Jennifer Skillen
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cyberbarn.bsky.social
Jennifer Skillen
@cyberbarn.bsky.social
PhD student looking systematically at medicine, neuroscience and the NHS. My personal blog: http://cyberbarn9.wordpress.com 🇨🇦 by birth.
Reposted by Jennifer Skillen
Dear Canada: tomorrow is Election Day. This is Mark Carney. Hint, hint.
April 27, 2025 at 1:29 PM
There are many causes of loneliness in the UK. In rural areas 1.8 metre+ fences put up by wealthy people moving into small farming villages is 1 reason. Talk to your neighbours? Can't, they are behind a tall fence. City and rural planners have a key role in combating loneliness. #peoplecentreddesign
April 16, 2025 at 8:02 AM
Reposted by Jennifer Skillen
Pareidolia
pebbly faces
katedaviesdesigns.com
April 8, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Please Radio4, bring back A Point of View. It was a sermon for atheists and I always made sure to listen. Not because I agreed with all of them, but because they made me think.
April 6, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Sue is really good at creating a clear pathway through government documents, unlike the government themselves. Well worth a read.
March 25, 2025 at 11:47 AM
Is anyone else having trouble accessing @bmj.com contact through their institution? I keep getting 'Safari can't open this page' messages and similar problems in Chrome.
March 17, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Reposted by Jennifer Skillen
Crowded A&E are the biggest problem in the NHS, and kill many patients. But you have to know the cause of the problem to fix it and the cause isn't demand:
www.linkedin.com/pulse/queues...
Queues, not demand are the biggest problem in NHS A&E departments
A&Es are crowded. But not because too many people are attending them.
www.linkedin.com
February 25, 2025 at 10:06 PM
Reposted by Jennifer Skillen
Realist reviewers, here's a banger of a new paper by a South African group whose work I've only just become aware of. Good bit of philosophy to chew on if you've time. But also seeking to make RR more practical. Enjoy! #healthpolicy

academic.oup.com/heapol/artic...
Balancing realist review outputs with the needs of policymakers and practitioners
Abstract. A realist review is a theory-driven approach to synthesizing evidence based on the realist philosophy of science. Realist reviews are conducted t
academic.oup.com
February 20, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Reposted by Jennifer Skillen
Reposted by Jennifer Skillen
www.theguardian.com/society/2025... If only NHS had paid attention to our @thekingsfund.bsky.social publication on information disorganisation at the frontline in 2017. www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/n3et3... @JKMVidimo @wesstreeting
Most NHS users in England affected by dysfunctional admin, report finds
About 64% of people had difficulties with health service last year relating to communication about care
www.theguardian.com
February 17, 2025 at 10:58 AM
Exactly what patients have been saying for years. Shame no one listened to us.
February 17, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Reposted by Jennifer Skillen
A new approach to academic publishing: just pour right-wing money into your own vanity journal. “Peer reviewers” paid $500 per review but are not allowed to advise against publishing the article. Wonder who’s on the editorial board…

www.importantcontext.news/p/a-new-acad...
“A New Academic Publishing Model”: Right-Wing Dark Money Group Launches Fringe Medical Journal
The right-wing RealClear Foundation’s foray into public health has been called “a mockery of scientific process.”
www.importantcontext.news
February 8, 2025 at 6:18 AM
Reposted by Jennifer Skillen
Perfectly captured.
February 3, 2025 at 2:48 AM
Vive le Canada!
Here's the speech if you haven't heard it. 13 minutes of your time. Share it with your American friends and neighbours, because they won't see it otherwise. Circulate it in Mexico and Denmark, France and the UK, Panama and Germany, Poland and Estonia, and especially -- especially -- Ukraine.
Trudeau: Canada will retaliate with 25% tariffs on $155B of U.S. goods
YouTube video by CBC News
youtu.be
February 2, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by Jennifer Skillen
American science and medicine has been thrown into chaos and uncertainty over the past week. Here are some stories to get up to speed. 1/12
January 28, 2025 at 3:58 AM
Reposted by Jennifer Skillen
Thread on need to fight for evidence-based policy - a response to Trump's cabinet picks.

Based on new @bmj.com article by me, @martinmckee.bsky.social & @kentbuse.bsky.social

TLDR: Now is the time to stand up for science, not appease those in power attacking it

www.bmj.com/content/387/... 1/14
November 28, 2024 at 11:58 PM
I always appreciate the 'is there anything else you want to tell us' free text entry so that I can tell people what they got wrong with their survey design. Will the AI listened to that though? Probably not.
Or: AI chatbots mean we’ll all be even more inundated by badly-designed surveys….
AI chatbots could help lower the cost and increase the reach of survey research - interestingly on political questions participants found it easier to express their views as the chatbot is a ‘non judgemental entity’
www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ai-chat...
November 25, 2024 at 1:39 PM
Reposted by Jennifer Skillen
And the idea this law may expand to non-terminal by courts is vanishingly unlikely. I was in courtroom 10 years ago when Supreme Court declared this a matter for Parliament; Strasbourg agrees. Even if it didn’t, a legal argument to extend from terminal to incurable is almost unimaginable.
Can never understand the logic of "slippery slope" arguments when we have a system where the House of Commons decides nearly everything. It's only a slippery slope if in the future the Commons changes its mind on something- which guess what, it can do at any time.
November 24, 2024 at 12:17 PM
For patients, carers and all those that work in primary care and the ICBs: please have a watch of this video, because I think the time is finally right to adopt Nuka care here in the UK.
November 19, 2024 at 8:50 PM
Reposted by Jennifer Skillen
Good breakdown of the actual impact of the inheritance tax changes on farms.

The £1m is ON TOP of standard exemptions. So it's £1.3m tax-free if includes a residence. £2.6m if the spouse inherits. £3m if kids get some too.

And the tax is on surplus, not the total.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
How many farms would be affected by Budget changes?
Estimates of the number of farms affected range from 100 to 70,000.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 19, 2024 at 10:35 AM
Hello World. In honour of the shifting of the depressing high pressure system that hovered over us for the last two weeks, I decided to investigate the blue sky that has recently appeared.
November 11, 2024 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by Jennifer Skillen
Incentives for academics have grown increasingly perverse over the last 50 years #AcademicSky

www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/...
November 10, 2024 at 10:55 AM