The Stair That Vanished By Dave Triska Thanks for articulating this, Dave. These quotes will linger for a while, I'm sure

"We are all, staff and public alike, adapting to a new reality while still speaking the old language."

"Because the NHS doesn’t need worship. It needs repair.

And if the stair has vanished, the least we can do is stop pretending it hasn’t, before more people discover gravity the hard way."

Today, hospital policy prohibits carers from staying overnight with patients. I've pushed to stay with my parents because I know the wards are understaffed. Sometimes I was 'allowed', twice I was not. I wonder what would happen if hospital policies allowed, even embraced, carer support, naming the issues of understaffing.

This: "When that belief starts to fail, the country changes. Not in a dramatic headline way, but in a thousand small behavioural shifts:"

...for the carers I've met, the belief has already gone. You'll find many carers trying to share learnings with anyone on the cusp of caring, e.g., 1-pager MedInfo summaries, go-bags, or scripted questions... all to help others learn faster about how to cope and manage these days. Coping and compensating actions are the signs and symptoms of a system’s illness.

Madeleine Dr Rachel Molloy Cali Bird Danusia Malina-Derben Donna Giles Mary Braun Bates, MD