Interested in justice, mental health, disability & things that grow. Views are my own & my thoughts are free.
UK
Joined October 2011
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Kay Sheldon retweeted
Impressive: 🤩
Perinatal Excellence to Reduce Injury in Premature Birth:
11 evidence-based interventions by doctors & midwives.
This is what happens when services are supported to improve:
vimeo.com/542579599
Impressive: 🤩
Perinatal Excellence to Reduce Injury in Premature Birth:
11 evidence-based interventions by doctors & midwives.
This is what happens when services are supported to improve:
vimeo.com/542579599
Kay Sheldon retweeted
Thing is, the campaign against so-called ‘normal birth ideology’ (2015-ongoing) has caused far more harm than the ‘normal birth campaign’ is supposed to have 🤯😢
Time for some honesty:
Kay Sheldon retweeted
Yep, Bill Kirkup was right in 2017 - “the divisive debate on midwifery” does seem to have “harmed babies.”
Improvement in mortality outcomes came to a sudden, catastrophic halt after a decade of good progress.
Shameful and heartbreaking 💔
Kay Sheldon retweeted
We need to look at external influences on culture. It surprises most to learn that maternity services were doing well & improving until 2015.
Almost overnight maternity services were reduced to a fearful, toxic mess & haven’t recovered. The impact:
Kay Sheldon retweeted
Clinicians are starting to speak out about the skyrocketing caesareans, worse safety outcomes & the culture of fear in maternity services 🙏
Until 2015, safety outcomes were improving 😢
We have to reverse the toxicity of the last 10+ years. Lives depend on it.
Kay Sheldon retweeted
NEW: One million Londoners reached.
Thousands fewer victims of violence.
Our @LDN_VRU is helping turn the tide, with hospital admissions for young people injured in knife assaults down 55% since it was set up.
Kay Sheldon retweeted
The collapse in violent crime over three decades has been one of the most striking developments of my lifetime.
News is about what’s going wrong, and rightly so. But the bigger picture also matters
From today’s figures:-
Kay Sheldon retweeted
UK crime was four times higher when Oasis first played Knebworth than at last year’s reunion gigs.
The collapse of crime and safer streets is one of the biggest stories of our time.
But one almost never told - or believed.
My take on today’s figures: comment.press/lawless
Kay Sheldon retweeted
Repeated themes in the Amos report:
understaffing, low morale, burn out, bullying, soaring caesareans, worsening outcomes, racism, poor facilities.
Since 2015, data shows maternity services have deteriorated into a dangerous mess.
Normal birth ‘ideology’ is not the issue.
NEW: A major national review into maternity services heard “repeated” evidence of “normal birth ideology” despite concluding it was not “widespread” – partly because it relied on AI evidence summaries – a former expert adviser has warned hsj.co.uk/patient-safety/amo…
Kay Sheldon retweeted
Caesareans have doubled yet baby & maternal deaths & stillbirths have all increased in Devon since 2015.
Services can’t cope: over-stretched, blame-ridden & short staffed.
The legacy of Jeremy Hunt & co. 😡
Five babies born in ambulances and A&E amid NHS maternity ward scandal mirror.co.uk/news/health/dev…
Kay Sheldon retweeted
Soaring medical interventions yet birth injuries are at a record level 😢
No, ‘normal birth ideology’ is not the problem 😡 @jeremy_hunt
Life-changing child birth injuries at record levels in UK - scale of maternity ward failures laid bare mirror.co.uk/news/politics/m…
Kay Sheldon retweeted
Headlines full of fear & risk inc death & trauma- this is childbirth, specifically in the UK & not reflected in other European countries yet same kind of population health issues.
Women making fear based decisions instead of feeling excitement & joy.
theguardian.com/commentisfre…
Kay Sheldon retweeted
This is the danger of applying industrial-process thinking to medicine. It dehumanises—reducing patients to units of demand, casting doctors as interchangeable production resources, and treating care as movement through a pathway.
Patients with the same diagnostic label are not equivalent. They differ in pathology, comorbidities, frailty, capacity to heal, psychological resilience, family and home circumstances, attitudes towards illness, treatment preferences and willingness to accept risk. Doctors are no more uniform: differences in knowledge, experience, diagnostic ability, judgement, communication and continuity profoundly influence outcomes.
These are not peripheral variables to be added to a model. They are the substance of clinical medicine.
Most seriously, this mechanistic approach ignores the primacy of the patient–doctor relationship: the moral and clinical space in which trust is established, uncertainty interpreted, hidden concerns disclosed and treatment individualised. Once that relationship is subordinated to throughput, waiting-time targets, productivity metrics or financially rewarded points, the system may become more efficient at processing activity while becoming less capable of caring for people.
A healthcare system can optimise every measurable stage of a pathway and still fail the human being travelling through it.
Systems must serve patients and support professional judgement. Patients must never be made to serve the system.
Kay Sheldon retweeted
Children who were breastfed for longer showed fewer ADHD symptoms
Researchers found the link remained even after accounting for genetic predisposition, suggesting early feeding may play a role in childhood development
Kay Sheldon retweeted
What does Dr Kirkup say about the understaffing, conditions and significant increase in UK caesarean rate + other issues raised by maternity teams? Can he work with and advise @YvetteCooperMP on driving improvements?
Repeated themes in the Amos report:
understaffing, low morale, burn out, bullying, soaring caesareans, worsening outcomes, racism, poor facilities.
Since 2015, data shows maternity services have deteriorated into a dangerous mess.
Normal birth ‘ideology’ is not the issue.
NEW: A major national review into maternity services heard “repeated” evidence of “normal birth ideology” despite concluding it was not “widespread” – partly because it relied on AI evidence summaries – a former expert adviser has warned hsj.co.uk/patient-safety/amo…
Kay Sheldon retweeted
Sickening that you hijacked a session on babyloss to further your own agenda about ‘normal birth ideology’
Normal/physiological birth is NOT an ideology. It’s safest for most women & doesn’t preclude medical support. It’s central to care in countries where childbirth is safest.