@microlabdoc.bsky.social
Consultant Clinical Microbiologist Current interests: Bacteriophage therapy, AMR, hospital water and ventilation, Airborne pathogens, IAQ, Fresh Air in the NHS= ventilation + Culture change Lots of gardens and hills too
"My NHS colleagues & I weren’t willing to let the bodies pile high in their thousands. Boris no longer mentions them at all."
My piece on the responses to the UK Covid-UK Inquiry report that try to airbrush the dead away.
Sincere thanks, @theobserveruk.bsky.social.
observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
In a digital age it’s still remarkable how history revision is possible. Power gets to bludgeon its way to writing history if your democracy is limping.
23.11.2025 10:00 — 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
🚨Liz Carr's evidence against the Assisted Dying Bill
"Once [Assisted Suicide] becomes a medical treatment, then that’s when it terrifies me, because it happens behind closed doors and is based on medical subjectivity"
More from @johnpring.bsky.social 👇
www.disabilitynewsservice.com/health-and-c...
IS
My opinion on the decline of our national pandemic preparedness and risks to biosecurity in @issuesinst.bsky.social @nationalacademies.org
issues.org/unprepared-p...
“The RCM has been raising the exact same concerns that the inspections have found with the Scottish Government, and with individual Health Boards, for years. Secretary and his predecessors to get ahead of the curve”
For years !
It’s not great that the workforce in the know have not been listened to previously as it seems from this statement.
Going forward now - one of the key lessons once again is LISTEN UP.
No point in “speaking up week” festivals if it’s a one sided effort.
Thankyou for your response. It’s specifically the concern raisers I am concerned about. There is a deficiency in evidence based practices that will ensure their safety and inclusion in the monitoring of real change.
Hopefully you will begin to build a better evidence base for achieving this
Re maternity :
Do you consider how issues raised by staff failed to be escalated and responded to ?
Do you analyse how failures to adequately act on concerns in a timely manner led to harm?
What are you actively doing to protect the staff that spoke up?
It’s not great that it’s press that actually give effective voice to those raising serious valid concerns. Still @johnswinney.bsky.social
Now. Current.
Publish what happened internally, and have the decency to directly listen to the midwives who raised concerns to see where escalation went wrong
To demonstrate a serious intent on culture and whistleblowing you could use this opportunity to delve deep into recent “speaking up” history.
Make public:
How many boards had internal whistleblows re maternity in last couple years ?
How many times were INWO or HIS contacted re same ?
If a fair section of the voting public are cynical by this stage of flowery promises -how will you evidence the real changes you promise both in terms of real on the ward staffing and coal face culture ? @johnswinney.bsky.social
we have heard A LOT about speaking up being encouraged and yet ….
What may never be clear re staffing is how many staff raised staffing as an issue prior to public exposure and political expediency of talking good talk.
Data on every single staff concern needs collected and scrutinised - by public and staff representatives to change the rut we are stuck in.
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...
Raising concerns should never be at risk of jobs as feared by midwives in this piece
The language of “we will work to make staff feel that they are safe to raise concerns” is loaded
The q is not do they feel it - but actually ARE they ?
no - not yet in Scotland
Re all the maternity scandals- it really is a shameful failure of our country- pregnant women and babies for pity’s sake
If we can allow wave after wave of toxicity and incompetence at with cost paid by the most vulnerable, we are sunk very low indeed by any historical and contemporary measure.
If only true reflection always generated such beauty
28.10.2025 10:52 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0"We find that serious adverse event reviews are not always undertaken quite as thoroughly as they might be and that the learning from these reviews is not always made,"
Not acceptable.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Beyond the headline of the pain that has been suffered, there is some thought provoking quotes here about listening to patients, limitations of SAER process and the utterly endemic malignant approach of putting reputation above all else.
Intrigued by this lung protector amongst the medical items on display in #InvararyJail - 1800s
Looks like a respirator mask idea
Never fails to surprise how the airborne infection concept regresses and even disappeared so comprehensively over the last few decades.
Old microscope with mirror for light reflection to shine light into the lens through the slide. and glass slides
Old fashion stethoscope - basically just a tube with an ear piece at one end and a flat end at the other for pressing onto patient
Still familiar - just an electric bulb in place of a mirror, and two eye pieces for binocular vision - but the counting chamber looks similar
On a daily basis we still rely on basic Gram stain microscopy to help choose antibiotics
#IveraryJail
If the public want better healthcare and appropriately placed confidence in the NHS - this kind of skanky garbage needs to stop.
It doesn’t take much neuronal effort to figure out where we need to place tough zero tolerance .
davidhencke.com/2025/10/21/r...
The wonderful attention to ventilation by prison improvement efforts of the Victorian era are inspiring.
Inverary “new” prison focussed on plenty fresh air through natural ventilation. Over 150 years ago.
Mind you watch out where the exhaust is placed - wouldn’t like to walk past this
Latest covid data: after nearly a year of low covid levels, we're in another wave.
Good time to re-post my basic science explanations of how airborne diseases like covid spread, and how to lower risks if we can't isolate:
Public lecture from 2023: vimeo.com/892302443
+my pinned threads.
Upshot of some conversations @briandevlin
Speaking up is not successful if there is no change
A detailed sparkling showmancy of policy and correct verbiage is the more usual outcome.
This is without exception a dangerous bludgeon to those going through the real traumas of a toxic culture.
Bully tactics from the top create the climate for endemic toxicity.
Thats not leadership. Thats power drunk.
Dread full.
They have not lost the plot. Their plot is twisted but it’s being enacted steadfastly with a logic and precision of purpose that makes it entirely inexcusable.
A one sided risk appreciation is cowardice.
10.10.2025 07:45 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0It’s clever because it gives you a sense of achievement to “change its mind” and a warm glow because it’s not that easy with humans. But to what effect ?
08.10.2025 16:51 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0📌
08.10.2025 09:14 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0There's probably some of that but the big driver seems to be a combination of ego, ignorance, and the authoritarian culture of replacing rigorous science with pseudoscientific "Evidence Based Medicine" heuristics. Arrogant plus hopelessly out of date is...bad.
COVID is the Dunning-Kruger pandemic.
