Ishbel Straker - Treating Mental Health & Addiction

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29/04/2026

Today, the Leader of the Opposition wrote formally to the NMC demanding it drop what she calls “weak and spurious” investigations against nurses who have already been vindicated in court.
Her words: “It is clear, from the number of frontline nurses pursued for doing their jobs and subsequently vindicated in court, that the system is misfiring.”
She is right. And she does not go far enough.
The Regulatory Justice Foundation has been documenting this systemic failure which have been going on for years. What Kemi Badenoch has identified in two high-profile cases, we have seen repeated across dozens of registrants, from every background, across every specialism. Nurses vindicated. Investigations still open. Careers still hanging. Mental health in freefall.
The cases of Jennifer Melle and the Darlington nurses are not anomalies. They are the visible tip of something much larger, much older, and much more dangerous.
Today I contacted Kemi Badenoch directly. I want to speak with her. Because if we are finally having a national conversation about whether the NMC fitness to practise process is fit for purpose, the Regulatory Justice Foundation needs to be in that room.
A strongly worded letter is a start. A public inquiry is what this demands.
If you are a registrant currently under investigation, or you are supporting someone who is, please join us tonight at our fortnightly peer support group. A confidential, held space for people going through this. Details are on our website with the link.
Link to article: https://christianconcern.com/news/nursing-and-midwifery-council-to-be-held-to-account-says-badenoch/

24/04/2026

The NMC has appointed a new Director of Professional Practice this week.
And in the same breath they’re pushing ahead with a fee increase. Despite the profession speaking out against it. Despite nurses, midwives, and nursing associates making their voices heard through the consultation process.
Imagine being in the middle of a fitness to practise investigation. Your mental health is suffering. Your career is on the line. You haven’t been able to work. And the regulator that is putting you through that process is now asking you to pay more for the privilege!
It doesn’t feel like regulation it feels like punishment.
New appointments and restructures mean nothing if the culture doesn’t change. The profession has spoken and once again, it hasn’t been listened to.
We deserve a regulator that works with us, not against us.
Watch my video for my full thoughts. 💙

20/04/2026

📣 SCOTLAND 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿ARE YOU WITH US?
Since launching The Regulatory Justice Foundation, the response has been extraordinary, over half a million people reached, growing parliamentary support, and daily contact from individuals whose lives have been devastated by regulatory and whistleblowing processes that are not fit for purpose.
I’ve heard from many of you in Scotland including media and MPs. And I want to bring this conversation to you.
I’m exploring holding an RJF event in Glasgow, accessible, welcoming, and built around the people this campaign exists to serve.
This is a call out to:
🔵 Nurses, midwives and any regulated professionals
🔵 Whistleblowers
🔵 Those who have been harmed by fitness to practise processes
🔵 Families who have lost someone
🔵 Anyone who believes the system is broken and needs to change
This movement only works if we come together and Scotland deserves a space in this conversation.
Before I confirm a date and venue, I need to know the appetite is there. Would you come?
👇 Drop a comment, share this post, or message me directly. This is your movement too let me know you’re there.
🔗 www.theregulatoryjusticefoundation.org.uk

18/04/2026

The NMC CEO found his voice yesterday.
Shame it took a viral video and public outrage not the hundreds of ethnically diverse nurses quietly destroyed by a system he oversees.

https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2026-04-16/elderly-couple-jailed-after-racial-abuse-video-goes-viral

Victims of the NMC’s institutional racism lie at the roadside while Paul Rees polishes his anti-racism credentials.
It’s not leadership, it’s performance.
We are calling time on it.

17/04/2026

https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2026-04-16/elderly-couple-jailed-after-racial-abuse-video-goes-viral

What happened to Apple Moorhouse was horrific. Racist, violent, and utterly inexcusable. I hope Apple gets every bit of support she needs to heal.
But something must be named.
I am a woman of colour and a psychiatric nurse. I have spent my career fighting for the people this system is supposed to protect. So when the NMC CEO uses Apple’s trauma to polish his organisation’s anti-racism credentials, I cannot stay silent.
Paul Rees admitted today that there is “racism and bias in the NMC’s own regulatory processes.”
Please allow that to percolate.
The Rise Associates Independent Culture Review, commissioned by the NMC in 2024, found minority ethnic staff were held back, bullied, and discriminated against. NMC lawyers acknowledged the mishandling of Fitness to Practise cases involving racism. Black nurses are referred to the NMC at almost double the rate their register representation would suggest.
The NMC has known this for years.
Signing the UNISON Anti-Racism Charter is not accountability. Targets are not accountability. A LinkedIn post is not accountability.
The Regulatory Justice Foundation is calling for a public inquiry into the very process Paul Rees oversees one that is quietly destroying the careers and lives of the nurses he claims to champion.
Apple deserves justice. So do the hundreds of BAME nurses crushed by a system never held to account.
The NMC cannot be the solution to racism in healthcare when it is part of the problem.

15/04/2026

📢 Update | Peer Support Group
A quick update for everyone planning to join us tonight our Regulatory Justice Foundation Peer to Peer Support Group has moved to tomorrow evening at 8pm. 💙
Same link, same space, same safe community just one day later. You’ll find the joining details on our website.

https://www.theregulatoryjusticefoundation.org.uk

We look forward to seeing you there. 💙

14/04/2026

Yesterday I stood in the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont as a board member of RUMbLE and spoke about the Lost Boys.
About boys who are quieter than they used to be. A bit further back. A bit less present.
A masculinity crisis that did not appear from nowhere. It grew in the vacuum left by every system that looked at men and boys and decided it was someone else’s problem. The manosphere did not create that vacuum. It just moved into it.
I have written about this at length: https://ishstraker2.substack.com/p/why-every-parent-should-watch-manosphere
But today I am not just naming the problem. Today I am announcing what we are doing about it.
I am proud to launch PRESENT*, co-founded with the remarkable Gareth ‘Spud’ Murphy. Spud has been showing up for men nobody else was coming for since a road in East Belfast thirty years ago. No framework. No protocol. Just presence.
PRESENT* is the consultancy that takes that same philosophy into organisations, schools, employers and public sector bodies who want to reach men and boys more effectively.
75% of all su***des are male.
75% of school exclusions are boys.
85% of rough sleepers are men.
95% of the prison population is male.
These are not statistics at the edge of society. They are the result of decades of systemic invisibility.
We do not wait for men to ask for help. Men do not ask for help. We show up anyway.
I am a psychiatric nurse, a CEO, a researcher, a woman of faith and a mother of sons. I will not be silent about what happens when boys fall through the gaps.
This is why PRESENT* exists.
If you work with men and boys, or want to, I would love to hear from you.
🌐 www.presentmen.com

11/04/2026

Honoured to be joining Dina Paoloni and Kimberly Maurer on The Hierarchy Betrayal tomorrow for a conversation that needs to be had out loud.
We’ll be talking about what it actually feels like to live inside an NMC Fitness to Practise process the years of waiting, the silence, the loss of identity and income, the psychological toll that goes unrecorded until it becomes tragedy.
One line anchors everything we’ll be discussing:
When regulation lacks compassion, it doesn’t protect the public, it breaks nurses.
Faster resolutions are not the same as justice. Speed without humanity is just efficient cruelty.
If you’ve been investigated, referred, or left alone in a process you didn’t understand — this episode is for you. It gives language to what many nurses have been afraid to say out loud.
📺 Join us live tomorrow, Sunday 12 April at 3PM BST on LinkedIn Live.
Register via the link below and bring someone who needs to hear this. 👇

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nrdinapaoloni_nmc-ugcPost-7448344995369160704-MEtw?utm_medium=ios_app&rcm=ACoAABzDamsBN0iUwqmAckfcoD6NjQkWt66X7MY&utm_source=social_share_send&utm_campaign=copy_link

09/04/2026

On Tuesday I shared my published story in the Nursing Standard.
In just 48 hours, that post has been seen by over 230,000 people. Over 1,000 of you clicked through to read the full article. 150 new people followed because of this post alone.
Combined with my post two weeks ago about Amelia Morton-Scott, nearly 460,000 people have now seen this campaign. No advertising. No budget. Just people sharing because they know this is wrong.
The response has gone far beyond social media. MPs have made contact. Podcasters have reached out. Production teams are calling. The media trail now includes the Nursing Standard, The Echo, ITV and LBC with national broadcasters in the pipeline.
This week I have written to the four MPs who are supporting the RJF formally asking them to table an Early Day Motion, write jointly to the Secretary of State for Health, and raise this at Health Select Committee level. The establishment is paying attention.
Nurses and midwives are dying by su***de whilst under investigation or fitness to practise processes. This is abhorrent. There are many more attempted su***des and cases of profound psychological harm that have never been formally recorded. They aren’t isolated incidents. They are the consequence of a system that has operated without accountability, transparency or compassion for far too long.
The Regulatory Justice Foundation is for every regulated professional who has been failed by this process. Nurses, midwives, doctors, social workers, teachers, solicitors, paramedics and more. It is for whistleblowers who spoke up and were punished for doing so. It is for the families who lost someone and were never given answers. This campaign belongs to all of you.
The Regulatory Justice Foundation ⚖️ exists because this has to change. And because of you, it is changing.
If you have been through this system, or love someone who has, please know that you are not alone.
Get in touch 📧 regulatory.justice.foundation@gmail.com

Read the original here:
https://www.facebook.com/100057415720597/posts/1446585470598630/

We see you. We are fighting for you.
This is just the beginning.

07/04/2026

My story is in the Nursing Standard today.

For years I have said that the NMC’s fitness to practise process is not just flawed — it is cruel. Today, that word is in a national headline, and it belongs there.
Nurses are dying. Not because of mistakes in clinical practice. But because of what happens to them after a referral, years of waiting, uncertainty, isolation, and institutional silence that strips people of their identity, their income, and ultimately, in some cases, their will to live.
I know this because I am living it. And I know it because hundreds of registrants have come to me through the Regulatory Justice Foundation and told me the same story.
The NMC will say it is getting better at resolving cases more quickly. That is not good enough. Speed without justice is just efficient cruelty.
What we need, what nurses deserve, is a full public inquiry into how this regulator treats the people it is supposed to regulate. Not a review. Not a commitment to improvement. An independent, evidence-based inquiry with teeth.
The RJF exists because this fight needed a home. We are not going away.
If you or someone you know has been affected by NMC proceedings, reach out. You are not alone, and your story matters.
🔗 Read the full article in Nursing Standard:

‘Cruel’ NMC should be investigated for how it treats nurses like me https://rcni.com/nursing-standard/newsroom/analysis/cruel-nmc-should-be-investigated-for-how-it-treats-nurses-me-221901

03/04/2026

Good Friday. Family. Walks. Food. Presence. 🙏
This weekend is a reminder of exactly why this work matters because we are so much more than the processes that try to define us.
And what a week it’s been.
📢 More MPs amplifying our voice
📺 Media attention continuing to grow
💛 Hundreds of new contacts and followers joining the cause
🫂 A well-attended peer group, with new faces which remains the heartbeat of the RJF
We are moving closer to a seat at the table. A public inquiry is no longer a distant ambition. And I hope very soon to announce that our doors are open to provide direct mental health interventions, a milestone we’ve been working hard towards.
I’m heading into Easter switched off and present. Coming back refreshed and ready to make an impact.
To everyone who joined us this week, welcome. You belong here. 💙

01/04/2026

Tonight. 8pm. And you are so welcome.
If you’re navigating a fitness-to-practice investigation right now I want you to know something before you join us:
You are wanted here.
Your journey is valid.
You are so much more than your professional identity.
And there is purpose in your pain even when it’s impossible to see it.
We don’t have all the answers. But we walk through this together.
Head to our website for the link and join us tonight. The Regulatory Justice Foundation peer support group, 8pm.
You don’t have to do this alone. 🖤

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http://www.ishbelstraker.co.uk/

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