Just as we’re beginning to realise that a decent healthcare system provided as a public service supports the country in its fundamental security, survival, and success, on the flip side an increase in political activity is questioning the values held by those who make the decisions at the top.
Although the Prime Minister is right to point out at length in a recent Substack post that healthcare matters to us personally, it’s also a growing concern that political points made are also about us too, and the balance needed in a democracy to keep it productive isn’t being achieved.
This conflation of personal worry with the biggest healthcare questions of our time is a worrying trend for us, showing that academic research – or fact-based reasoning – is being urged to move aside for anxieties born of falsehoods spread through propaganda to take their place.
The GP’s perspective is telling in this respect, because it’s often reported the majority are not happy at the way protest has begun to take over public debate, with spurious concerns being levelled at experts, from anti-Americanism insinuated in, to suggestions the NHS is pro-Israel.
The effect is to disturb patients and staff as well, hindering patient trust and making a local healthcare team sceptical about their place in the community. The radicalisation of debate has meant even a hospital is not a local institution but is another supporter of apartheid, killing babies, or destroying others’ statehood.


