"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about."
There are secret battles going on all over the country right now: battles to keep our teachers, fire fighters and police officers, to protect the rights of disabled people, and save children from poverty. The NHS is quietly becoming a war zone all by itself; there are battles to stop stripping student nurses of their bursaries, to stop A&E and maternity closures, to keep community pharmacies open, to challenge consultant contracts, to keep GP practices open, and - most publicly - to halt the imposition of the junior doctors contract.
These battles are secret not by our choosing. I have colleagues who have done nothing but work themselves to the bone for the last eight months to try to get the word to you. I hope you were listening. Many mainstream media outlets were not. The struggle against the government’s spin machine has been titanic. I still think we aren’t even halfway there.
