New Paper- Using UAVs to estimate body volume at scale for ecological monitoring!
Super excited to share that my Master's research with @KatrinaJDavis and first ever paper has been published in @MethodsEcolEvol! 🦭
https://t.co/LjGU2jHXdq
Finding time to explore and reflect on your emotions is so important in helping us understand and communicate our emotions in the future. We have created a free downloadable worksheet to support children and young people to work through their emotions 👉 https://t.co/vXA5PuSF6d
A #WellbeingToolkit contains different items to help regulate difficult emotions, manage your big feelings and focus on the present moment. If you find yourself feeling big or difficult emotions you can turn to your wellbeing toolkit to help you. Find out more 👇
Thoughts on the NHS…..
Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
But this is what is happening in the NHS right now; hoping things will improve when just giving the same failing medicine.
As an A&E doctor, I am proud of what I do and would not want any other job
But I am getting increasingly demoralised that despite best efforts, it can seem like we are moving deckchairs on the NHS titanic and just applying a sticky plaster to ever expanding gaping wounds of deep routed societal problems.
The relentless pressures are getting worse and we are insane if we think the same solutions will solve the problems we have – even with more money and slightly different politics.
We need to have a different approach if we are to have a functioning NHS in the future
We need to look at the issues and potential solutions
1) A large amount of the problems we see are preventable - problems from poor diet, lack of exercise, smoking, drugs and crucially poverty and people’s lack of opportunity and optimism about the future. Efforts should be made to prevent the problems not react to them
2) We must ask ourselves are we doing too much for people and extending their length of life but not addressing if it gives them a quality of life that they would want. Just because we can do so much for patients, doesn’t mean we should.
3) On the whole, the clinician treating you now, are feeling less happy with taking on risk than those ten years ago – hence why there is often over investigation instead of simple reassurance. The risk of being complained about and being sued is one reason. But how to take risk is not taught explicitly and we are losing significant numbers of highly experienced senior decision makers such as GPs who have learnt these skills through years of practice and are replacing them with much more junior staff who are good at working within their defined skills and protocols but who do not have the training and experience to be good “riskaticians”. This is also true of algorhythm based triage systems where the default position is often 999 ambulance and A&E without consideration of this decisions on other patients whose care is delayed because there are only finite resources.
4) We are providing care in the wrong place. I see so many people who could have been cared for by out of hours senior decision makers who can make a judgment call to treat at home, rather than coming to hospital. Instead, paramedics have to bring these complex elderly patients into hospital where they are then seen by junior staff who often can over investigate and admit which leads to deconditioning and deterioration.
5) Medical services are designed around 9-5 Monday to Friday working. This needs complete overhaul so that the same quality of care is provided 24/7
6) The private sector is not the solution. Where profit becomes before patients there is often a hidden bias to overinvesting and over-treating. The money spent on private sector investment run diagnostic centres may well be used in a better way.
7) Mental health care needs to be prioritised as much as medical care. Both are under resourced but the lack of beds and community care for mental health patients creates enormous pressures on emergency services and crucially leads to unacceptable care for the most vulnerable of patients.
8) Any remodelling of the NHS has to be a phased approach – stabilise the current crisis with investment in community as well as hospital care and then longer term transformation so that we truly become a health service rather than a reaction to illness service,
9) Key to a needed NHS transformation is keeping experienced staff and the only way to do this is empowerment of their decision making, flexible working and appropriate renumeration and recognition. The biggest risk to the NHS is that staff will soon stop caring and just go into self-preservation mode. So worry when people like me stop writing messages like this, rather than when we do!
My biggest worry is that politicians won’t want to face up to these incredibly difficult problems and will try and kid themselves and us that a bit more money and tinkering will solve the issue.
It wont. We need radical new thinking now and the politicians to realise this. Without this, the NHS will wither away to be replaced by privatised medicine and the care which will all deserve, will only be available to the richest in society.
Please feel free to share these thoughts so that politicians of all shades can see the reality and thoughts of someone on the front line rather than just the sanitised version of the NHS they are shown.
Thank you for reading my post weekend literary catharsis
Rob Galloway , a tired but still optimistic (just) A&E Doctor.
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This is brilliant - such a common problem for children and families, I see patients in clinic with constipation all the time, yet it’s not talked about and when did you last see some quality research about how best to manage it? @ERIC_UK resources are great.
This week's #FeedbackFriday is about the lovely staff on our Kingfisher Children's Ward. No parent or carer wants to see their child unwell. Our staff are there to support all of the family during these difficult times. #TeamDCH.
A self-soothe box is a box you can make that is full of things that make you feel more relaxed, happier, and reduce difficult feelings of panic, anxiety, worry and sadness. 📦️
Here are some ideas about what you can put in your #SelfSoothe box 👇️
🚨 Breaking news 🚨
Harmonie trial results of niservemab for term infants:
- Reduced RSV hospitalisation by 83%
- Reduced severe RSV by 75%
- Reduced ALL CAUSE LRTI admission sby 58%
This is potentially a once in a generation game changer for paediatrics 🤯
#ESPID2023
Please support @tipcharity to improve facilities in @ed_bath children’s waiting room and create a dedicated child friendly waiting area in A&E X-ray @RUHBath
IT'S JUST SIX WEEKS UNTIL DREAMFLIGHT DAY! 🥳
Dreamflight Day 2023 is on Friday 26th May. All you need to do to get involved is organise an event (big or small) with a ‘cake’ theme 🍰
For details head here:
https://t.co/I8roFJdgWM
Any paediatric renal people know what has happened to the infokid website? Redirects to kidneycareuk and I can’t find the paediatric specific bits?? #missing_infokid
Worried about patient safety during nursing strikes?
I worry about patient safety when we have long term substantive nursing gaps, because people cannot afford to work as nurses.
If nurses are too important to strike, then they are important enough to pay them properly.
@kristemple I would like to understand the intention behind the slow passing at the back. Without a clear INTENTION, there is nothing to focus the ATTENTION, hence lapses in concentration and errors. I don’t think new players will alter the intentions, that needs a lead from the coaches