will try to add a few gags in before the Edinburgh fringe... drphilhammond.com