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Scribbler Pen

@scribblerpen.bsky.social

5.3K followers 3.3K following 1.3K posts

Writer, editor, analyst. Disability employment rights advocate. Trade union disability rep. Arts, science and languages nerd, internationalist, hiker, nature lover. Could really do without Long Covid

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Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · Nov 16

Pack 4 for #Covid aware and #LongCovid
community to help us find each other and connect with researchers on Bluesky.
go.bsky.app/SFsSVSc
Additions welcome. If you're on it and don't wish to be, please let me know. Previous packs:
1. go.bsky.app/JvVAoFt
2. go.bsky.app/MjGuFEe
3. go.bsky.app/Q9FoCjK

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Dr Elisa Perego @elisaperego78.bsky.social · 4d

Return to work with #LongCovid: a rapid review of support and challenges | BMJ Open

bmjopen.bmj.com/content/15/1...

Return to work with long COVID: a rapid review of support and challenges

Objectives To explore existing evidence for the provision of support for return to work (RTW) in long COVID (LC) patients and the barriers and facilitators to taking up this support. Design A rapid r...

bmjopen.bmj.com

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Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · 4d

There is a better option to putting #DWP work coaches in #GP surgeries @teamlabouruk.bsky.social:
*Employ more GPs in GP surgeries*
Get waiting lists down, get people seen and treated, get them well. #Health for health's sake. #Work will follow. Not vice versa.
www.independent.co.uk/news/busines...

Job advisers in GP surgeries to help long-term sick and disabled into work

There are approximately 2.8 million people out of work in the UK due to long-term sickness.

www.independent.co.uk

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Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · 4d

#Flu v #Covid #vaccine eligibility.
1. Which is hospitalising more people now?
2. Which is leaving more people long-term sick & disabled (2m+ #LongCovid, UK)?
3. Just as the government is punishing people for being sick and disabled?
Private vaccine: £100
Logic?

Thanks to @catinthehat.bsky.social

Comparison of UK 2025 eligibility for flu vaccine (all types of clinically vulnerable people) vs Covid-19 vaccine (only over 75s, living in an old people's care home or immunocompromised due to specific illness e.g. HIV, AIDS or treatment, e.g. cancer. Most people with organ diseases, blood diseases, e.g. sickle cell anaemia, illnesses such as COPD, diabetes, or learning disabilities are not eligible for Covid-19 booster vaccination.

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Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · 6d

I did mean Covid brain damage — the impact is very noticeable even if people don't acknowledge it beyond "my memory isn't what it used to be".

Damage to people's risk perception and impulse control has a lot (anger, intolerance, bad driving) to answer for. Why not policians' dog whistling contests?

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Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · 6d

What's to blame? Mass brain damage? AI focus groups?
If the latter, #Labour needs to dislodge its head.
There are some whacky views on X, some real, but most people behind them aren't real.
Most of the country is not where these politics of vandalism are. The politics are untethered from UK reality.

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Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · 6d

Abd it's such a bizarre experience — listening to all this nonsense and watching the government, who, in any normal times, would just brush it off, put itself at real risk of letting this vandalism happen by legitimising it and failing to stand up for what's right — human rights.
But Why?

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Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · 6d

#UK politicians competing on vandalism — promising to scrap the #HumanRightsAct or take us out of #ECHR, etc. sound like a bunch of kids desperately trying to impress each other by smashing things up. They all sound clueless, incompetent and entirely unfit to govern.
How did we end up with this?

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Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · 6d

Research paper on #LongCovid misdiagnosis as #FND by Todd Davenport and Svetlana Blitshteyn
www.mdpi.com/2075-4426/14...

www.mdpi.com

Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · 6d

How cool is this? Guide for #schools from @neunion.bsky.social on #CovidSafe ventilation and how to achieve it. neu.org.uk/sites/defaul...
National legal guidance now, please!
🌬️💨
#UK #CleanAir #Education #Covid

neu.org.uk

Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · 6d

Informative and helpful article from David Tuller on #LongCovid being misdiagnosed as a functional neurological disorder #FND, and what to do if it happens to you.
thesicktimes.org/2025/09/26/l...

Long COVID is not FND, but some patients are getting diagnosed with it. Here’s what to do if it happens to you. - The Sick Times

Some people with Long COVID are receiving potentially unhelpful diagnoses of functional neurological disorder (FND), a condition in which people experience neurological symptoms that cannot be attribu...

thesicktimes.org

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Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 12d

Elon Musk: “I love Javier Milei.”

Kemi Badenoch: “Javier Milei is the template.”

Donald Trump: “My favourite president.”

Nigel Farage: "Amazing. Cutting and slashing … doing all the things he’s done … that’s leadership.”

Meanwhile... in Argentina

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Farage, Trump, Musk: your boy Javier Milei just took one hell of a beating. Why so quiet? | Aditya Chakrabortty

The wild politics and chainsaw made Argentina’s president an economic hero for the right. And now, with his nation’s finances in chaos: silence, writes Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty

www.theguardian.com

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Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · 12d

The DWP is not the only department letting down workers. The majority of workers with #LongCovid, and indeed the majority of workers facing unfair treatment and losing jobs to Long Covid are public sector keyworkers — mostly in healthcare and education.
www.tuc.org.uk/research-ana...

Workers' experience of Long Covid

This report is vital to draw attention to people who have fallen out of work, are underemployed, struggling to remain in or return to work because of the virus. If we do not take urgent action to ensu...

www.tuc.org.uk

Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · 12d

Incidentally by 2020 the DWP was the UK employer facing the most disability discrimination tribunals. Since 2020 it lost more such tribunals, some to workers with #LongCovid. E.g. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67e29a...
Another reason for the government to make tribunals harder for workers?

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk

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Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · 12d

One reason for why there is a push to create a barrier to employment tribunals is rising disability, not least #LongCovid. Disputes over sick leave, unfair treatment, constructive and unfair dismissals are rising: more disability = more discrimination.

www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1905...

Long Covid tribunal claims surge as employers grapple with long-term sick leave, analysis finds

Experts call for ‘open and empathetic communication’ as number of cases involving the condition jumps 86 per cent in two years

www.peoplemanagement.co.uk

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Emiliano Mellino @mellino.bsky.social · 12d

🚨 Our new investigation out today reveals how thousands of people who've taken their bosses to employment tribunals & won, never got paid, even after they approached the government for help.

This has serious implications for the Employment rights bill.
www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2025...

Thousands of rogue bosses get away with not paying tribunal awards

The government scheme ‘enforcing’ money owed to workers has been unsuccessful in a staggering three-quarters of cases

www.thebureauinvestigates.com

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Covid-19 Bereaved Families For Justice UK @cbffjuk.bsky.social · 12d

The pandemic exposed deep inequalities that devastated young disabled people.

Yesterday, the Covid Inquiry heard evidence that disabled people aged 18 to 34 were 30 times more likely to die of Covid than their peers.

These inequalities must be tackled before the next crisis.

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Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · 12d

What happened to "the biggest upgrade to workers' rights in a generation"?
www.theguardian.com/money/2025/o...

Labour considering charging workers for employment tribunal claims, sources say

Exclusive: Reintroducing tribunal fees would be ‘a gift for bad bosses’, says TUC chief Paul Nowak

www.theguardian.com

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Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · 12d

The government has rejected the call to replace FPTP with #Proportional Representation. Keep signing to get this at least debated petition.parliament.uk/petitions/72...
If Labour's tactic of using Reform as its guide and bogeyman by turns loses them the next GE, FPTP blocks a progressive way out.

Petition: Use Proportional Representation at the next General Election

Change the voting system to Proportional Representation instead of First Past the Post. We think this would eradicate disillusionment and encourage voter participation as people could start to believe...

petition.parliament.uk

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Stuart Budd @stuartbudd.bsky.social · 12d

ECHR Article 8 and your rights are a bit like a firewall.
Once your rights are gone then it is game over for everyone.

I don't understand why some people get so angry about your rights.

I'm a cis male and statistically a far larger threat than anyone alse.

People like me really need education. 🧑‍🎓

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Ben Jennings @bjennings90.bsky.social · 13d

Latest @theguardian.com cartoon

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

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Jay 🦋 @jay.bsky.team · 13d

“It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.”
― Jane Goodall

💙 RIP to a real one. My childhood hero

Jane Goodall with monarch butterfly scarf

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Prof Brendan Crabb AC @brendancrabb.bsky.social · 13d

Such an important piece. The positive momentum behind clean indoor air is palpable. But we’re not there yet as my last post demonstrates. Please read and share and get behind this cause.

theconversation.com/why-investme...

Why investment in clean indoor air is vital preparation for the pandemics and climate emergencies to come

Unchecked airborne infections cost billions in lost health and productivity each year – likely more than the cost of better ventilation to clean up indoor air.

theconversation.com

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Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · 12d

#LabourConference2025 in brief:
Plan A: Fight Reform by out-Reforming Reform has failed. Those voters are lost.
Pivot to Plan B: Big up Reform to scare people into voting Labour.
Keep punching the disabled and kicking immigrants. Working people working people working people. Flags. Need more flags.

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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 13d

Once again Labour's strategy is to say that racism is terrible, and therefore we will defeat the racists by giving them almost everything they want
bylinetimes.com/2025/10/01/k...

Keir Starmer's Farage-Dominated Conference Takes Labour Up a 'Darker Path' Towards a Reform Government

The Prime Minister's condemnations of Reform's racist rhetoric, was undermined by him accepting the central premise of Nigel Farage's anti-migrant politics, argues Adam Bienkov

bylinetimes.com

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Scribbler Pen @scribblerpen.bsky.social · 13d

For Reform, that's quite a high level of self-awareness.
Perhaps some vote Reform hoping to "fight fire with fire" and try to dislodge a dire local MP — though this strategy can accidentally burn a place down.