There was more than a little bit of déja vu about the government’s response to the Keogh review of cosmetic surgery when it finally saw the light of day, early last Thursday.[1] A bunch of us were led into a Department of Health underground room and given the embargoed report … I can recall receiving […]
Category: Guest writers
Martin Carroll: Thinking of working in the NHS?
In 2013, the National Health Service (NHS) celebrated 65 years of providing comprehensive healthcare, free at the point of delivery to UK citizens. There are a number of factors contributing to the success and longevity of the NHS, including the dedication of its workforce. The role of doctors and nurses from overseas should not be […]
John Appleby: Care.data—your bits in their hands
Over the past few months there has been considerable debate and argument about plans by the NHS to collect and centrally collate details of individual patient records from general practice for the first time. Many have expressed worries about the care.data initiative and how potentially sensitive patient information will be used, who will have access […]
Kate Granger: Why compassionate care is so important
Having terminal cancer is rubbish. There is no way of getting around that fact. I’ve just spent nearly a week in hospital feeling exceptionally unwell and at times wondering whether I was actually going to recover from this episode of febrile neutropenia. But I did and lived to see another day. Cancer has completely changed […]
Ahmet Ozdemir Aktan: Criminalising doctors in Turkey—an update
Professor Aktan has written an update to his previous blog about a new Turkish law which forbids medical treatment of injured protesters without state permission. The law is now signed by the President and is in action. The threat of imprisonment and a fine is real for Turkish medical staff. The Turkish Medical Association will […]
Kieran Walsh: Medical education—high value but high cost?
Medical education has undergone many reforms over the past thirty years. Medical students of the past spent much time learning things they didn’t need to know—today medical education is curriculum driven. In the past medical education was “one size fits all”—today it is learner centric. In the past students practised on patients—today increasingly they practise […]
Billy Boland on quality improvement at the NHS Leadership Academy
The first residential for the NHS Leadership Academy felt barely five minutes ago, so I balked as I realised how much there was to do for the next. The reading list and exercises laid out for me on the online campus disappeared off the bottom of my computer screen. An unwelcome yet horribly familiar feeling […]
Robyn Evans: A crucial time for global surgery
Mid morning on Saturday 18 January, in a dark, slightly indie London theatre, a crowd of distinguished surgery and anaesthesia colleagues gathered to eat Mexican food and talk safe surgery. Lifebox Day 2014, hosted by Lifebox Foundation (the BMJ’s Christmas charity 2011-13 [1]) saw individuals with a passion for global surgery coming together to share […]
Simon Nicholas Williams and Kimberly Dienes: Universal mental health checks in schools—some responses to the critics
A recent BMJ article by one of the authors of this post (SW), argued the need for universal mental health checks in schools. This personal view stemmed from a wider collaborative research project (SW and KD), which explores the school as an effective site for early identification and intervention in mental health. The response to […]
Daphne Jansen: How can we improve care for people with multiple chronic conditions?
Almost everyone knows someone who has a chronic disease. An increasing number of people suffer from two or more chronic diseases (i.e. multimorbidity). Currently, an estimated 50 million people in the EU live with multiple chronic diseases. In people aged over 65 years, multimorbidity can be considered to be the rule rather than the exception. […]