September 2026 blog
Training places bottleneck
2025-2026 50,000 Doctors applied for 13,000 training places
Doctors from abroad should be valued-one year in NHS, not five...
Posted on twitter
As the NHS enters, today, its 79th year, how I wish I wasn’t filled with foreboding.
I believe - & always will - that the NHS is one of the most beautiful expressions of British decency this country possesses. Its basic underlying principle - that we, as a society, resolve to come together to ensure that each of us receives health care we need, irrespective of ability to pay - is pure, radical altruism.
But today’s reality is bleak. Hospital trusts are now so overwhelmed with patients that running out of hospital beds is the least of it. We don’t have enough corridors in which to put the patients. We don’t even have enough trolleys.
Imagine, for a moment, being a patient with terminal cancer with so much fluid in your belly you need about 6 or 8 litres drained away. But you can’t have the drain that would relieve your agony. Why? Because you can’t lie flat. Why? Because you’re sitting a hard plastic chair - & you’ve been there for 48 hours, waiting in vain for something to lie on. This is pain caused not by cancer per se - but by the NHS being so overwhelmed it can’t even procure you a trolley. Avoidable agony - the very worst kind.
Yet I see the Dept of Health is crowing today about "a major rollout of new AI tools to cut waiting lists” - as if spending billions on unproven AI is a panacea because, hey, who needs doctors & nurses when we have computers?
Can I please - and forgive the crude language – just call out this bullshit for what it is?
The government knows full well that its refusal to address the crisis in social care is one of the key reasons for hospital overcrowding. So too is the deliberate running down of general practice, meaning patients have nowhere else to go but A&E. So too is the substitution of highly trained staff with cheaper alternatives - pretending this the deliberate dilution of expertise is ‘efficiency’.
I could go on.
But, like everyone in the NHS, I am so utterly, soul-crushingly
weary of weapons’ grade political dishonesty about the NHS. Spin, faux
jauntiness & blind faith in big tech - all while frontline staff like me
look the patients in the eyes as they suffer & suffer & suffer.
45m
Well said! Experts, frontline and campaigners suggest REAL improvements, not
gimmicks and spin- but are ignored, lied to, as our NHS is demolished by “leaders”
from banking, bribed groups etc.
Bill Smythe
@BSmytheee
·
39m
Tax gap is £59bn: that could pay for free Care homes, built by Gov, run
as part of the NHS, on NHS pay scales and training progression- like Sweden…
Bill Smythe
@BSmytheee
·
42m
And in the anaesthetised interregnum between Ministers, sweet FA is done to
correct the policies that kill: PAs, AAs, ACPs (29,000) and midwives separated
from obstetricians, ICUs
and operating theatres.
Bill Smythe
@BSmytheee
·
URGENT MATTERS!
Maternity: Murray "I will not accept, I will not set a date
Doctors being substituted by Noctors: PAs, ACPs are NOT MEDICALLY QUALIFIED
GMC want to award CCT Consultants title to anyone they see fit
GMC want to rewite The Medical Act: anyone can be a Doctor
NHS budgets cut by 1%
ICBs budgets cut
Trusts budgets cut
No FPR
No workforce planning: vacancies
GPs ready to work:not funded
Midwives ready to work: not funded
Is there anybody in government or DH competant???
Cuts in medical school places
The 2025-2026 bottleneck:
50,000 Doctors applied for 13,000 spaces... Only 4,000 and 5,000 additional places-not yet confirmed
Government foolishly believe non-Doctors and AI whizzy algorithms will reduce the need for Doctors!!!
Coridor care:
90,000 patients waited 45 minuteand hit the corridor threshold
13,000 patients a month died due to long A & E waits
Triage by ipad is not the answer: it is designed to shuffle patients out of A & E back to their GP, etc
Palentir: Evil, should be nowhere near patient records
“Palantir is here to disrupt…and, when it’s necessary, to scare our enemies and, on occasion, kill them.” – Alex Karp, Palantir CEO, 2025[1]
Palantir is a US-based data analytics firm specialising in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and software commonly used by states in surveillance, border enforcement, policing and warfare. Palantir’s Federated Data Platform (FDP) aims to sit across NHS Trusts, ICBs and NHS England in order to connect and analyse pre-existing data on a national and local scale.
Medact briefing against Palentir
The report urges NHS trusts and ICBs not to implement the Federated Data Platform (FDP) developed by Palantir, and for NHS England to terminate the contract. It notes that partnering with Palantir risks weakening patients’ trust while “driving out locally tailored and trusted data solutions”.
The briefing said the “highly interoperable nature” of Palantir’s software could enable “data-driven state abuses of power”, including US-style ICE raids.
Links:
(select-right click-open in new window)
Kings Fund: the NHS Modernisation Bill 2026
NHS Modernisation Bill Google search
Which practices hardest hit by Cleansing
HoC Library NHS Modernisation Act
The Lowdown: The NHS Modernisation Act
Dr Steve Taylor: NHS Modernisation Act
The Lowdown:NHS workforce plan is chaos
With an alarming proliferation of ‘corridor care’ and
long delays in treating emergencies, a waiting list above 7 million, disastrous
delays in mental health care – even for children — and patients
demanding swifter access to primary care, we now have the phenomenon of unemployment
amongst resident doctors and fully qualified GPs.
Thousands of doctors are also blocked from becoming
consultants by the inadequate number of specialist training posts.
Similar problems also affect other professional staff: even with maternity units crying out for staff, newly-qualified midwives are struggling to find posts offering a period of “preceptorship” – a period of supervision and support to equip them to develop the confidence and experience to act independently when required in delivery suites and in the community.
It seems our short-staffed, cash-strapped NHS has, in many areas, reached the point of having too few staff in post to allow it to recruit (and, where necessary, complete the training of) the extra professional staff it needs.
The current system does not effectively match the number of graduating medical or midwifery students with the number of training or preceptorship posts.
More planning is being put in place (e.g., workforce modelling, new posts being commissioned), but the evidence suggests those systems are insufficient or under-resourced compared to the scale of growth and demand.
The result is frustration and anger over wasted time and energy, as graduates who have already invested years in learning vital skills and knowledge hit a brick wall and cannot progress.
Consultant vacancies
There are still gaps at the top of the medical profession: a new report by BMJ Careers has found that some NHS organisations have as many as one in three consultant posts vacant, and these vacancies are expensive. In England, Scotland and Wales, NHS bodies spent £674m on locum consultants in 2024/25.
The Royal College of Physicians’ (RCP) latest Focus on Physicians Survey tells a similar story: it found 59% of consultants reported vacancies at their own grade, with 83% concerned that rota gaps are having a negative impact on patient care. Moreover the consequences have a political and financial cost: the most common consequences of consultant-level rota gaps were said to be reduced access to out-of-hours inpatient care (39%) and longer hospital stays (28%).
The Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA) reports 89% of clinical leaders who manage anaesthetic departments across the UK say that elective surgery is being delayed because of a shortage of anaesthetists, with 43% saying this happens on a daily or weekly basis.
Over two thirds (68%) of clinical leaders say that increasing the number of anaesthetists would do more than any other measure to reduce waiting lists – ahead of factors such as ward space (50%) or operating theatres (42%).
The report also shows that while there are more anaesthetists now than in 2020, greater demand and long waiting lists mean the shortfall has increased from 1,483 in 2020 to 2,147 in 2025 (15% below what is needed).
The impact of some other specialist consultant shortages is also severe. Almost nine in ten (86%) of small cancer centres – and almost two thirds of all cancer centres – had consultant vacancies unfilled for 12 months or more, while almost a quarter (23%) had reported vacancy freezes in 2024. Seven in ten (70%) of cancer centre leaders were concerned by the effects of increased workload and staff shortages on patient safety.
One resident doctor at a north London trust told the researchers of the impact of consultant shortages:
“It’s a complete nightmare – the doctors who are left working have to work at 150%, patients have to wait longer to be seen, and by the end of the shift doctors are running on fumes.”
Dr Steve Taylor exposes the total belief in AI, but moving healthcare out of hospitals into primary care has not complled DH to factor in morte GPs (or paying for those already qualified to work.
GPs demand to pause list cleransing
GPs requested respite from online requests
GPs enter dispute Contract changes
Dorset: Increase private pay for buildings
Ambulance resonse to TV program
Dr Rachel Clarke: NHS despondancy
Burnham: Say NO to Wes Streeting
https://us11.campaign-archive.com/?e=b2450d2b8d&u=f1c42fae5214b3ee59aab75ab&id=9c4f3bd1d2
Investigation Palentir GLProject
Palentir: Surveillance killing company
https://x.com/heccles94/status/2033484088821067851?s=58
Palentir: why do they want your data?
https://x.com/human_frozen_/status/2073358222321168740?s=58
https://x.com/jatinderhayre_/status/2073116501825982843?s=58
https://x.com/arturnadol7566/status/2073326525420593313?s=58
https://harryeccles94.substack.com/p/andy-burnham-and-the-nhs-a-closer
https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Inside-FDP-part-1-Understanding-the-problems-facing-NHS-data
https://x.com/ukfcot/status/2072563208850682076?s=58
https://go2.hsjinformation.co.uk/NTI1LVNIQS0zNTUAAAGiu3hErmlzw2oHrw6p6kaUG9KXlYSeRruQoB9LNAYzBKLYJCMSsjYv4PbM6jyBkS2WN1mf9pE=
https://links.haymarket.mkt6316.com/els/v2/2YyRc~2przCa/ekJnUnRTbG9zdDdlRlhYRzlRSXVrbmZNd1dmNHJGYlJIZzNBazlZeXpaQ2ZlTkdEcWJXTkQ1TVNVbVpKNDE2NzVmL3RPN0c0eVloN1F0eHpSenovWWI3WFJsYkJ6VTZ5cVlIZkxCWXFNMldlOGZjWG11cHVEUT09S0/SGFEUUxYSU4vMGdyMllReVd5NnltcFJBSWpjSmVJaFFDWWdTR2tMVHBoNGxxUUthL0xWYzlTbUY4bSt5TXZNZXNJSkVQRHhpVjJpUHZBTTQwbGhRRmw5ekdQdXh5UHNab2dyS3EzZDJKaVYxRjJLT3Z5MWJyRmR3WmQ0ZXFDY08S1
https://links.haymarket.mkt6316.com/els/v2/xv~6fb8wAvBg/ekJnUnRTbG9zdDdlRlhYRzlRSXVrbmZNd1dmNHJGYlJIZzNBazlZeXpaQ2ZlTkdEcWJXTkQ1TVNVbVpKNDE2NzVmL3RPN0c0eVloN1F0eHpSenovWWI3WFJsYkJ6VTZ5cVlIZkxCWXFNMldlOGZjWG11cHVEUT09S0/SGFEUUxYSU4vMGdyMllReVd5NnltcFJBSWpjSmVJaFFDWWdTR2tMVHBoNGxxUUthL0xWYzlTbUY4bSt5TXZNZXNJSkVQRHhpVjJpUHZBTTQwbGhRRmw5ekdQdXh5UHNab2dyS3EzZDJKaVYxRjJLT3Z5MWJyRmR3WmQ0ZXFDY08S1
https://x.com/bmaresidents/status/2077737961391542361?s=58
https://go2.hsjinformation.co.uk/NTI1LVNIQS0zNTUAAAGjCjGW0VVWaJa2k9p73SspZcO5W7EhOecBNpIiituS-AfkCnCkeROHI3ySbMo_UQqV_rdNhbg=
https://www.facebook.com/nd/?profile.php&id=100087507290219&lloc=profile_link&aref=1784206901041016&medium=email&mid=656b9c0f4d4a6G24820e61G656ba0a8ad778G4760&bcode=2.1784206919.Ab29z39yfupPcyID3AFKPiYEJ2o&n_m=sanfordstephen%40gmail.com&n_sg=Q6bPBAJq-Kr5kstdv0W9Dtc6WG8aZKBTnKCSBKPRPnXk1l0qBA
https://go2.hsjinformation.co.uk/NTI1LVNIQS0zNTUAAAGiu3hErmlzw2oHrw6p6kaUG9KXlYSeRruQoB9LNAYzBKLYJCMSsjYv4PbM6jyBkS2WN1mf9pE=
Primary Care has twice the space it needs Dash
https://links.haymarket.mkt6316.com/els/v2/G~ZkMAWPmdSk/NjkzQ2YxZVZSbWM2Zk1kemtvd091TnNHVGl3U25uLzBHTThENk5YVUpKVHBmRUVrNTBoV0p1akhOYSs2cTZNQjhzc3N1TFdXSTRqT2pSdks5NnF2aVFyaXEwYUtyRGx0cDJneS9SMmRZT3hCdXpxUUtCTmU4dz09S0/N3lyc2xQOS80SmZucDZRT0RQci9pVm5HbCtoNGk2Ym80elFRc1I5SllhOWFiaUg5QkNYenpBM3QxaVMwLzBHU29Fam5qK1FhZ05VQms2NW9WYncybG1obXl4M3lnQzlNejMwVElVSEtmeXNWTlZTY21GOFZkUT09S0
GPs refuse Shared Care Agreements
https://links.haymarket.mkt6316.com/els/v2/Xgket8YZxEBr/NjkzQ2YxZVZSbWM2Zk1kemtvd091TnNHVGl3U25uLzBHTThENk5YVUpKVHBmRUVrNTBoV0p1akhOYSs2cTZNQjhzc3N1TFdXSTRqT2pSdks5NnF2aVFyaXEwYUtyRGx0cDJneS9SMmRZT3hCdXpxUUtCTmU4dz09S0/N3lyc2xQOS80SmZucDZRT0RQci9pVm5HbCtoNGk2Ym80elFRc1I5SllhOWFiaUg5QkNYenpBM3QxaVMwLzBHU29Fam5qK1FhZ05VQms2NW9WYncybG1obXl4M3lnQzlNejMwVElVSEtmeXNWTlZTY21GOFZkUT09S0
https://go2.hsjinformation.co.uk/NTI1LVNIQS0zNTUAAAGivHTzdbKR3fqmnCjlRr_Q7GBpLbECE7O7GHhZIjdn4ajtiKjQ9X9udFo3EBhCbXlhEzrtLKM=
https://go2.hsjinformation.co.uk/NTI1LVNIQS0zNTUAAAGivNP05unE262TKTzfGu2migiCAFRkg2txQAf59m52cmyFeMdOdZAWdxylzCXAuzaewvFD2EU=
Do not Brush Away normal birth fanatics
https://go2.hsjinformation.co.uk/NTI1LVNIQS0zNTUAAAGjCjGW0VVWaJa2k9p73SspZcO5W7EhOecBNpIiituS-AfkCnCkeROHI3ySbMo_UQqV_rdNhbg=
https://go2.hsjinformation.co.uk/NTI1LVNIQS0zNTUAAAGjCeVhOCJbhIPS2Ff5sM2YkBhv8UcmIZ0cD2W6FeEZkgN2rIU-MnXoFjzYnZscWC4NkS-Oq4M=
Lives destroyed for whistleblowers
https://go2.hsjinformation.co.uk/NTI1LVNIQS0zNTUAAAGjCeVhOJK3W3x_YCpG87ks_fph3HdhMZM-x5bxrVUnzZv4DCoxDKA22CxokOx2fCMEyOaTyEA=
https://go2.hsjinformation.co.uk/NTI1LVNIQS0zNTUAAAGjCLUJaJZEIom97a1L7whMuuGp5l23m1ZBqCvTqx7NUtdYt0qcrhtTZNAvRFjKMMT1TbWQEBo=
https://x.com/ankitkant/status/2077376344908800260?s=58
https://www.gponline.com/bulletins/dailynews?utm_medium=EMAIL&utm_campaign=eNews%20Bulletin&utm_source=20260715&utm_content=GP%20Daily%20(290)::www_gponline_com_bulletins_dai&email_hash=
https://x.com/medicalmodelbri/status/2076910698282537115?s=58
GMC consult: Incorrect-multiple filling
https://x.com/mattprescott/status/2077079975757279411?s=58
GMC can be manipulated:filled 15 times
https://us11.campaign-archive.com/?e=b2450d2b8d&u=f1c42fae5214b3ee59aab75ab&id=f8f1853798
https://www.gponline.com/article/1963286/newly-qualified-gps-report-working-12-13-hours-day?bulletin=bulletins%2Fdailynews