Night after night a recurring media theme over the past year has been harrowing images of over-stretched staff in their PPE rushing from bed to bed in overflowing ICU wards. This unrelenting barrage of distress has underpinned the entire ‘protect the NHS’ messaging campaign but is what we’ve been seeing — and still see, even now — a complete picture of what’s actually been going on? More and more health staff are now speaking out, putting their livelihoods in peril and jeopardising professional and other relationships in the process. Among them is Kirsty Miller, an experienced nurse who worked for NHS Tayside and quit at the end of March after raising in vain a growing catalogue of concerns with her managers, her union, government health bodies, and the Nursing and Midwifery Council. The emotional video she made sitting in a hospital car park after working her last shift went viral, and now Kirsty wants as many people as possible to start questioning what’s happening in the NHS and care sector.