Spain is currently experiencing the biggest protest by healthcare workers ever known. It has been triggered by a plan by Ignacio González, a member of the conservative People’s Party (PP) and president of the government of Madrid. He plans to privatise regional public healthcare further as part of the regional budget for 2013. The plan […]
Category: Guest writers
Nicola While: The EU impact on UK healthcare
The May 2010 coalition agreement in the UK promised to examine the balance of competences between Britain and the European Union (EU) with a view to assessing how the UK’s national interests interact with the EU. The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) duly launched this review in July 2012. It will be broken down […]
Anna Allan: Making an impact
It is a sign of the times that one of the best ways for information from outside of hospital to come to my attention is via my Facebook newsfeed. This is indeed true, with links to various newspaper articles plastered all over my homepage announcing the recent death of Joseph E Murray, a pioneer of […]
George Alleyne: Global health challenges and opportunities
The standard approach to defining the global health challenges is to use some formulation of Abdel Omran’s epidemiological transition or what is known also as the health transition and show that the progression is inevitably from famine and pestilence through the stage of receding pandemics to the predominance of the chronic degenerative noncommunicable diseases globally. […]
Robin Gorna: Is an HIV free generation an achievable aim?
Tomorrow is World AIDS Day and this year all the talk is of tipping points and “ending AIDS.” On both sides of the Atlantic lobby groups are calling on their governments to create blueprints to achieving an HIV free generation. So why, after 26 years of working in the sector, do these cries make me […]
Gitau Mburu: How communities have helped transform the global HIV response
As World AIDS Day approaches, let’s pause for a second to pay tribute to the tremendous efforts around the globe which have resulted in more than eight million people having access to lifesaving HIV treatment today. According to UNAIDS’ Global AIDS report published last week, the number of people accessing HIV treatment increased by 63% […]
Desmond O’Neill: The age friendly university
All innovation is characterised by many false starts, but occasionally an event feels like the real deal, a sure sense of a phase shift in our world. This was the case earlier this month when I found myself sharing the speakers’ platform with the Irish Taoiseach (prime minister), Enda Kenny, at the launch of an […]
David Nicholl: Bodies revealed but with consent for what?
The Human Tissue Act (HTA) arose out of the Alder Hey scandal when hundreds of deceased children’s organs were retained without seeking consent from their relatives between 1988-1996 in Liverpool. After the HTA was implemented in 2004, it became a criminal offence to even have a DNA sample, with the intention of having it analysed, […]
Jacky Davis on the National Health Action party
On a recent rainy Saturday in November an estimated 15,000 people marched through the centre of Lewisham in response to a call to protect their local hospital whose A&E department, children’s and maternity services are all under threat of closure. The march took an hour to file past and was remarkable for its heterogeneity, with […]
Trishan Panch: More disruption please?
As an NHS GP I learned that healthcare is fundamentally locally provided and delivered through fostering long term relationships. However, the convergence of mobile technology and big data have the potential to profoundly change the way care is delivered. Should existing power brokers see this as an opportunity or a threat and what does this […]