Although I like to think I am a rational person who can consider most issues objectively, I know this is rubbish. I am biased, prejudiced, and a prisoner of my experience, although perhaps acknowledging this is better than denying it. Not easy, as the ability to deny is probably our most powerful coping mechanism, and […]
Category: Guest writers
Richard Vize: Are clinical commissioners improving patient services?
Clinical commissioners are beginning to demonstrate how they are improving patient services, countering the lack of attention they are getting from politicians. The health reforms were intended to put clinical commissioners at the heart of the drive to improve quality and reconfigure services. But since they took over from primary care trusts in April, clinical […]
Sean P David: A way forward from ENDS to the tobacco end game
Combusted tobacco cigarette use causes about six million deaths per year and has been projected to cause one billion deaths in the 21st century. [1] The risk of tobacco smoking is very high (50% risk of death before age 70). [2, 3] However, the risk of death from using electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes)—or electronic nicotine delivery […]
Simon Chapman: When will the tobacco industry apologise for its galactic harms?
Last week, four US tobacco companies finally reached agreement with the US Department of Justice to fund large scale corrective advertising about five areas of tobacco control. Each advertisement will include the statement that the companies “deliberately deceived the American public.” The case against the companies commenced in 1999 and saw a 2006 judgment by […]
Ahmet Ozdemir Aktan: Criminalising doctors in Turkey
Back in June 2013 protests began to protect the trees in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. Within a few days this turned into an outcry from millions of protesters all over Turkey asking for more democracy and freedom from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and, particularly, prime minister Tayyip Erdogan. To subdue protesters, police used […]
Marc Wittenberg on taking part in a CQC inspection
In September 2013, shortly after starting in post as a national medical director’s clinical fellow at the BMJ and NHS England, I received an email inviting applicants to join “Mike’s army” as a junior doctor on a CQC (Care Quality Commission) inspection. My application was duly accepted and I was signed up to inspect one […]
Sean Roche: In order for patients to be valued, we must begin by valuing staff
Since the Francis report there has been much discussion about the need to disseminate “compassion” in the NHS. While there has been a great deal of moralistic rhetoric extolling the virtues of this noble and uniquely human quality, and its indispensible role in a caring health system, there is relatively little analysis of those organisational […]
Jacobo Mendioroz on plans to introduce restrictions on abortion in Spain
The Spanish government recently announced that it plans to introduce restrictions on abortion in Spain. This move has been supported by the Ministry of Justice. From the beginning of this reform the debate about abortion has been focused mainly on its ethical and legal perspective, discussing primarily when the foetus has the right to life, […]
Carl Heneghan: What could cause you to absorb water better than water?
At the same time that a campaign is aiming to cut sugar in food by up to 30%, our sports stars are readily guzzling oodles of sugary drinks. Well, the advertising standards have had enough: sports drinks adverts have been banned for false claims. The Advertising Standards Authority, in the UK, ruled that the campaign […]
Alison Spurrier: What can we learn from the 1950s to improve patient care?
As a frontline nurse for nearly 40 years, I was intrigued to read Isabel Menzies Lyth’s 1960 paper on why a nursing service in a general hospital was on the point of breakdown. My main reaction was that the paper reflected less something universal in healthcare and more the particular circumstances of the time when […]