1852 and a lot of interest in air quality. Pity scientific interest in clean air waned over last 100 years @kprather.bsky.social

It’s good to take a breather before a tough week. Deep breaths of fresh air in Bonny Ayrshire

The Scottish Hospitals Inquiry has been examining the design and construction of the QEUH in Glasgow and the Royal Hospital for Children 👉 www.heraldscotland.com/news...

The bigger story is why the delay ? It’s a story well told and deeply considered here: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34632088/#:~....

Not all aerosol causes harm. Indeed, some are very useful at treating diseases of not only the lungs, but of other conditions as well In my latest explainer video, I introduce the topic of pharmaceutical aerosol. I discuss a bit of its history and some of the underlying advantages and disadvantages

One of those useful bits of science that we have unaccountably somehow managed to spurn. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

‘Tis the season of merriment and sporadic interest in masks. Seasonal reading : www.bohs.org/app/uploads/...

Top tip For mask wearing - it’s supposed to stop you breathing in infectious aerosols. Therefore fit and filter matter. Inhaling through a baggy blue allows air to zoom round the edges - no very bright given what we know about respiratory viruses being transmitted through airborne route.

As with all things biological the complexities of the Phage - host interactions is fascinating - defence and counter defence systems abound. Evolution ensures nothing is static. Add in the human host to the host bacteria and the complexities multiply. Using phage safely needs in depth knowledge.

Great trip to Liverpool to the Phage Workshop. Top points for me -The AMR need is burgeoning - regulation is still not crystal clear - the academic science is mind blowing - the translation to getting it into patients now is lacking in speed and ease - the Phage community is inspiring

"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.

🚨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...

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.

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

"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.

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.

There'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.

When the word authentic is eroded by inauthentic over use, we are in a bad place. Look to actions not words. Be wise to the camouflage of policy speak and tickety box cultures

Also leave the hypocrisy behind. It has an odour that permeates despite the floral bonanza of policy speak.

Top tip for encouraging speaking up - have the people fronting up your messaging be people who have not fronted up bullying and extremely bad speaking up practice in the past. Staff ain’t dim.

The true aim of infection control is never to get statistical significance. Success is invisible. That’s why you need evidence base that is not just double blind randomised controlled trials.

We may not want it, but denying something that exists is not a solution based approach.

Great to see this review on IEQ, health, wellbeing and performance in schools from UKHSA and Eurovent www.mdpi.com/2076-3298/12...

I have used every avenue available mentioned. Reality is so far removed from the sweet words of encouragement uttered by the upper echelons that I think “Speaking up” should come with a formal “this could seriously damage your health” warning.

I would urge NHS staff to be very very careful when they speak up. Process exists but its safety and efficacy to deliver what it should is very much in the lacking evidence domain. Indeed we are awash with evidence that it’s a dangerous enterprise for the speaker upper. We need better.

But still the stigmatisation and mocking undermining of staff who are struggling to carry on continues. Mental ill health has causes - and weakness is not one of them.

Nice to see @isiaq.bsky.social, ASHRAE, and American Lung Association among those organizations.

Comparing apples with apples from my tree. It’s an undervalued skill set. Oranges don’t enter into it.

It is still a global problem. Along with many infection threats to health. We need peace, intelligent informed dialogue, open culture of disagreement not being construed as hate, factual integrity and genuine fairness. These foundations are being eroded at scale and pace. Only the bugs win.

The UK National Action Plan for AMR highlights lPC in health care as a crucial strategy for tackling the threat of AMR. This specifically includes the health care built environment. Neglecting IPC will endanger AMR control.

One of the best things in the Hillsborough Law Bill is not the duty of candour on public officials, as welcome as that is, but news that bereaved families will have publicly funded legal representation at inquests. Finally an equality of arms that's been lacking for so long