3 years ago today, I tested positive for an infection that has changed my life. I’m 36 and have been disabled for 3 years. I will have to take medication for the rest of my life. I have had pain every day for 3 years. I have learnt to parent with deafness, blurred vision, 1/3

A massive rise in sickness in the #NHS since the pandemic is of course people swinging the lead and nothing to do with repeated #Covid infections ruining their immune systems. Get clean air and real PPE!! Sickness will go down! #LongCovid @NHS @NHSuk mol.im/a/15867177

Why @wesstreeting shouldn’t be Prime Minister in one tweet…. ⬇️

What the hell is this?! As if the non consultation wasn’t bad enough, we now have reality tv people taking the actual piss out of our pathetic education system? @bphillipsonMP should resign for this alone!! @BBCNews @JeremyVineOn5 @itvnews

Enjoying the birthday programme for a real natural world legend. Sat watching with my 6 and 8 year old sons. I hope they never lose the wonder they are watching with right now, I know I haven’t! Sir David opened a world to us that we could only ever dream of! #DavidAttenborough

SHE FILMED DYING PATIENTS BEING NEGLECTED Margaret Haywood had been a nurse for over 20 years when she decided she had seen enough. Elderly patients at the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton were being left to die alone. Others waited hours to use the toilet. Complaints had already been made. So in 2004, she agreed to go undercover for a @BBCPanorama investigation. She wore a hidden camera for 28 shifts on an acute medical ward. The programme aired in July 2005. The nation watched. People were horrified. Then the Nursing and Midwifery Council (@nmcnews) stepped in. Not to investigate the hospital. To investigate Margaret. In April 2009, she was struck off the nursing register. The charge: breaching patient confidentiality. The patients she filmed had all given consent after the fact. The hospital had a zero-star rating and an £8 million deficit before she ever set foot there with a camera. None of that mattered. The public response was instant and furious. Over 43,000 people signed a Royal College of Nursing petition in her support. An MP tabled an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons. She was sacked from her job as a nurse training manager because of the NMC ruling before she even had a chance to appeal. Three days before her High Court appeal was due to be heard, the NMC quietly backed down. The striking-off order was replaced with a one-year caution. She got her registration back. Her barrister pointed out the problem nobody wanted to say: because the NMC settled before the case was argued in court, the fundamental conflict between patient confidentiality and patient safety was never actually resolved. The question of what a nurse is supposed to do when the system fails them was left deliberately unanswered. The hospital carried on. The regulator carried on. Margaret Haywood nearly lost her career for doing the job the hospital refused to do. That is not an accident. That is how the system protects itself. Sources: @BBCPanorama @guardian @thetimes @NursingTimes @RCNnews

NHS DOCTOR INJECTED HIMSELF WITH DRUGS ON DUTY Dr Patricia Mills worked at West Suffolk Hospital @WestSuffolkNHS between 2019 and 2021. She did what any responsible doctor should do. She reported a colleague who was injecting himself with drugs while on duty, with patients' lives on the line. The hospital's response? Launch a disciplinary investigation against her. Not against the drug-taking doctor. Against the whistleblower. An independent NHS review later described that investigation as verging on "victimisation." In December 2021, Dr Mills was fully exonerated. The review was highly critical of how she was ignored and targeted. @guardian and @BBC both covered it. This is the @NHS whistleblowing system in action. You see something dangerous, you report it, you get hunted. The charity Protect describes the system as fundamentally broken. The law, PIDA, was supposed to protect people like Dr Mills from day one of employment. In practice, West Suffolk Hospital spent that time building a case against her instead. Nobody has been held to account. Nobody ever is. The NHS has over 900 Freedom to Speak Up Guardians. Dr Mills got a disciplinary hearing. You do the maths. Source: The Lowdown NHS / lowdownnhs_info |

The NHS is a dirty cesspit. Employees are just statistics not people. I should know.

I used to be a Nurse, disabled & dismissed for catching Covid at work. Let down by NMC; RCN & especially the NHS. I’ve lost everything my career, my marriage, my home, my health,family, friends & colleagues. Most of all me 😷#LongCovid

Patients harmed as Covid pandemic brought NHS close to collapse, inquiry finds. In 2016 Exercise Cygnus concluded that the NHS cannot cope with a hypothetical H2N2 influenza pandemic. Tory govt did nothing. 232,000 died from Covid. NHS yet to recover. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8l…

The Covid Inquiry’s Module 3 report shows the NHS was pushed to the brink — but key workers with Long Covid are still left without answers.
We need accountability. We need action.
#LongCovid #KeyworkersDeserveBetter #CovidInquiry

Today's Covid Inquiry report recounts the pandemic’s truly devastating impact on doctors, and our patients.   Watch @thomasdolphin speak to press this afternoon

Any journalists covering Module 3 of the Covid Inquiry should really look at this. The sheer incompetence and arrogance of decision makers during one of the most horrendous times we’ve lived through, and they still aren’t acknowledging or following the evidence… @covidinquiryuk

However… and here’s the really scandalous part… What the Inquiry never knew was that the meeting minutes had been EDITED to remove mention of: 1. the consensus agreement for a more precautionary approach 2. references to FFP3 masks. The DRAFT minutes were never disclosed.

During the Inquiry, the Chair of the IPC Cell, Lisa Ritchie, was also asked to elaborate on the process by which the IPC Cell reached a consensus view. It was revealed that no formal votes were taken & it was ultimately up to the Chair (Ritchie) to decide the consensus position.

Finally, I’d just like to extend a HUGE thank you to CATA’s Exec team. Barry. David. Kamini. Kevin. They have devoted years of their lives to holding the govt & other agencies to account for the flawed Covid IPC guidance drawn up in 2020 - and still not corrected to this day.

Here’s @jim_reed, the BBC’s health reporter, speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live: “Almost every expert out there thinks <Long COVID> is a very important factor in explaining why we’ve seen this rise over the past 4-5 years in people who are off work long-term sick”. /15

Another focus is the role of the little-known Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Cell, which heavily influenced guidance on PPE and infection control. Evidence suggests expert advice contradicting the IPC Cell’s position was ignored or removed from records.

Through extensive Freedom of Information requests, CATA says it has identified major gaps in the evidence provided to the Inquiry about key early pandemic decisions. Not small administrative omissions but missing records about decisions affecting frontline worker safety.

According to CATA’s analysis, experts from bodies including Public Health England and the Health and Safety Executive advised that healthcare workers should have stronger respiratory protection. That advice appears not to have been reflected in what was disclosed to the Inquiry.

Well some important questions in this CATA release today: Was tax payers money misdirected to cover mistakes... @SafeDavid3 ia600604.us.archive.org/28/i…