iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

So if the BM had put the audio guide in place for the Bayeux Tapestry then they might have solved their queue and accessibility issues at the same time?

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 6h

That's really abysmal performance. So sorry.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 6h

I think not even the first time for this particular company who are very good at getting this exact article placed in news outlets whenever social care is high up the agenda.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 6h

Fully agree with this, which has important suggestions for how to get from where we currently are to a national care service. Per the article, we also need to hear about working age disabled people. Casey has said v little about this group, despite being 40% of those with LA funded care.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 8h

I remembered Christ Whitty's 2023 report on ageing has this paragraph that paints a useful picture here: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/667409...

Ill health and disability in older age is not inevitable
Whilst diseases, long term conditions, and disabilities become more common and
accumulate as we become older, they are far from inevitable, even in later years. For
example, dementia prevalence in the UK is only around 3% for those aged 70 to 74 years
and 11% at 80 to 84 years (in other words, around nine out of ten 80 to 84 year olds do not
have dementia); in those aged 90 to 94 years, around seven out of ten will not have
dementia.1 There is often an assumption that people in older age will need a significant
amount of care and support, and for many, especially those with frailty, that is true, resulting
in a significant loss of independence and often practical and financial strains on families.
However, UK census data from 2021 show that around eight in ten people aged over
90 years were not living in care homes and less than 4% of those aged 80 to 84 were in care
homes.2 There are many straightforward actions that individuals, the NHS and the
government can take to reduce risks of dementia, degenerative disease and frailty for
future generations still further.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 8h

The stats are hard for me to understand, but I think it's less than 10% although there is unmet need (people who should be getting funded care and don't) and uncounted self-funding. (From headline stats in box here: www.cqc.org.uk/publications...)

cqc.org.uk

Adult social care - Care Quality Commission

Looking at access and quality in adult social care in England in 2024/25.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 8h

As I understand it, there are problems with what data we collect on self funding, but quite a lot of people on here (including MPs!) are talking like a majority of older people end-up drawing on social care and I think (?) that this is just not true?

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Sir Almaviva @ilcontealmaviva.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Sadly it needs to be said again. Also: I'm an EU immigrant, my wife is a non-EU immigrant. Stop pitting us against each other.

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Eric Michael Garcia @ericmgarcia.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Still kind of inconceivable how many people died or will die because of the death of USAID. And the world’s richest man did it almost as a joke

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Tits McGee @scientits.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I've stopped using Booking dot com and the other travel platforms for this reason They are rife with scammers and the platforms are often incredibly slow to act, if at all Booking dot com's own 'AI trip planner' was also shown to give flat out wrong information What are we doing?

bbc.co.uk

Scam booking sent Loughborough family to Wetherspoon pub near Tower Bridge

Which? says staff are turning away up to 20 tourists a day after scammers used the pub's address.

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The Shire-Reckoning @shire-reckoning.bsky.social · 14h

Before dawn, a company of at least five Nazgûl fling down the west-gate of Bree, gallop through town, and head east along the Road. Gandalf leaves the Prancing Pony and rides out after them on Shadowfax.

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Aidan O’Brien @aidanobrien.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Viktor Orban travelled to Belfast yesterday, appearing alongside the Northern Irish anti-abortion group Precious Life, "celebrating" preventing Belfast City Hall from joining"International Safe Abortion Day" Precious Life's former director, Jim Dowson, is a far-right extremist with ties to Hungary.

Catholic Arena
@CatholicArena
Viktor Orban was in Belfast last night at City Hall

Precious Life and other prolife groups were celebrating after successfully preventing City Hall from being lit up to celebrate 'International Safe Abortion Day'

📸 Precious Life

Anti-abortionist resigns from job
Anti-abortion poster The anti-abortion campaign has come in for criticism

The leader of the controversial anti-abortion group Precious Life is reported to have quit his job because of his views.

Jim Dowson, 33, who has admitted previous involvement with hard-line loyalist groups in the west of Scotland, was told he should curb his activities or face dismissal.

Notorious far-right extremist returns to Scotland to fund growing anti-immigration protests
Jim Dowson has spent the last 20 years fundraising for the far-right in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Hungary and the US.

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Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Breaking: the Met Police has submitted charging files to the Crown Prosecution Service resulting from its Grenfell fire investigation. The files cover 54 individuals and 20 companies and cover charges including fraud, misconduct in public office and manslaughter

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 30/09/2026

There's always a Burnham sound bite but whether he can actually make change is very far from clear.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 30/09/2026

I recently sent a video of AB making the point that the Catholic chaplaincy was the most important thing for his grandma as she was dying in the hospital to our parish priest because his chaplaincy appointment was cut for budgetary reasons. This is kinda where I'm at generally with AB.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 30/09/2026

I still think that the DWP sends letters out for Winter Fuel Allowance was a huge part of the backlash. People got post saying they weren't getting it in 2024! And then SMS and WhatsApp scanners got in on the action. Lots of reminders.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 30/09/2026

Extremely this: I want my freedom of association back.

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Owen Michael @owenwmichael.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Dawn Butler: "We need to be fighting incels not trans people" "This is the misogynistic white supremacists' wet dream.... we need to say 'fuck you'"

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Owen Michael @owenwmichael.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Was late this year having been in the hall but heard some great speeches Kate Osborne: Re conversion therapy: "This legislation is vital and those handing out leaflets at our conference should be ashamed of themselves for wanting to give a free pass to abuse" bsky.app/profile/labo...

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 30/09/2026

Pressures on council spending and smaller not-for-profit providers withdrawing from aspects of the existing social care landscape, especially provision for working age people with learning disabilities, is something I also find concerning.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 30/09/2026

There is a strong argument imo that Labour have acted not only to delay reform to social care, but also to continually make worse the initial conditions for that eventual reform. ICB budget cuts, changes to care visas, employer NICs increases, NMW increases. bsky.app/profile/agvb...

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 30/09/2026

Meanwhile, both councils and individuals will continue to see (in the latter case, entirely unregulated) fees increase. If we have no discussion of USER NEEDS and what care ought to look like, we will not get services that support prevention of crisis nor will we achieve spend control.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 30/09/2026

I guess I'm going to have to listen to the speech in full. My main concern about a national care system is that I don't see a path between where we are now and an NHS-style model. Even if you build off NHS Continuing Care, that's a commissioning (I think?) role rather than service provision.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 30/09/2026

I wasn't alive, but fwiw the phrase "back to the 1970s" evokes for me a sense of the sexism and racism that was socially permissible and structurally supported in that decade. E.g., women unable to get mortgages by themselves, bussing of ethnic minority children in the education system.

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Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan @london.gov.uk · 29/09/2026

Winter is on its way, and getting vaccinated is one of the best ways to protect yourself and those around you. Eligible Londoners should get their flu vaccination as soon as they can to keep bugs at bay. Book via the NHS website, NHS App or by calling 119.

nhs.uk

Flu vaccine

Find out about the flu vaccine for adults, including who should have it, how to get it and side effects.

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John Hannen @jhannen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

and being active by walking/cycling in your neighbourhood is big for social cohesion as well - being visible in a place and having other people visible to you really reduces the risks of isolation whether you speak to anyone you see or not a sense of familiarity is the foundation of civic life

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 29/09/2026

40% of those who have care paid for by local authorities in England are of working age. (I used to say it was a third but I went and checked the latest stats and it's gone up.)

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 29/09/2026

Just shouting USER NEEDS into the "how do we pay for social care" void.

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Indy @indy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The hard truth is we have implemented every centre-right nostrum, from slashing local government through conditionality of benefits to junking resilience measures for society and the economy - and as many predicted, it all turns out to be very costly in the long run.

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Richard Humphries @richardhumphries.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

#socialcare all over the news again this morning. But it’s all about what is costs & the ’pain’ of how we pay for it, not what it’s for and why it’s important.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 28/09/2026

Discovered recently that the main weed I'm pulling out of the front lawn is a plant you can buy from garden centres, Pilosella aurantiaca (www. rhs.org.uk/plants/65455/pilosella-aurantiaca/details) aka orange flowered hawkweed or fox and cubs. I pulled out a metre long rhizome network, do not like.

rhs.org.uk

Pilosella aurantiaca | fox and cubs

Find help & information on Pilosella aurantiaca | fox and cubs from the RHS

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 28/09/2026

Yeah, I guess what I was going for here is that the customer service degradations (especially staff deskilling) are not unique to LPA processes. I think it's pretty similar to what has happened with taking away ticket office staff in train stations.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 28/09/2026

There are also issues with banks that have undergone mergers such that under-the-hood there are multiple computer systems and multiple teams of people associated with those systems, just all with the same branding creating a very misleading idea of how things actually work.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 28/09/2026

Customer service management links to the problems with legacy computer systems, as the unwritten knowledge of how to deal with edge cases in these systems resides in that one staff member who is now shared between multiple branches.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 28/09/2026

For customer service management, it's not just closing down of branches but deskilling staff in those branches. For example, having the person who can deal with this type of 3rd party access peripatetic between multiple branches. So the access constraint is time based and geographical.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 28/09/2026

Getting some kind of private social worker assessment is often the only available method of jumping through the hoops of anti-fraud checks relating to identity. Very easy to end-up with no ID, i.e. no passport no drivers licence. bsky.app/profile/agvb...

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 28/09/2026

Idk if people know this but there are now small firms of social workers in private practice and this can be the only way of getting mental capacity assessments done for all kinds of official things and it costs £££.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 28/09/2026

My somewhat considered thoughts on managing others' affairs via LPA is that the difficulty isn't really about LPA but rather reflects trends in customer service management, problems with old computer systems, and a lack of social workers. Will try and say something about each of these.

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Duncan Hothersall @dhothersall.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

For all that it's been barely reported in the UK press, it's still hard to understate the importance of the stance @labourunionsuk.bsky.social has taken on trans and non-binary rights this week. Every single trade union affiliated to the party of government has stood up and said we will not comply.

Joint statement from National TULO

Solidarity with the trans and non-binary community

Labour's 11 affiliated trade unions stand in total solidarity with the trans and non-binary community.

Trans rights are human rights, and trans rights are workers' rights.

We in the trade union movement will do all we can to stand up for our trans members and all our trans siblings, to protect them from persecution, harassment and attack.

The government must act now to protect all trans people, to make sure their rights are protected, expanded and upheld in our workplaces and communities.

Labour Unions

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 28/09/2026

I should double check if Sainsbury's have a baby soap or some such 🤔

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 28/09/2026

I kind of have the impression as Tesco, and to a lesser extent Sainsbury's, compete with Lidl and Aldi that the cheaper free from and sensitive products are increasingly the preserve of Waitrose alone.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 28/09/2026

This has been my yearly post about availability of the one product I really need to stay clean while also not having a horrible skin reaction. I am giving the Waitrose own fragrance free soap another go too, as the ingredients list doesn't have anything that's not in Simple Soap.

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 28/09/2026

Update: I emailed Lornamead, who make it, and they have send it should be back in stock. I got some at Waitrose at lunchtime 👍🏻

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Luca Tiratelli @lucatiratelli.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I await the first time a politician proposing some nuts new immigration restriction is asked what is otherwise the media’s favourite question: how are you going to pay for it??

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Ann (she/her) @agvbergin.net · 28/09/2026

Expectations of admin done by health and welfare attorneys is poorly understood too, I think. Very easy to have capacity for basically all decisions relating to your health but not to keep track of the admin.

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