Public Health and Wellbeing

A collaboration between professionals in Microbiology and Infection Control serving West Wales

COVID-19: still testing the wrong people

by 3 Comments

We need health professionals to raise the issue across the UK, to knock on the door of government to ask that the rest of this pandemic is managed using tried and tested health protection and outbreak control measures as it continues to decline.

Image by Luisella Planeta Leoni from Pixabay

The UK governments it would appear still seem to be in denial over mild symptoms that are associated with infection with COVID (SARS- CoV-19), continuing to maintain the line that to book a test via their portal (https://www.gov.uk/get-coronavirus-test) you can only do so if you have one of … Read the rest

COVID-19 testing: Wasting money on an industrial scale?

by 5 Comments

Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay

I continue to be disturbed about the way we are driving the COVID-19 testing machine. I have been critical previously over the increased attention to testing asymptomatic individuals. The UK Government recently announced what I have dubbed their “Cuddles for Christmas” approach of rapid testing in care homes in England to allow relatives to visit their incarcerated loved ones without the need for social distancing. On the face of it, this sounds a wonderful idea but my worry is the results of these tests are taken as absolutes and nothing could be further from … Read the rest

COVID-19: All over by Christmas?

by 1 Comment

Image by enriquelopezgarre from Pixabay


Clearly not in terms of the worldwide stage but perhaps from the UK and Wales perspective, to quote Churchill, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” As an ex-military man, I am struck by where we are currently but also as I write on this Remembrance Day I am reminded this 11th November is also the 100th anniversary of the return of the Unknown Warrior to Westminster Abbey, so perhaps military quotes are in order. I also wonder … Read the rest

COVID-19: The Missing Middle

by 2 Comments

On Wednesday, I Tweeted, “I’ve just been alerted to this statement by @WGHealthandCare @HywelDdaHB @PublicHealthW My head is metaphorically in my hands! This priority list is not designed to find the true positives. I’ll try and blog later . . . .” and linked to: https://gov.wales/written-statement-prioritisation-covid-19-testing

Image by Vesna Harni from Pixabay

There has been considerable media attention on the pressure being experienced by our testing services, both the demands for appointments for sampling and the laboratory capacity. Working in the three laboratories in the Hywel Dda University Health Board, I can confirm that the local demands have increased week … Read the rest

Rurality revisited

by 7 Comments

Image by Ch AFleks from Pixabay

Prompted by Aled Scourfield, BBC Wales reporter for West Wales who read a previous post and interviewed me last Friday for the evening news, I decided I better get on and do what I promised to do and try and look at the rural distancing effect a bit more. Geographical distancing may be a better phrase. What I was thinking about was what effect does population density have on the spread of an infectious organism in the Welsh community. I downloaded a copy of the daily data published by my colleagues in Public Health … Read the rest

COVID, complexity and face-masks

by 1 Comment

Healthcare is a Complex Adaptive System, to quote Jeffrey Braithwaite. To be fair, I’d been aware of this for some considerable time, having first discussed the role of complexity science in healthcare associated infection is 2003. However, it was not until 2014 that we began to apply complexity science to our work, as discussed previously in this blog and in more detail in a BMJ blog. I could not think of a better video to offer a simple but relevant illustration of how a complex adaptive system works. If you have not viewed the video produced by the … Read the rest

COVID-19: Where next?

by 27 Comments

I live in west of Wales, a wonderful part of the world to live and during the current season, my three consultant colleagues and I decided the best way to help our colleagues is to try and maintain a consistent presence in each of our four hospitals. As a result, I have spent most of my days during the UK “lockdown” season in Bronglais General Hospital in Aberystwyth.

This has allowed me to reflect on the pandemic through the interactions with colleagues in this part of mid Wales. In my first presentation to the Bronglais “house” on 16th March, I … Read the rest

Creating a new normal

by Leave a Comment

Defence Imagery - Missiles 10


Yesterday’s blog prompted a fascinating debate over Twitter, as a result of a discussion by Public Health England (PHE) over considerations to prolong the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE.) Colleagues highlighted a blog post by Mike Edmond. He discussed the option of abandoning the fluid repellent surgical mask as part of PPE and instead make use of a full face visor only. The PHE document included ways of increasing capacity for single use and reusable gowns and I suggested we might also abandon the use of gloves for what after all is a respiratory virus and hand hygiene is … Read the rest

Risk assessment on the fly

by 1 Comment

I’m currently detecting quite a bit of, “Shock, Horror!” on Twitter by the infection prevention and control community this evening by the release of a new government document daring to propose how we might consider the re-use of personal preventive equipment (PPE.)

“Considerations for acute PPE shortages” I view as a useful “thought piece,” issued this evening by a government seeking to try and answer some of the difficult questions we are all currently facing and rather than the shock and indignation, I prefer to read and think through how I feel about what is being proposed. I … Read the rest

A Question of Scale

by 5 Comments

Image by Rolf Johansson from Pixabay

Staff in healthcare are worried about the novel coronavirus responsible for the worldwide pandemic. Many of the public also express similar concerns and with the media emphasis on the impact on healthcare and the daily count of thousands of cases and deaths, it is hardly surprising.

However, as I have continued to remind everyone who is prepared to listen, as all the data from every country continues to show, most people will not experience any disease with this virus and those that do, for the vast majority it will be a mild illness.

This … Read the rest