The future of junior doctors’s careers in Portugal has recently been all over national television. It comes just a few weeks after I blogged about the potential brain drain of doctors in Portugal. It has all come to head because of a recent conference organised by the “Association of Junior Doctors” and the Faculty of […]
Category: Columnists
David Lock: Should GPs aspire to run medical services businesses?
It is hardly surprising that hard pressed GPs have reacted angrily to unjustified criticisms by the secretary of state for health that they are to blame for faults within the NHS. It is a gross simplification to suggest that removing responsibility for out of hours care from GPs is the main cause of increasing attendances […]
Richard Smith: Dragging global health from the 19th to the 21st century
Last week the World Health Assembly adopted some tough targets for NCD, including reducing deaths among those under 70 by 25% by 2025. The rhetoric is that a “whole of government, whole of society” approach will be needed, but in fact the agenda is dominated by health bodies. The Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network is […]
David Lock: Do NHS commissioners invest enough in contract management?
The NHS is in the middle of the transition from a publicly funded and publicly provided health service towards a publicly funded but increasingly privately provided service. It is thus following the course adopted in social care, with the closure of local authority owned care homes and the contracting out of service provision to commercial, […]
Tracey Koehlmoos on a national initiative for arts and health in the military
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to attend a national summit on arts, health, and wellbeing across the military on 10 April 2013. It was held at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC) just outside of Washington, DC. I did not know a great deal about creative arts therapies prior to the event […]
Desmond O’Neill: Alex Ferguson and the Field Marshall
Field Marshall Mannerheim of Finland is one of the giant, if relatively under fêted, figures of European history. Called out of retirement at the age of 72 to lead tiny Finland against the might of the Soviet Union in the Second World War, his achievements were not only to win two wars, but also to […]
Richard Smith: Is anything less than fully informed consent abuse?
Recently in preparing a talk I was giving in Bologna I found a copy of a talk I’d given to WONCA, the world meeting of general practitioners, back in the era before Powerpoint existed, and it contained information on a study that has stuck in my head for 20 years, but which I couldn’t find. […]
David Lock: What does duty of care mean?
This is a serious blog about death, about what can go wrong in the dying process and how it can be put right. It arises out of an inquest where I represented a family member who found the medical and caring profession had misunderstood what was meant by a “duty of care” and tried to […]
Richard Smith: Reclaiming blood pressure from doctors
We all know about obesity. We can see fatness. Obesity belongs to all of us, and it’s a global problem. Politicians care about obesity. But who cares about blood pressure? Raised blood pressure may be a bigger risk factor for premature death and suffering than obesity, but people don’t see it. Blood pressure belongs to […]
Martin McShane: Smelling the coffee
Walking up from the station, the Royal Berkshire Foundation Trust has a rather grand frontage. David Oliver, the consultant geriatrician who organised my day, guided me, by phone, round to the modern entrance and bought me a coffee. It was shortly before 8am and, on the hour, we dived into the maelstrom of the clinical […]