DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Patients let down by NHS’s trans stance
The key recommendation of the Francis Report into the Mid-Staffs hospital care scandal, published ten years ago, could not have been clearer: ‘The patients must be the first priority in all the NHS does.’
Today, in Orwellian guidance drawn up to meet the demands of the increasingly shrill trans lobby, health chiefs have turned that fundamental principle on its head.
Contemptibly, the NHS Confederation is threatening to withdraw medical care from any women who object – for any number of valid reasons – to being treated by trans doctors and nurses who are biological males. So much for putting patients first!
Given that we are at our most vulnerable when in hospital, this callous disregard for the dignity, privacy and safety of female patients is deeply shocking.
Meanwhile, to make trans staff feel ‘safer’, the confederation has deemed terms such as ‘biological male’ offensive. But this is a statement of scientific fact – supposedly the core business of the organisation.
The NHS has no business promoting anything other than good diagnosis and effective treatments (Stock Photo)
The NHS is in meltdown. Seven million patients are on waiting lists. It takes weeks to see a GP. Unless you’re dying, there’s no point calling an ambulance. Yet despite for ever pleading poverty, the health service continues to squander staggering sums on contentious diversity initiatives.
Like almost all of our public institutions, it has been captured by a vociferous minority pushing an extreme trans ideology that treats dissenters as heretics.
The NHS has no business promoting anything other than good diagnosis and effective treatments. It should focus on health care – not political posturing.
AI boost for Britain
With tiresome predictability, embittered Remainers have dismissed Rishi Sunak’s visit to Washington as a cringe-worthy attempt by Brexit Britain to remain relevant on the world stage.
Yet the Prime Minister is clearly forging a good relationship with Joe Biden, as proved by the new economic co-operation deal.
Mr Sunak is also seeking to put Britain at the forefront of global moves to regulate and develop artificial intelligence. Yes, this technology poses dangers if not controlled, as ex-UK national security adviser Lord Sedwill warns. But if harnessed right, it could bring unimaginable benefits.
So it’s particularly heartening that US tech giant Palantir has chosen London as its new European headquarters for AI – creating hundreds of jobs.
The Prime Minister is clearly forging a good relationship with Joe Biden, as proved by the new economic co-operation deal
It was also gratifying to hear its founder wax lyrical about Britain’s attractiveness to tech firms, brushing aside a question from the BBC’s Nick Robinson who suggested many feel the UK is a ‘tiddler’ globally.
(And how ironic of Mr Robinson to attack TV channels such as GB News for ignoring impartiality rules when the BBC is openly prejudiced against the Tory government.)
Sour Remainers might not like it, but Britain can shape this brave new AI world.
A shameful betrayal
News that the Government has once again flunked the challenge to fix the social care crisis is deeply depressing.
Two years ago, ministers announced a cap on lifetime care costs to end the heartbreaking scandal of elderly people selling their homes to pay nursing bills.
But Mr Sunak has joined the ignominious list of politicians who, frightened of alienating voters with costly proposals, have kicked the problem into the long grass. What a shameful betrayal of our most vulnerable.
n IN A withering blast, Chief Inspector of Constabulary Andy Cooke says the police should focus on catching criminals and stop getting embroiled in the culture wars. The public, rapidly losing faith in the police, overwhelmingly agree. Will senior officers now heed this wise watchdog?
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