As an MP and psychiatrist, I see the burden that a service near breaking point takes on patients, their families and healthcare colleagues
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Alongside serving my constituents as their MP, during the junior doctors’ strike I have spent more than 20 night shifts over the past year or so working as a mental health doctor in a busy hospital A&E department. It has been a truly life-changing experience.
Working on the frontline of a health service under great strain left me at times, as an MP, struggling to look my NHS colleagues, my patients and my constituents in the eye. Throughout the small hours, my clinical colleagues and I cared for many patients suffering from serious psychosis who would routinely be waiting several days, rather than hours, in a windowless room in A&E for a mental health bed.
