Building an evidence base on hospital-acquired COVID & patient safety failures, to secure proper investigation, accountability & learning - starting in Wales.
Joined January 2026
- Tweets518
- Following1.8K
- Followers939
- Likes1.1K
Pinned Tweet
Public health officials learned absolutely nothing from 2020.
In the wake of the deadly hantavirus outbreak linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship, international agencies are deploying the exact same bureaucratic word games that crippled the response to COVID-19. 🧵👇
Behind Closed Wards retweeted
This lady has become a good friend, another one met through twitter/X. She’s striving behind the scenes to make the Welsh NHS safer for us all. Sending her love today ❤️
6 yrs ago today Dad died from hospital-acquired Covid
6 yrs on the legal fight continues
Painfully slow & unnecessarily complex The injustice to him & toll on my family continue. This is the gruelling reality of what pursuing accountability actually involves.
@AneurinBevanUHB
Behind Closed Wards retweeted
6 yrs ago today Dad died from hospital-acquired Covid
6 yrs on the legal fight continues
Painfully slow & unnecessarily complex The injustice to him & toll on my family continue. This is the gruelling reality of what pursuing accountability actually involves.
@AneurinBevanUHB
Behind Closed Wards retweeted
Well in Wales @MarkDrakeford & @vaughangething couldn’t possibly have put a protective ring around care homes. They didn’t even have a list of them! Hadn’t prepared so just cherry picked “the science” to bide time. Not one Welsh media outlet has reported on the criticisms of WG!
The care sector was “an afterthought” during the Covid-19 pandemic with failings allowing the virus to “spread like wildfire” and resulting in thousands of deaths despite the claim there was a protective ring around care homes, the inquiry has found nation.cymru/news/matt-hanco…
Behind Closed Wards retweeted
ONLY IN WALES!
As @covidinquiryuk care sector report looms on Tuesday, a look back at @careforumwales’s own criticism of @WelshLabour’s handling of the pandemic- and its inexplicable decision to honour Mark Drakeford as a “COVID HERO”.
From criticism to coronation. 🧵
🤖 Made with AI
Great news! @AneurinBevanUHB have seen the light and are offering COVID vaccinations to everyone aged 65+.
For once, they’re doing the right thing! 😏
Seriously misleading vaccination messaging @AneurinBevanUHB
65+ = flu. COVID = 75+, care-home residents or immunosuppressed.
Yet you say 65+ to get both. It’s disinformation.
Welsh Gov says Health Boards must provide clear information.
This isn’t clear.
Correct it.
Behind Closed Wards retweeted
I’m shaking with anger. This is what killed my father in Oct 2020.
Despite everything we’ve exposed and campaigned for over the last 6 years, nothing has changed.
What’s worse- this is by design.
#LetTheEvidencePileHighThenBuryIt
#£220mDownTheDrain
@SafeDavid3 @barryjmjones
Behind Closed Wards retweeted
The biggest scandal isn’t £10bn wasted on PPE.
It’s that the UK Covid Inquiry ignored the true cost: not the PPE that was thrown away, but the PPE that wasn’t.
Decision-makers knew COVID is airborne.
They knew the PPE was wrong.
Yet lied to healthcare workers that they were safe
Behind Closed Wards retweeted
I was delighted to be asked by COVID-ACTION to give them a talk.
Initially we hadn't selected a topic for the talk, but the effrontery of the tweet below (purporting that the pandemic planners had done a great job!) soon settled the subject in my mind.
tinyurl.com/Pandemic-Plannin…
The UK Covid Inquiry's calculation of £10 billion in lost cash completely glosses over the far deeper scandal: that the pristine "usable" PPE left off their waste spreadsheet was actually a catastrophic loss - as it offered zero protection against an airborne virus 🧵👇
Behind Closed Wards retweeted
But – wait for it – are you sitting down?
They had a solution! Hold the mask firmly to the wearer’s face and you got a pass on the fit test!
One can imagine the scene in an operating theatre having to hold masks firmly to each other’s faces:
3/6
Behind Closed Wards retweeted
Module 5 hearings last March revealed Wales had zero in-date FFP3 masks in its stockpile- a fact ignored by Welsh media. But the scandal isn’t just the shortage. It’s a systemic testing failure and data falsification to use the masks anyway. Thanks @SafeDavid3
Behind Closed Wards retweeted
Baroness Hallett has delivered her findings on UK pandemic procurement. The 11 strict recommendations build a blueprint for resilient logistics but a rigid change to the tracking schedule means Module 5 will completely escape any monitoring before the Inquiry closes in mid-2027🧵
Behind Closed Wards retweeted
🚨 WHY ARE WE NOW WAITING A YEAR FOR A MODULE 2 UPDATE?
The promise of a modular UK Covid inquiry?
Don't wait until the end.
Publish recommendations as each report is completed.
Then report progress every six months.
That timetable has quietly changed.
Why does that matter? 👇
Behind Closed Wards retweeted
One of the most important decisions made before the UK Covid Inquiry @covidinquiryuk heard a single witness was how it would be structured.
This is the first thread in a series examining the decisions that shaped the Inquiry before evidence was heard. 🧵
Behind Closed Wards retweeted
The former @WelshLabour Government launched a "Covid-19 Inquiry Implementation Dashboard" back on 7 April this year. But it was slipped onto the website quietly, with zero public announcement, zero press release, and zero ministerial statement.
gov.wales/covid-19-public-in…
Behind Closed Wards retweeted
My father contracted COVID in hospital & died in Oct 2020
Since then I've spent years immersed in UK Covid Inquiry hearings, evidence, reports & government responses.
One question matters more to me than any other:
How do we know if the right changes are actually happening?
🧵
If we don’t know the physical mechanism of transmission for a high-consequence pathogen the only scientifically honest posture is to admit it & implement maximum precaution.
Until we cure "closecontactitis”, vocabulary will dictate policy instead of science
We have lived through the catastrophic consequences of this exact linguistic shortcut before. When categories replace physical reality, policy fails.
If you simply label it "close contact," you provide zero actionable guidance on how to engineer a safe space.
If we don’t know the physical mechanism of transmission for a high-consequence pathogen the only scientifically honest posture is to admit it & implement maximum precaution.
Until we cure "closecontactitis”-thanks @EvonneTCurran, vocabulary will dictate policy instead of science