Thousands of doctors are missing from hospitals and GPs’ surgeries during the ‘Winter Crisis’ because they are on jollies to medical conferences at 5 star ski resorts. A Guido probe found doctors are encouraged to book luxury foreign trips deliberately scheduled during the most pressured time of year for the health service. The conferences fulfil mandatory NHS ‘continuing professional development’ (‘CPD’) requirements in the form of lectures and training measured by the hour. But free time is spent skiing and enjoying the apres ski scene in some of the world’s most desirable destinations. Many doctors are allowed to charge their NHS trust for part costs of the trips, effectively subsidising their skiing holidays…

Despite the creaking NHS enduring some of its busiest weeks in decades:

• 500 doctors are on a four night trip to posh Val d’Isere, France this month;
• 80 urologists are on a trip to classy Corvara in the Italian Dolomites at the same time;
• Dozens more medics will miss the ‘Winter Crisis’ to be lectured on ‘expedition medicine’ while skiing in iconic Chamonix this month;
• Dozens more will depart this Saturday for Zurs, Austria, where they will be lectured by NHS consultants from London and Hertfordshire;
• If sunnier climes are required, the Royal College of Physicians is taking dozens of medics to Yangon, Burma, for a ‘communications skills’ course.

As doctors launch campaign after campaign against the government and are increasingly weaponised by Labour, NHS users will be forgiven for asking… Why are they hitting the slopes?

Sunday: Paul Mason reveals his theory that Fleet Street is conspiring to keep the so-called NHS crisis off their front pages.

Today: NHS crisis on the front page of the Mail, Sun and Times.

Must be a conspiracy to keep Corbyn’s speech out of the news…

Over the weekend Paul Mason emerged from his leather-jacketed midlife crisis to reveal his latest conspiracy theory: Fleet Street is covering up the so-called NHS crisis. Top Corbynista Mason reckons the press are conspiring to keep NHS stories out of their papers so they can please their proprietors and secure invites to Downing Street drinks parties:

Does the theory stand up to scrutiny?

Mason told his followers that journalists at the Mail on Sunday had kept the NHS crisis out of the paper. The truth is the paper ran a major spread across two full pages high in the news section with the sub deck: “Britain’s NHS Emergency”. It featured the pull quote: “NHS is stretched to its limit”. 

Mason said there was “No NHS crisis” in the Sunday Telegraph. The truth is the paper covered the story on page two of the news section.

Mason also claimed the Sunday Times had ignored the issue. The paper devoted a large section of is leader column to the story.

Mason said the same of The Sun on Sunday. It covered the story on page two. The NHS crisis was also on the Sun’s front page this morning under the headline “Hospitals in Crisis”, with a spread across pages eight and nine on what it calls the “NHS Hospitals Scandal“.

Mason has so far failed to tweet any of this coverage or admit he was telling his followers a pack of fibs. This must be what the Corbynistas mean by their new Trumpian approach to dealing with the media…