Disaster Wild Card. Co-Founder, After Disaster Network. Author - Sunday Times Bestseller 'When The Dust Settles'
Sep 26 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
There is a danger that message we could/want to take from this stark testimony is that we must never see these scenes again. I don’t think that’s possible and I don’t actually think that’s what the inquiry will find….
All our high consequence disease (and weaponised attack) planning involves massively difficult triage decisions and not enough ECMO, Ventilation etc. It involves staff there at the end. It may involve some family separation.
May 12 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
One major factor that all debate about behaviour in schools is missing is what disasters (that global pandemic coupled with LD) do to families and households. Behaviour in schools is most definitely not a new issue but there is a profound difference between 2019 and 2024
Behaviour at school is a contract between school, child and care givers. It breaks down regularly and there are many reasons - issues such as poverty, illness, failing care system etc are well known. Some families can feel “unreachable”… but what nobody is talking enough about…
Mar 3 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The majority of the initial humanitarian support in a U.K. terrorist attack is expected to come from the local authorities. And they are currently trying to plan for that with absolutely no money #SkyfallEffect
Survivor Reception Centres are “police led” but they ask local authorities to get them ready. And we have lost access to so many of the spaces we previously utilised.
Feb 8 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The thought of General Election in Nov is quite terrifying. There is every chance of another very tough winter. Purdah would come at time when we would need to be readying for Winter* and then any new government would be unprepared for weather, chronic crisis or no notice event
*i don’t think people realise how disruptive purdah can be to signing off issues in health, social care, emergency planning and things like body storage (The process is explained here .)local.gov.uk/our-support/co…
Feb 6 • 15 tweets • 1 min read
I think a lot about a new government’s first 100 days. Not sure that even best briefings now are going to convey the true scale of the cans that are currently being kicked down the road for them to have to tackle. It’s one hell of a soiled legacy to clean up. Those cans include…
RAAC in schools. RAAC in hospitals. RAAC in courts. RAAC in all other public buildings.
Jan 26 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
In the early stages of what is perceived to be a terror incident in the U.K., a whole comms machine is activated politically - vigils, hashtags, messages of solidarity, immediate disowning of attacker and “togetherness”. We are now getting to see downsides of this
In Nottingham when the “controlled spontaneity” is abruptly turned off, it would appear that bereaved and communities are left confused and the reassertion of the rights of the attacker (as severely mentally ill) feel unjust
Jan 4 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Ed Davey as Post Office Minister joins very long line of U.K. senior politicians who have failed to intervene in the aftermath of state inflicted disaster and injustice. Over my time I have observed a number of reasons why this happens…
Ministers are often at mercy of what and who briefs them (a major problem in the pandemic) and as I say in #WhenTheDustSettles by the time of coalition it was “no bad news for the Minister”. They rarely get access to wildcard views.
This is a very important and genuine question. Because our water outage plans are as muddy as our power outage plans. Do you want local authority workers to buy water and charge back the water co? Do you want householders to pick up water or have water delivered? Do you want…
Dec 16, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
One of the WORST messages at the start of the pandemic - the one that had me howling at the screen - was “Protect the NHS”. It was always going to land too well with a stoical nation. It baked in the excess deaths in the 50-70 range who delayed seeking help for concerns other…
..than virus. It can be linked directly to the cancers, uterine prolapses, heart attacks, foot amputations from wildly unmanaged diabetes.. all of it. When I heard plans for Super Hospitals (Nightingales) with military support I thought it would be for managing diagnostics
Aug 30, 2023 • 22 tweets • 4 min read
Absenteeism will be THE topic for school leadership this academic year and the place to look for some answers is disaster recovery literature. When you are meeting to discuss it this week - few of your pre 2019 strategies will work anymore. Some thoughts on what might:
There is illness - viruses, long tails of viruses, ill health from NHS delays, poor dentistry and truly woeful mental health provision. Make close links with primary health and community health care provision. Clarify illness policies - no one should be in school unwell inc staff
Aug 3, 2023 • 29 tweets • 5 min read
The National Risk Register 2023 has dropped! And as this is a major event for emergency planning I was up early to take a look at it.. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
A LOT of work has gone into this one - 🎩 tipped to the civil servants who do this work. It is nearly three times bigger than the last one. We publish one about every three years although 2020 was rapidly withdrawn.
Jun 21, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Been thinking a lot about this evidence overnight. It lays some uncomfortable and bruising ground for Whitty and Vallance… bbc.com/news/uk-politi…
As I discuss in #WhenTheDustSettles good scientific advice in emergencies also needs to listen to Wild Cards and weigh up longer term recovery consequences of certain actions. By 2016/7 I was worried that we were going backwards.
Jun 4, 2023 • 19 tweets • 5 min read
There can be a lot of snobbery in Disaster Victim Identification with incorrect assumptions abounding that India will struggle this scale of tragedy - but U.K., Europe and USA would be ready. Trust me - this would challenge the U.K. just as much…. news.sky.com/story/india-tr…
Wherever the incident is in the world, affected relatives respond in the same way. Desperate for information and then desperate for access to their loved ones’s body or to visit a survivor in the hospital. The response can never be quick enough and if authorities try to use….
Jun 3, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
“We hid messages from the COVID inquiry… brushed over several hundred excess deaths due to NHS Backlog…approved some extra cremation of those already dead…harassed some sick people on benefits… abandoned Sudan… negotiated our Murder-Barge contract. Good Times”
Also should it be NHS-Backlog… I noticed we are now hyphenating waiting-times
Jun 2, 2023 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
All recent public inquiries have relied heavily on analysts to create timelines that flag key moments and decisions. Jan - April 2020 will be chock-full of such flags in Hallet’s inquiry and often they will contradict or overlap. Tens of agencies will have their own line…
…usually marked by a different colour. However one of many challenges for the inquiry is to work out what lies behind the flags and how they should be interpreted and exactly who has the inside track.
Jun 1, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This is ABSOLUTELY the playbook of post disaster inquiries - new phone, new laptop, new pigeons
Tom on #BritainsGotTalent is already a performer nurtured by Simon and with a record deal. I know that it’s all a bit of a confection but sometimes it would be nice to believe in the genuine discovery of the amateur for a little longer
And yes I have a bias here:
I really like this article by @whippletom but it struggles, like so many pieces (and the inquiry to come) with the fact that there were plans and planners and planning- which means that everything that was done was a choice
Choices - cut budgets for U.K. pandemic planning: sell off PPE stockpile; decline appts for major exercises; fail to implement suggested changes to how we communicate science in emergencies; close pandemic death mgt stream at Home Office…
Mar 9, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Ministers do not care about big or little boats (nice yachts maybe). Or rapists on boats. You are once again being played. The law will fail (it’s illegal). They will say MOTD presenters ruined it for all of us. We will tear each other apart. They will holiday in Monaco and watch
They laugh at your accents, your clothes, your foods, your sports, your passions, your dreams, your children. They are using the things you care about and the worries you have to manipulate you. It’s all they know how to do now.
Sep 24, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Incredibly powerful, terrifying and well made piece by Claudia Collins on social media use and teens. Particularly the way the algorithm pushes out content on suicide, anorexia and self harm constantly @BBCBreakfast@DamianCollins
Here it is:
I have come to know that cruel phrase that its time to move on well. I have seen the air sucked out of a room when civil servants have used it on grieving mothers and still injured survivors. I've seen it said to flooded communities still living in caravans and back bedrooms.
To veterans re-learning how to walk again. To responders who are not eating or sleeping properly yet or ever, whose marriages are falling apart day by day, because they can’t find the words to say what they have seen. To school mates.
