"Largely unreported is the extent to which the NHS is bled white by a private sector enjoying the benefits of state sector staff education and training, charging NHS trusts £80bn in PFI payments for buildings that cost £13bn to construct, and reaping at least £10bn a year in “excess profits” from supplying drugs costing the NHS £23bn (five times their cost of production)."
What place does Britain occupy in the general crisis of capitalism? | Morning Star

If you're on your way out or into CCH right now, it's a good day to train your Tux-step.
Walk like a penguin to prevent slipping on the ice! 🐧
Wenn du auf dem Weg aus oder ins CCH bist, ist heute ein guter Tag denen Tux-Gang zu üben.
Watschel wie ein Pinguin um Ausrutschen zu vermeiden! 🐧
#blackice

On Thursday, 11 of the UK's leading oncologists, economists and medical ethicists will meet at the Department of Health’s headquarters in London
to make a decision that will have consequences for millions of men.
The National Screening Committee (NSC) will issue a recommendation on whether to launch the first NHS screening programme for prostate cancer.
Celebrities, sports stars and politicians, including Sir Chris Hoy and David Lammy, have campaigned for the greater us…

NHS could start prostate cancer screening — which men are eligible?
The National Screening Committee is expected to recommend the first-ever screening programme for the disease next week, but only for those at the highest risk

Who could have predicted that the NHS's past distain for standardised systems would continue to cause problems?
https://www.ukauthority.com/articles/nhs-not-ready-for-ai-royal-college-of-physicians

NHS not ready for AI - Royal College of Physicians | UKAuthority

⚖️ Underweight children cost NHS as much per child as children with obesity, study finds
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-10-underweight-children-nhs-child-obesity.html

Underweight children cost NHS as much per child as children with obesity, study finds
The NHS incurs an estimated £340 million in additional health care costs annually due to weight-related health problems in children—but it is not just obesity driving the costs. New research from the University of Oxford reveals that underweight children need comparable medical support as those who are severely obese, challenging assumptions about childhood health priorities.

Männens motsvarighet till "hormonell obalans". Det finns mycket påhitt kring hormoner idag.
Social media misinformation driving men to seek unneeded NHS testosterone therapy, doctors say https://www.theguardian.com/so…

Hackers breach internal servers of tech provider for Britain’s health service https://therecord.media/uk-nhs-tech-provider-dxs-discloses-hack

Check out today's Metacurity for the most critical infosec developments you might have missed over the weekend, including
--Trump to hand some offsec ops against adversaries to the private sector, report,
--Canada to probe billboard facial recognition use,
--Pope Leo weighs in on Italian spyware scandal,
--Oracle bug led to theft of sensitive NHS docs,
--Coupang founder will go MIA at parliamentary hearing,
--Asahi will change cyber posture after ransom…

Trump to hand some offsec ops against adversaries to the private sector, report
Canada to probe billboard facial recognition use, Pope Leo weighs in on Italian spyware scandal, Oracle bug led to theft of sensitive NHS docs, Coupang founder will go MIA at parliamentary hearing, Asahi will change cyber posture after ransomware attack, Apple issues emergency updates, much more

Who would have guessed that appointing an android as Health Secretary would lead to a muddle?*
Wes Streeting accused of ‘chaotic and incoherent approach’ to NHS reform | Wes Streeting | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/

Wow, those Covid vaccinations are pretty expensive if you're young and healthy and want to stay that way eh?
Did it anyway. Suppose I should be glad I still count as young.
Thanks for the profiteering Pfizer, thanks for nothing NHS.
#covid #vaccination #nhs

How to eliminate 'corridor care' in hospitals? Remove the corridors! Too much hospital floor space is lost to rooms - storage, staff, admin and unnecessary partitions. Yes, some are needed and some patients do require isolation, but it's not an efficient use of space. #NHS #A&E

The military project CORTISONE sounds like it's going to be some high-adrenaline Jason Statham action movie shit, but it's just digitising health records.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-digital-medical-records-to-speed-up-ar…

New digital medical records to speed up Armed Forces recruitment
New digital system - fully integrated with the NHS - will dramatically cut delays for those joining the Armed Forces, boosting readiness and recruitment.

Using AI for mental health support is dangerous and wrong.
Buuut, probably less dangerous and wrong than relying on mental health support supposedly provided by NSFT NHS trust in Norfolk, UK
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/202

Before you head out for the weekend, check out today's Metacurity for the most critical infosec developments you should know, including
--Chinese state hackers used Anthropic to automate cyber intrusions,
--UK MoD knew of Excel's security risks before Afghan data leak,
--NHS investigates Clop's attack claims,
--ASUS patches DSL router critical flaws,
--DoorDash reveals October security incident,
--US feds warn of Akira's expanded encryption …

Chinese state hackers used Anthropic to automate cyber intrusions
UK MoD knew of Excel's security risks before Afghan data leak, NHS investigates Clop's attack claims, ASUS patches DSL router critical flaws, DoorDash reveals October security incident, US feds warn of Akira's expanded encryption capabilities, Kraken is testing how fast it can encrypt, much more

People urged to wear masks when they are ill as UK faces ‘tidal wave’ of flu | Flu | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/09/nhs-leader-calls-for-revival-of-mask-wearing-amid-tidal-wave-of-flu<…

Bernie Sanders: Medicare-for-all would not resemble Britain’s NHS
Medicare-for-all is not a government-run, British-style National Health Service system.
It is a government-funded universal insurance program.
Medicare-for-all would simply expand Medicare
— a program that has worked extremely well for more than six decades
— to cover every American, eliminate premiums and out-of-pocket costs,
give people the freedom to choose their doctors,
and ens…

Bernie Sanders: Medicare-for-all would not resemble Britain’s NHS
Readers respond to Post articles and commentary.

NHS National Services Scotland acquires AI anti-ransomware platform
https://www.ukauthority.com/articles/nhs-national-services-scotland-acquires-ai-anti-malware-platform

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐
Most plankton are tiny, making it very difficult to visualize their internal structures. Enter "expansion microscopy" a technique that embeds the organism in a gel which absorbs water and expands up to 16x, yet retains all of the internal cell details. This means you can view structures normally too small to see with light

NHS patients to finally be informed if hackers published their STI and cancer test data https://therecord.media/synnovis-healthcare-data-breach-notification-uk-patients

Before you leave for the weekend (or maybe even a long holiday break), make sure you check out today's Metacurity for the most critical infosec developments you should know, including
--The UK Foreign Office was hacked in October
--Delay in keystroke led Amazon to imposter discovery,
--A second suspect was arrested in an attempted Italian ferry malware attack,
--Denmark blames Russia for destructive cyberattacks,
--LongNosedGoblin is targeting SE Asian and Ja…

The UK Foreign Office was hacked in October
Delay in keystroke led Amazon to imposter discovery, A second suspect was arrested in an attempted Italian ferry malware attack, Denmark blames Russia for destructive cyberattacks, LongNosedGoblin is targeting SE Asian and Japanese governments, NHS tech company hit with cyber incident, much more

"A woman's work is never done", is a saying especially relevant when applied to women's rights. Someone is always trying to take them away from us - we can never relax and think that fight is over. Please sign this Holyrood petition. https://petitions.parliament.scot/petitions…

Petition: Ensure abortion services are available up to 24 weeks across all parts of Scotland
Calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ensure abortion services are available up to the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy across all NHS health boards in Scotland.

Health Stuff

Recovered somewhat from whatever that weird fit was at the end of last year.

NHS still has me on some sort of list I think, appointment might turn up next year. Last contact with them they were suggesting maybe November.
But the private treatment gave me the
MRI which
showed nothing weird and post-fit symptoms have been reducing.
Experimented with eating meat to see if that helped.
Tried eating meat for a month to see if it reduced the post-fit symptoms. Maybe it did? Tried vegetarian again and maybe it got worse?
Hard to tell with intermittent symptoms and a terrible memory.
Decided it's more likely to do good than harm (to me, entirely harm to the animals obviously), and eat meat till the end of the year.
While I'm better, I don't really feel fully recovered enough to want to change things so more meat next year I think.
One of those symptoms is that booze tolerance dropped to like zero. Very rarely had more than four pints in a day this year and very rarely more than one night a
week.
Much high number than the target there really.
Tripped over a guy-rope and fell onto the wrist.
Did two days of the festival and the drive home thinking it almost certainly wasn't broken and only confirmed it was when I got home and the hospital put it in a cast.

Reform have written to me. Wow, what a push poll. “Rising crime”, “mass immigration” (not devolved), but no mention of transport, let alone the environment (unless that’s what they mean by high energy prices).
Also, why only one set of choices for who I’m voting for? Have Reform forgotten that in a Scottish election you have two votes (constituency and list)?

This story evokes the same sort of anxiety some people get when governments announce they're going to be using AI for things.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqjwg197855o

Hospitals knew a heart device led to more patients' deaths - but they kept using it
Almost half of patients given a heart pump, after the NHS had raised concerns about it, died soon after.

The NHS Barts Health Hospital wants to legally ban the publication, use, or sharing of data stolen by the Clop gang by anyone.
https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/uk-hospital-asks-court-to-stymie-ransomware-data-leak-a-30222